Zugzwang [Hardcover]

As Ronan Bennett's "Zugzwang" opens, two assailants savagely slaughter a liberal newspaper editor named Gulko. The setting is St. Petersburg in 1914, a tumultuous and brutal year in Russian history. Tsar Nicholas II is on the throne, but the crown lies uneasily on his head. Socialist "fighting squads" roam the streets, hunting down and killing government agents; the fanatical Black Hundreds regularly attack the revolutionaries, particularly Jews, whom they detest; and the wealthy go about their business, enjoying fine food and entertainment as if society were not collapsing around them. 1914 was also the year of a celebrated chess tournament that attracted the greatest players in the world.

"Zugzwang," is a chess term that describes "a position in which a player is reduced to a state of utter helplessness." It also describes the condition in which the first person narrator, Dr. Otto Spethmann, finds himself. Otto is a psychoanalyst living in St. Petersburg who has long since renounced Judaism. A widower, he lives with his rebellious eighteen-year-old daughter Catherine, treats patients, and enjoys outings with his good friend, the celebrated Polish violinist, R. M. Kopelzon. His placid existence is unexpectedly shattered when a policeman named Lychev angrily grills him about the identity of a young man named Yastrebov, whom Otto has never met. As if this were not disturbing enough, two intruders burst into Otto's office, question him mockingly, and steal the file of Avrom Chilowicz Rozental, a mentally unstable but brilliant chess player. Why would these thugs be interested in Rozental, a harmless but emotionally unstable individual who is totally uninterested in anything but chess? Otto is bewildered by the inexplicable intrigue that has thrown his formerly predictable life into turmoil.

Another complication ensues when Otto falls in love with his patient, the beautiful and enticing Anna Ziatdinov. Besides the inappropriate nature of such a relationship from a professional standpoint, Otto has reason to fear Anna's father, Peter Arseneyevich Zinnurov (known as the Mountain), an influential and wealthy industrialist and a rabid anti-Semite. Zinnurov would be less than thrilled if he knew that his married daughter was having a torrid affair with her Jewish therapist. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that almost every major player is hiding something. More lives will be lost and reputations will be ruined by the time all of the secrets are at last revealed.

Bennett is an intelligent and thoughtful writer who vividly recreates the chaos of St. Petersburg during a period when it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe. Although the tsar, along with his ministers and generals, believed that heavily repressive tactics would keep the protesters from gaining power, the government's methods galvanized the opposition and sowed the seeds of the monarchy's destruction. As Spethmann says, "They could tighten the chains: they could arrest, imprison, persecute, and denounce.... It would make no difference.... Rage and numbers will tell."

"Zugzwang" is an intricate and at times confusing thriller in which chess figures prominently. As he struggles to keep his daughter and himself alive and well, Spethmann plays a cutthroat chess match with his friend, Kopelzon. The match may interest chess aficionados for the mental challenge that it presents. However, it is also a metaphor for the bitter confrontations between the various factions jockeying for supremacy. Only the most cunning and ruthless will ultimately prevail. The over-the-top conclusion is, alas, inferior to the book's tantalizing opening. Bennett loses control of events; too many implausible twists and turns mar the novel's final pages. Still, this well-researched work of historical fiction is worth reading for its vivid account of a conflict that left an indelible mark on twentieth century Europe.

Zugzwang is a highly entertaining thriller set in St Petersberg in 1914. An important part of the narrative is a chess game played by the two major characters. The game is documented in the usual way (Bennett's day job is chess correspondent for the Guardian) and the reader is helped by chess diagrams to remind us of the state of play before the next moves are discussed and played.

How irritating then to find in Chapter 21 that the diargram is wrong! Not only is is wrong but it shows an illegal position with the black king and the white queen on diagonally adjacent squares, white to move. 'Can White make further progress?' is the caption. Grrrrr! The diagram in Chapter 25 is also wrong.

The game can be followed in the text but no one of ordinary chess ability can follow the drama without getting out a chess board and laboriously following the game through to its zugzwang conclusion.

It is surprising that neither the author, publisher nor any of the reviews I have read picked up these elementary and obvious mistakes. We can only hope that they are fixed for future reprints of this otherwise super read.

Contemporary thrillers aren't generally my cup of tea, but I am prone to picking up historical ones if the setting is interesting or premise is unusual. Here, the setting of St. Petersburg, Russia circa 1914 was all I needed to dive in -- the winds of war gust about, and Tsar Nicholas II sits uneasily in his palace, his country beset by revolutionary terrorists. Amidst this tumult we meet psychoanalyst Otto Spethmann, a middle-class Jewish doctor concerned primarily with his practice, the welfare of his teenage daughter, and an ongoing game of chess with his composer/playboy friend.

However, before you can repeat the apocryphal line, "You may not be interested in the revolution, but the revolution is interested in you!" -- Spethmann is caught up in a very tangled web of intrigue involving Moscow policemen, the Tsar's secret police, Bolshevik cells, Polish terrorists, anti-Jewish aristocrats, chess masterminds, and the sexy daughter of a powerful man. Naturally of these many characters are not quite what they seem, and Spethmann's innocence is methodically stripped away by all the factions at play. The title is a German term for a chess scenario "in which a player is reduced to a state of utter helplessness. He is obliged to move, but his every move only makes his position worse." This is meant to highlight Spethmann's predicament, -- as well as that of the Tsarist government.

The story suffers slightly in two aspects. First is the running chess game between Spethmann and his best friend, which is illustrated with pictures of the state of play. As the story progresses, the tension between them grows, and the game takes on increasing symbolism. Unfortunately, Spethmann's interior discussion of the strategy is lost unless you understand the notation used for chess moves, and one's reading experience can't help but suffer. Secondly, the plot relies on too many characters having professional or personal connections to Spethmann -- there are just too many coincidences to swallow. So while the book does a nice job capturing the highly uncertain atmosphere of the time, as well as the ethical dilemmas faced by those like the good doctor -- the convoluted plot is just far too over-the-top to sink one's teeth into.

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