! TRIGGER WARNING: SUBSTANCE ABUSE!
Hi book friends!
As my subtitle says, this is, for a non-chess fan, a very engaging book. Surprisingly actually. I decided to read the book only after I’d seen the series because so many people said the series was so good to which I wholeheartedly agree. I mean, it might have been even better if I knew anything about chess besides the name of the pieces but to my surprise, I became very engaged early on. The synopsis is borrowed from Goodreads:
When she is sent to an orphanage at the age of eight, Beth Harmon soon discovers two ways to escape her surroundings, albeit fleetingly: playing chess and taking the little green pills given to her and the other children to keep them subdued. Before long, it becomes apparent that hers is a prodigious talent, and as she progresses to the top of the US chess rankings she is able to forge a new life for herself. But she can never quite overcome her urge to self-destruct. For Beth, there’s more at stake than merely winning and losing.
Let’s start with the series, for once. I absolutely loved the casting of Anya Taylor-Joy in the Netflix mini-series. If I had not pictured her in my head when I read the book, I don’t think I’d have done the character of Beth justice. Taylor-Joy’s facial expressions and physique were just absolutely perfect for Beth. I’ve only seen her in Peaky Blinders before but I felt that this character suited her much better. She brings the perfect balance between quirky and secrecy to the character which captures the fascination the people surrounding Beth have for her. After reading the book I felt that she really had understood the complexity of the character that is Beth. I was a little more sceptical towards the casting of Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Benny Watts but I think this is mostly because I associate him with Love Actually which is not fair to him. Benny Watts in the series is sort of made to be a grand chess player but I felt that he was not as grand in the book somehow. The book weights Benny differently than the series does. This doesn’t directly bother me but I was a bit surprised when I came to the book after watching the series. I think Brodie-Sangster, after I overcame my Love Actually association, did a very good performance. I do love his sass because there are certain things only British actors are able to do and a certain type of sass is one of them! Another character I felt the series did better was Jolene, Beth’s friend from the orphanage. In the book, she fell a bit flat for me, even with her impressive achievements, but in the series, I really felt that Moses Ingram gave her some true justice and I love watching the character evolve on the screen.
What the book did somewhat better than the series was the relationship between Beth and Benny and the expectations tied to an American going to Russia to play chess. The way Tevis used his language to sneak in the expectations between the lines was really clever. If you read it just straight forward you may not pick up on it but this was also one of the things I really liked about this book; the finess of the language. The tone of voice really sets the standards for this book and I’ve discovered that I really like this kind of writing; not too direct and with intentions hidden between the lines. I had the same experience with Atonement which I read in 2024. There’s also a touch of obviously hidden feminism in this book. It is not loud and screaming but it is definitely there, and I very much enjoy the picture it paints of where we were and where we’ve come. I know this differs around the world. I don’t know how the chess world looks today in terms of male and female players but I’m hoping it is better than it was.
“And what did being women have to do with it? She was better than any male player in America. She remembered the Life interviewer and the questions about her being a woman in a man's world. To hell with her; it wouldn't be a man's world when she finished with it.”
― Walter Tevis, The Queen's Gambit
The story of Beth herself might be described as a type of the American Dream without the extreme dramatics. The series takes more care of that. She comes from literally nothing with a rough start to life and she finds something she is surprisingly passionate about and is given the chance to learn by people who believe in her in their own way. What I think is a truly valuable lesson from this book is that faith in a person can be portrayed in many ways, from a $5 note to following you around the continent for tournaments. From discovering her passion, Beth’s life winds its way through ups and downs and she grows in unexpected ways. Her forever dark companion is constantly with her which creates this complexity to her character that I wrote about earlier. It is not the most action-filled story and, like I said earlier, considering that it is mainly about chess I’m surprised that I liked it as much as I did. This is the kind of story we could have encountered in real life during the Cold War and I think this is another reason for why I liked it so much. It is not too far detached from real life and with his subtle descriptions of the landscape surrounding Beth’s story, the reader is given quite a free range of his or her fantasy to visualise what her life looks like.
Don’t underestimate this book because it is about chess! You don’t need to know much about the sport to enjoy this book. The joy for me as a reader was mainly in the language and how it shapes this story into a very enjoyable reading experience. I’m thinking that it might be a birthday present for my nephew in the coming years. I also highly recommend watching the series. It’s brilliant with a great casting and I didn’t find it to ruin my reading experience. Instead, I’d like to argue that it complimented it.
Published: 1983
Genre: Fiction
Theme: Chess, drug abuse, growing-up
- The Book Reader
