By Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov's 3rd novel, The Luzhin Defense, is a chilling tale of obsession and insanity. As a tender boy, Luzhin used to be unattractive, distracted, withdrawn, sullen--an enigma to his mom and dad and an item of ridicule to his classmates. he's taking up chess as a shelter from the nervousness of his daily life. His expertise is prodigious and he rises to the rank of grandmaster--but at a cost: in Luzhin' s obsessive brain, the sport of chess progressively supplants the realm of reality. His personal global falls aside in the course of a vital championship fit, whilst the difficult protection he has devised withers under his opponent's unforeseen and unpredictabke traces of attack.
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Additional resources for The Defense
He idea drearily that during a second he must lie, to remonstrate, to assuage, and it used to be middle of the night already... 'I are looking to sleep,' he stated, yet remained sitting within the armchair. And early subsequent morning within the darkest and mossiest nook of the dense coppice at the back of the backyard little Luzhin buried his father's worthy field of chessmen, assuming this to be the best means of averting any form of problems, for now there have been different chessmen that he may well use brazenly. His father, not able to suppress his curiosity within the topic, went off to determine the gloomy nation medical professional, who was once a much better chess participant than he, and within the night after dinner, giggling and rubbing his palms, doing his most sensible to disregard the truth that all this used to be fallacious — yet why incorrect he couldn't say — he sat his son down with the health care provider on the wicker desk at the veranda, himself set out the items (apologizing for the crimson thingum), sat down beside the avid gamers and commenced avidly following the sport. Twitching his hairy eyebrows and tormenting his fleshy nostril with a wide bushy fist, the health care professional idea lengthy over each circulate and at times might lean again in his chair as though capable of see higher from a distance, and make substantial eyes, after which lurch seriously ahead, his fingers braced opposed to his knees. He misplaced — and grunted, so loudly that his wicker armchair creaked in reaction. yet glance, glance! ' exclaimed Luzhin senior. 'You may still cross this manner and every thing is kept — you also have the higher place. ' 'Don't you spot i am in money? ' growled the surgeon in a bass voice and started to set out the items anew. And while Luzhin senior went out into the darkish backyard to accompany the health practitioner so far as the footpath with its border of glowworms top right down to the bridge, he heard the phrases he had so thirsted to listen to as soon as, yet now those phrases weighed heavy upon him — he might quite now not have heard them in any respect. The health care provider all started coming each evening and because he was once particularly a firstrate participant he derived huge, immense excitement from those incessant defeats. He introduced Luzhin a chess guide, advising him, even if, no longer too get too over excited by way of it, to not tire himself, and to learn within the outdoor. He spoke concerning the grand masters he had had the social gathering to determine, a few contemporary match and a so in regards to the prior of chess, a couple of a bit uncertain rajah and concerning the nice Philidor, who was once additionally an entire musician. every now and then grinning gloomily, he may deliver what he termed 'a sugarplum' — an creative challenge lower out of a few periodical. Luzhin might pore over it your time, locate eventually the answer and with a rare expression on his face and radiant bliss in his eyes might exclaim, burring his r's: 'How wonderful, how excellent! ' nut the thought of composing difficulties himself didn't attract him. He dimly felt that they might be a unnecessary waste of the militant, charging, vivid strength he sensed inside him at any time when the health practitioner, with strokes of his furry finger, got rid of his King farther and farther, and eventually, nodded his head and sat there really nonetheless, taking a look at the board, whereas Luzhin senior, who was once continuously current, constantly yearning a miracle — his son's defeat — and was once either fearful and delighted while his son gained (and suffered from this advanced mix of feelings), may grab a Knight or a Rook, crying that every thing was once no longer misplaced and may himself occasionally play to the top a hopelessly compromised online game.