The Defense
A silent, clumsy boy is handed a chess set at a Petersburg house party and grows into a grandmaster who cannot manage a train timetable or a conversation. Married to a patient woman who wants the game out of his life, he begins to read an opponent's combination in the arrangement of ordinary furniture and weather. The third of the Russian novels, and the first where the design of a life is itself the subject.
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Genre
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
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Symbol / motif
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Culture / tradition
Closest analogues
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- 52% · 9 shared