We find in The Luzhin Defense many of Nabokov's playful tropes: madness (monomania, solipsism), resistance to meaning (particular jabs at the "Viennese delegation"), genius outcast from society. It is apparent that his is an early work of the master, though a masterful work still. Luzhin is a remote but somehow lovable obsessive. Our affection for him has true potential, perhaps a potential unusual for the typical Nabokovian protagonist. But that affection is abated by our narrative distance from Luzhin: while the first person brings us closer to the monsters of Humbert and Kinbote, the third person alienates us from the more awkwardly lovable Pnin and Luzhin. This alienation is not unique to the reader, but a feeling felt by all who meet Luzhin: he is remote, inaccessible, too odd and too genius for the world in which he lives.Ultimately, like all of Nabokov's memorable puppets, Luzhin's sanity is the vicitm of his own illusions: a victimhood manifest even in his characteristic conception, as Nabokov informs us in the Foreward: "The Russian title of this novel is Zashchita Luzhina, which means 'the Luzhin defense' and refers to a chess defense supposedly invented by my creature, Grandmaster Luzhin: the name rhymes with “illusion” if pronounced thickly enough to deepen the 'u' into 'oo.'" Luzhin is at once a man totally blinded by illusion, and also a man of preternaturally clear vision. His acuity and understanding in the realm of chess blinds him to the reality of his larger environment. As in Despair, Nabokov parodies his own focus on detail to comedic effect: focus on detail becomes dangerous myopia. Luzhin feels that attachment to the real world is a source of endless fatigue, even the chessboard is a burden to him. His consciousness, all of his senses, are focused so microscopically that he becomes a solemn object of ridicule: Luzhin was indeed tired. Lately he had been playing too frequently and too unsystematically; he was particularly fatigued by playing blind, a rather well-paid performance that he willingly gave. He found therein deep enjoyment: one did not have to deal with visible, audible, palpable pieces whose quaint shape and wooden materiality always disturbed him and always seemed to him but the crude, mortal shell of exquisite, invisible chess forces.Chess is perhaps the perfect metaphor for Nabokov's style of art: precise, calculating, pure-play and pure-skill removed from chance. Nabokov's works are ruled by his aptly named (in Lolita) "McFate" - man-made, authored, Fate: fate which is removed from fortune. When interviewed for the Paris Review, he was asked if E.M. Forster's claim that [Forster's] character's had lives of their own, and wrote their fortunes for themselves, resonated with him, Nabokov answered (characteristically): My knowledge of Mr. Forster's works is limited to one novel, which I dislike; and anyway, it was not he who fathered that trite little whimsy about characters getting out of hand; it is as old as the quills, although of course one sympathizes with his people if they try to wriggle out of that trip to India or wherever he takes them. My characters are galley slaves.Pot-shot at Passage to India aside, the closing seal on his answer is significant to understanding Nabokov's approach to art. "My characters are galley slaves." Slaves, like chess pieces beneath the hands of their master, ever part of a greater artwork: the game. Nabokov's artistry is a game, he is a parodist and a trickster. That stills our emotional reaction, but invokes our appreciate for his aesthetic achievements. Luzhin does not move us, and The Luzhin Defense is as much a chess defense as it is a defense against interpretation, against emotion. The Luzhin Defense is a case in the particular of the Nabokov Defense - a defense against meaning which he artfully employs to distance the heart, while drawing in the mind.Despite the parallels between Luzhin Defense and Zweig's Chess Story, it would be in poor taste to imagine it a parody of Zweig's post-Nazi novella - however the comparison is unavoidable. There is a notable exchange in values when one moves from Zweig to Nabokov's takes on Chess obsessives. In Zweig we encounter a man literally tortured, and chess being a mental manifestation of both escape and continued imprisonment. Chess Story is a poignant, post-WWII tale, with heavy-laden messages against human cruelty, the double-edged sword of escapism, and the pervasive loss of innocence and beauty following the Nazi rule. In Luzhin Defense we are withheld meaning and given farce. While Nabokov plays with us, manipulates our affections and our perceptions, his art is a cold and distant art. The genius of Zweig's novella is to make chess warm to us, familiar, an obsession-affliction which is at the very border of our admiration and fear. The genius of Nabokov's novel is the inverse: it instills on the sympathetic narrative of a man gone mad by his own monomania with the cold aloofness of a chess match.
After reading Lolita, I knew that I'd need another book to feed my new addiction to Nabokov. Something I could read over and over. Something with his deliciously clever writing, minus the pedophilia. I had high hopes for The Defense and I enjoyed the book, but didn't quite find what I was looking for. I'm not sure if some of his writing genius was lost in translation, it was written in Russian then translated to English, or if it was simply that in the 25 years spanning the works he became a better author. Either way, while some of his talent for word smithing is there, it holds only a pale fire to Lolita. The theme of the book adds to the stereotype that Russians are obsessed with chess. To it's credit though, The Defense makes a solid case for why such an obsession might be rational. Despite the game being the protagonist Luzhin's demise, it is presented as such a fascinating contest that I couldn't help but to break out a chess set and see if I didn't have the potential for grandmastery myself. I got a little ego boost by cleanly drubbing my 7 year old, but it came with the distinct feeling that I should confine my forays into chess to the literary realm.For Luzhin, a guy who probably organizes his closet chronologically by purchase date, chess is more than a game. It becomes his life, it consumes him to the point where not even his devoted, Middlemarchian wife can rescue him from the obsession. Some of the best writing in the book describes his complete absorption in the game:Luzhin, preparing an attack for which it was first necessary to explore a maze of variations, where his every step aroused a perilous echo, began a long meditation: he needed, it seemed, to make one last prodigious effort and he would find the secret move leading to victory. Suddenly, something occurred outside his being, a scorching pain — and he let out a loud cry, shaking his hand stung by the flame of a match, which he had lit and forgotten to apply to his cigarette. The pain immediately passed, but in the fiery gap he had seen something unbearably awesome, the full horror of the abysmal depths of chess. He glanced at the chessboard and his brain wilted from hitherto unprecedented weariness. But the chessmen were pitiless, they held and absorbed him. There was horror in this, but in this also was the sole harmony, for what else exists in the world besides chess? Fog, the unknown, non-being... And later, maybe my favorite paragraph of the bok comes when Luzhin is descending back into his affliction. This is where the writing in The Defense seems to come closest to Lolita:But the next move was prepared very slowly. The lull continued for two or three days; Luzhin was photographed for his passport, and the photographer took him by the chin, turned his face slightly to one side, asked him to open his mouth wide and drilled his tooth with a tense buzzing. The buzzing ceased, the dentist looked for something on a glass shelf, found it, rubber-stamped Luzhin's passport and wrote with lightning-quick movements of the pen. 'There,' he said, handing over a document on which two rows of teeth were drawn, and two teeth bore inked-in little crosses. There was nothing suspicious in all this and the cunning lull continued until Thursday. And on Thursday, Luzhin understood everything.It's a good book. It's not what I hoped for from Nabokov, but for almost any other author it'd be a summit.Oh, and if you'd like to read the book without knowing the entire plot first, do NOT read Nabokov's introduction. Without warning he gives away all of the major turns in the book then casually reveals the ending to top it off.
What do You think about The Luzhin Defense (1990)?
Nabokov's biographer Brian Boyd claimed this novel to be "Nabokov's first masterpiece" and placed it alongside The Gift , Lolita , Pale Fire and Ada, or Ardor as Nabokov's best long works. Honestly, I didn't think it was that good. It uses Nabokov's philosophy of literature as a challenge/puzzle between the reader and the author literally as the protagonist Luzhin is a chess master who sees his life in chess problems. I don't think I really grasped the "point" and the prose was pretty average (for Nabokovian standards, of course) so I didn't get too great of a satisfaction from reading this. I also found it weird, the narrative jumped sixteen years in a single paragraph.
—Richard F. Schiller
First off: I thought Luzhin was an actual chess player and that this "Luzhin Defense" was an actual opening used in chess. I must have heard or read about this book ten years ago, when I attempted (briefly) to go beyond the rules of that game, and the memory of the book somehow fused with what I now remember about chess. So I thought this book was supposed to be a sort of fictionalized biography. I was bemused by the introduction, since it didn't talk about the real Luzhin at all, but stated that Nabokov based his Luzhin on a chess-playing friend of his. I thought that seemed both slightly offensive (to the "real" Luzhin) and somewhat lazy (as in not doing his research). Only half-way through the book, when I became so curious I tried to look up the titular chess opening, did I discover Luzhin never actually existed. 1-0 to Nabokov.The book is not about chess, virtually no actual chess games or positions are ever given. Sadly. (Possibly a relief to many...) Another slight thing that I didn't like was that the chess obsession often takes on an exaggeratedly mystic hue.But I still really loved the book.Referring both to this book, Pnin, and Lolita, I should say there's something about Nabokov's stylistic English which fascinates me. He is a sensorial writer and his prose is very visceral to me. He can conjure up smells and colors with the most impressive nonchalance. The way he'll off-handedly describe some mannerism by an unexpected metaphor, or litter a scenic description with little truer-than-life details... It causes his world, his characters, to spring alive, vividly and dramatically, in my mind. And he makes it seem so effortless, so light. And it's everywhere:"mimicking the swaying level of the liquid with his eyebrows""Luzhin senior would jump up and make for the dining room, holding his pen like a dart""“I knew one Luzhin,” said the gentleman, screwing up his eyes (for memory is shortsighted)"I'm not saying it's poetic or oh-so-beautiful. The point I'm trying to make is that these little things are everywhere, every page, every paragraph. Nearly every sentence has this vividness. I haven't read another author who can instill so many of his sentences about everyday occurences with the same animation. It's quite wonderful.
—Frank Hestvik
Great story, mediocre bookI hate to say this is the first Nabokov book I've read, but it is. I'm thoroughly impressed with his writing and imagery and the story as a whole is a great one, but the middle is almost insufferable with the story of his hospitalization and marriage. Nabokov did a great job portraying post-revolutionary Russian emigre and their scattered lives in Europe, but most of the characters seem to fall a little flat in the end. Luzhin himself somehow exists dually in my mind as a precious and insufferable man. Almost infant like. The tournament and ending were very intense and well written and are the reason i gave the book a 3 instead of a 2. It was by no means a great book but it certainly piqued my interest in further exploring Nabokov's work.
—David
