The Luzhin Defense

"He continued to be silent, and she was silent too and began to rummage in the bag, painfully looking for a topic of conversation in it and finding only a broken comb."

The Defense – Vladimir Nabokov

This is the third novel written by Nabokov after he had emigrated to Berlin. It was published in 1930 but not Englished until 1964 by Michael Scammell in collaboration with the author.

The books open with Luzhin (rhymes with ‘illusion’) in childhood. He lands somewhere in mental illness, not because he sees the world in an inchoate way (that’s what kids do) but because he is able to identify other people only as vague entities with which interesting interaction is not possible or desirable. Given to withdrawing and OCD rituals, little Luzhin is locked in a restless search for patterns and order in order to alleviate his anxiety about living unmoored, lost in chaos, dreading the inevitability and unpredictability of change.

Unaided by parents who have problems of their own - infidelity - he discovers chess and obsesses about it an attempt to bring order to life. At 13 years of age, he becomes famous as a chess prodigy. An acquaintance of his father – the cloyingly named Valentinov - becomes his agent, or chess father.

With his free time lost in studying problems and issues in chess, Luzhin skims the surface of the adult world in tournaments held in all the European capitals. Valentinov undoubtedly contributes to the formation of the chess career of his ward, but does not care at all about ‘Luzhin the Person.’ The teenaged person grows up, but remains a child, lost in obsession, crushed by genius, unable to connect with other people. Valentinov, having squeezed everything out of him and realizing the public grows bored when prodigies grow up, switches to a new career, as a producer of motion pictures. Fitting.

Luzhin’s luck turns when a young Russian woman is moved to compassion by his helplessness. She is sure that his genius can be channeled in more productive directions after he is weaned from chess. She does not love him, but only feels pity; she does not fully understand him as a man or husband or somebody with a mental illness. She becomes a caring mother for him. But the fatal changes in Luzhin's mind are inevitable – he has an untreated mental illness – his commotion of thought seeks a pattern as powerful and clear as the moves of chess pieces. He prepares the only possible final move.

Since, in many respects, Nabokov's stories are more about style and sense impressions than stories or characters, the way I read a Nabokov novel is to immerse myself in the rich and powerful language. Lose myself in its sounds and rhythms even in a translation (at least N. had a hand in this one), revel in the detailed descriptions and the images.