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The Fatal Flaw of “The Queen’s Gambit”
I picked up Walter Tevis’s novel “ The Queen’s Gambit ,” from 1983, at Skylight Books, in Los Angeles, sometime around 2002. It was a staff pick, and the blurb on the blue index card taped underneath said something like “sleeper gem by dude who wrote ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth,’ about an orphaned chess prodigy addicted to downers—read this now.” On the cover, Michael Ondaatje, the author of “The English Patient,” said that he reread it “every few years—for the pure pleasure and skill of it.” I read it in two days, and over the years I have reread it probably a dozen times. From its first sentence (“Beth learned of her mother’s death from a woman with a clipboard”) to its last, it was my platonic ideal of a novel. I loved its respect for the fact that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line (“From the back row Beth put up her hand. It was the first time she had done this”) and how this general efficiency made its richer emotional and physical details stand out, like brightly wrapped Christmas gifts set under a sparse tree. “Do I have to care about chess?” people would ask when I recommended the novel. I promised them that anyone who has ever felt lost, rejected, or underestimated while nurturing a fierce, mute hope that something residing deep within them might somehow save their life would love this book.
Following its début in October, “The Queen’s Gambit,” according to Netflix , became the streaming platform’s No. 1 show in sixty-three countries and its most-watched “limited scripted series” ever. (The show also appears to be responsible for compounding an ongoing, pandemic-induced chess boom , as measured in online chess activity as well as sales of chess sets and accessories.) I began watching the day it came out. I felt a twinge of familiarity in the austere rows of metal beds in the Methuen Home—the orphanage where Beth lives after her mother’s sudden death—and in the matchy-matchy décor at the home of her adoptive mother, Mrs. Wheatley, in suburban Lexington. But I could not summon any similar spark of recognition for Beth herself. As Beth’s chess career took off, I was interested in where it took her—drab gymnasiums, then grand Midwest hotels, then grander international hotels—but I did not care much what happened when she got there. At the same time I was being given the gift of seeing this imagined world come sumptuously to life, it was also being taken away, and the reason for the sense of loss was obvious: Anya Taylor-Joy is way too good-looking to play Beth Harmon.
New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
A complaint such as this one, about the beautiful performers who take the place of our ordinary book characters, is common, even tedious. The Web site TV Tropes has an entry devoted to Adaptational Attractiveness, wherein “someone who was originally fat, plain, or even downright ugly is played by a much more conventionally attractive actor.” (One writer has helpfully mapped adaptational attractiveness onto a spectrum known as the Fassbender Scale .) Hulu’s adaptation of Sally Rooney ’s novel “ Normal People ” confused some fans who thought that Marianne, a bullied outcast in the book, was perhaps not most effectively played by Daisy Edgar-Jones, who probably spends her free time modelling. I agreed with this criticism a hundred per cent, but I also sobbed through the whole series, every second of Marianne’s pain piercing my heart like a dagger carved from the finest ebony, polished to match the shine of Edgar-Jones’s eyes and hair. I guess I’ve had enough really hot friends to believe that their relationships are just as tragic and confusing as anyone else’s.
Actors Are Too Hot Hill is a silly place to die, yet the acclaim for “The Queen’s Gambit” series, which stars an actual former model , has stranded me there, unable to descend until I have said my piece. Allow me to shout from my lone perch at its summit that Beth Harmon is not pretty, and there is no story about her that can be told if she is.
We know that Beth is unattractive because it is written down. It is one of the first things we find out about her, right after she arrives at Methuen. “You are the ugliest white girl ever . Your nose is ugly and your face is ugly and your skin is like sandpaper. You white trash cracker bitch,” her bully and future friend Jolene declares. Beth does not respond, “knowing that it was true.” Beth spends her girlhood in this lonely place, her only happiness learning chess in the basement and, when she can’t, playing chess games in her mind. When she can’t sleep or concentrate, she lies awake, tense, her stomach contracted, tasting “vinegar in her mouth.” Her homeliness seems, for a while, like destiny: she watches pretty girls get adopted out of Methuen as she remains there to grow up. At twelve, she finally finds a home with Mrs. Wheatley, who is both an arguably bad parent and just what independent, chilly Beth needs. She takes the shame of feeling plain into her new life, however: “Sometimes when Beth saw herself in the mirror of the girls’ room between classes, her straight brown hair and narrow shoulders and round face with dull brown eyes and freckles across the bridge of her nose, she would taste the old taste of vinegar in her mouth.”
Tevis mentions Beth’s ugliness too often for readers to imagine that it is just some routine, awkward part of childhood that slips away with puberty, like a boy’s squeaky tones settling gradually into a mannish timbre, or because some nice girlfriend—she has none, after Jolene—takes her to Sephora. Instead, Beth becomes reasonably attractive by learning to play chess and then excelling at it. The first moment that Beth is able to regard her reflection without disgust comes right after she wins her third tournament game. Some forty pages later, a chess player turned journalist named Townes tells Beth, “You’ve even gotten good-looking.” Toward the end of the book, Jolene herself, seeing Beth in magazines, declares, “You’ve lost your ugly.”
I’m not gathering these pieces of evidence to suggest that “The Queen’s Gambit” is a book about looks—it’s not like in “Clueless” when Alicia Silverstone yelps, “Project!” and we soon see dorky Brittany Murphy sporting a choker, hitting on guys. Here is the book’s most explicit mention of Beth’s physical confidence as an adult: “Beth was wearing a dark-green dress with white piping at the throat and sleeves. She had slept soundly the night before. She was ready for him.” Chess helps her to inhabit her body comfortably, and this allows her to play better chess. It’s the playing-better-chess part of the deal that really matters to her.
Beth’s transformation—not into a swan, exactly, but a better-looking duckling—doesn’t need to be mimicked exactly for the adaptation to work. The problem has to do with the fundamentals of storytelling, in the tradition of Syd Field or Joseph Campbell or “ Save the Cat! ”—the character has to want something. Book Beth’s want is as thick as the cheap wool sweaters she wears as a child while yearning for cashmere, as thick as the “cold, pale butter” she spreads on restaurant rolls and eats as an adopted teen, after a childhood of thin, institutional French dressing. Her addiction is a great, yawning want, at first for the warmth and safety that those green downers give her and, as an adult, for the freedom sobriety will give her if she can manage to ditch them. Of course, her greatest want, the one that thrums on almost every page, is to play chess—and then to be the best at chess. Early on, having been told that she is “phenomenal” at the game, she looks up the word. “The dictionary said: ‘extraordinary; outstanding; remarkable.’ She repeated these words silently to herself now, ‘extraordinary; outstanding; remarkable.’ They became a tune in her mind.”
When this tune starts playing in Beth’s mind, she is still at the orphanage; the tune is aspirational. Anya Taylor-Joy, however, is singing this tune from the moment we meet her—not as a secret wish that chess can save her from poverty, ugliness, and obscurity, but as a boast. Even as an orphan, in her sweet white nightgown, elbow-checking Jolene, smiling with sexy snideness, there’s no question that Netflix Beth will land on her feet. She walks into every room like she owns it. One signature move is tucking her chin into her chest, looking up at people with widened eyes—a disdainful miming of submission.
The scene in Tevis’s novel in which Beth goes to her first chess championship, having no idea how to conduct herself or what is expected of her, is re-created almost line for line in the series. “Do you have a clock?” the boy checking in players asks, and Beth says no. He asks, “What’s your rating?” and Beth replies, “I don’t have a rating.” Tevis’s book is uninflected in some ways, inviting the reader’s projections, but we have enough information to make some good guesses as to how unpretty, anxious Beth might deliver these lines. Taylor-Joy’s tone, though, is one of impatient self-regard, in this moment and most others. She doesn’t need chess to survive. She’s a confident girl who finds everyone annoying and wears great clothes and flies off to beautiful places to be weird around guys. If she didn’t play chess and weren’t such a bitch, it would be “Emily in Paris.”
The series actually begins in Paris, with Beth waking up drunk in a hotel room. If you novelized the series, rather than the other way around, it would begin something like this: “On awakening, Beth Harmon crawled out of a hundred-and-ten-gallon porcelain bathtub and, wet clothes clinging to her perfect form, slipped instantly on the Italian tile floor.” I might have kept reading, but I would have waited in vain for any indication that Beth needed someone to bear witness to her triumph. Drama happens, she wins, she loses, she takes pills, she stops taking them, she sleeps with this guy and then that one, someone dies—but there are no stakes. Watching the show, I kept thinking, This might be an interesting, dicey, and potentially moving situation for an orphaned drug addict obsessed with chess—and then Taylor-Joy would pout a little or balance her face seductively on her hands, or employ those enormous eyes as lizards employ neck frills. There’s not a single moment when I thought, Please let this work out; please let this go well; please let Beth thrive.
I don’t mean to suggest that Taylor-Joy is a bad actress. But she exudes mattering . The core of “The Queen’s Gambit”—a young woman struggling to matter at all becomes a great chess player—might be impossible for her to play. The series copies virtually everything from the book aside from its central tension. At the end, Beth sits down in a Moscow park across from an old Russian man and a chessboard. Instead of Tevis’s line, “Would you like to play chess?,” Beth issues a command: “Let’s play.” Why ask when you already know the answer?
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How The Queen’s Gambit Compares to the Book It’s Based On
Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel The Queen’s Gambit is on the New York Times best-seller list, thanks to what Netflix calls its “biggest limited scripted series ever.” But what will fans of the blockbuster show find when they crack open the book that inspired it over Thanksgiving weekend?
Many of the lines of dialogue familiar to viewers are straight out of Tevis’ story, and the general plot—chess prodigy overcomes addiction to rise to the top of her field—remains the same. But along with skipping those loooooong passages describing chess moves, writer and director Scott Frank makes a few changes to Tevis’ novel.
Below, we’ve rounded up the most significant differences. Needless to say, spoilers follow.
The Battle of the Sexes
Aaron Bady argued recently in the Los Angeles Review of Books that one of biggest pleasures of Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit is that things keep almost going wrong and then being fine . One contributor to the comfortable feeling the show provokes is the way that the sexism of the chess world never quite seems to affect Beth: She gets a “surrogate family and community” out of her chess career, even though the male-dominated world of Cold War-era chess seems like an improbable place for a teenage girl to thrive.
The novel’s gender dynamics are not so pleasant. When young Beth is about to play the high school boys at their chess club, they stare at her, and she feels their animosity and responds by feeling “a hatred as black as night” rising. At her first tournament, she beats one boy who is so angry about it that he swears at her and doesn’t shake her hand. At that tournament, even Harry Beltik—played on the show by Harry Melling as first smug, and ultimately soft and weepy—is hostile to her in the book. After they find out they’ll be playing each other the next day, he says to her as she’s leaving: “Tomorrow.” Later on, she thinks, “When he stepped toward her as she was leaving, some part of her had thought he would hit her.”
And when Harry comes to her house and trains her, only to have her pass him by, he doesn’t take it with wounded sadness, as the Beltik of the show does. He’s furious. During the game when they realize she’s far beyond him, he “glares” at her, and she can feel his anger. He stops coming to her bed that night. On the show, he leaves her while begging her to stop drinking; in the book, he leaves after a conversation memorable mostly for its brevity, and the implication is that he can’t handle playing second fiddle. And when she talks to Benny Watts on the phone from Russia, to get advice about her final match with Borgov, it’s only Benny on the other end—no magical reappearance for Harry.
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Beth’s Addiction
On the show, Beth goes out with a friend and gets drunk the night before her second match with Borgov in Paris. She wakes up late and loses the match because of this lapse in judgment. In the book, she takes three pills the night before that match, but wakes up “refreshed,” feeling “confident, smart, and ready.” She plays well (“her best chess,” she thinks), but Borgov beats her anyway. In the aftermath of that match, on the show, Beth decides not to return to New York and reunite with Benny, and the choice between “drinking” and “Benny” is something Benny articulates outright. In the book, Benny has little reaction to her decision, beyond sounding “irritated” and warning her not to quit chess out of discouragement; the bender comes later. (More on Benny in a bit.)
Extraordinary Coincidences
The bender that ruins Beth’s match with Borgov is just one example of the way the show takes the subtler twists and turns of the book’s plot and dials them up a few notches, leaning on Beth’s addiction as a driving force. The show also relies heavily on coincidence in a way the book does not. Consider the way Beth unites with her old friend Jolene in the story’s last act, as Beth gets sober to train for her trip to Russia. In the show, Jolene shows up randomly at Beth’s front door, right when she’s needed. In the book, Beth realizes she needs help to get her head right and has an epiphany that it’s Jolene who could help her do it. She calls the orphanage to track her friend down.
Same goes for the handsome player D.L. Townes, who shows up again toward the end of the show, sent to Moscow to photograph Beth for a newspaper. In the book, he appears at her first tournament and becomes an early lust object for the young player, but after she sees him at another tournament when she’s about 17, there’s no third encounter; Townes just never reappears again.
The most striking change the show makes to the characterization of Beth’s friend Jolene has to do with the girls’ time in the orphanage together. In Tevis’ novel, when Jolene is 13 and Beth is nine, Jolene comes to Beth’s bed in the middle of the night and tries to get Beth to engage in mutual masturbation. When Beth, “terrified” by the situation, says no, Jolene goes away, but she’s angry about it. For a while, the two are enemies; when Jolene calls Beth “cracker” in the hallway, she means it not as a term of endearment, but a curse. Beth, for her part, responds by hissing the n-word. A Black orphan who tries to seduce her younger friend? A white heroine who uses the n-word as a weapon? None of this is in the show, surely too fraught for the escapist fantasy Netflix has created.
In the book, Beth thinks about Jolene periodically, while in the show, she’s absent from the middle of the story. Jolene appears when Beth visualizes what she wants to become: “a truly professional woman and the finest chess player in the world, traveling confidently by herself in the first-class cabins of airplanes, tall, perfectly dressed, good-looking and poised—a kind of white Jolene.” She often thinks she might send Jolene a note, but doesn’t.
In the book, Jolene gets a scholarship in physical education to attend university, and when she reunites with her old friend, she helps Beth get through her withdrawal from alcohol and pills by training her in the university gym, putting her through her paces in weightlifting, calisthenics, and—as seen in the show—handball. But she doesn’t give Beth money to go to Russia, and the show’s conversation about her not being a “guardian angel” never happens. In fact, though the book’s Jolene has helped Beth get her head straight, when Beth tries to call her from the airport on the way to Russia, she’s not home.
Benny Watts
Benny, the show’s string-bean trickster , seems to be a composite of a few players from Tevis’ book. In the novel, Beth sees an older chess player at one point at a tournament, holding court in a hotel lobby just as Benny does in the show. This man—who is not Benny—is wearing a black knit cap with a knife at his waist; he’s a “pirate” who looks like “someone out of Treasure Island.” He leaves an intense impression on Beth, because of his authoritative approach to chess. When she finally meets the real Benny, Beth reflects that he looks “as American as Huckleberry Finn,” though “cheerful and sly,” in an untrustworthy way. He’s got “flat straw-colored hair,” and later he grows it down to his shoulders. He’s “pale and thin and very calm.”
On the show, Beth’s relationship with Benny is the most romantic one she has, but in the novel, Beth doesn’t sigh and say “So that’s what that’s supposed to be like!” after having sex with Benny. “Making love had been all right,” she thinks, “though not as exciting as she had hoped.” There’s a distance to Benny, and she gets furious when he goes to play a poker game the day after they have sex, and she realizes he probably planned it out that way. “His behavior was like his chess game: smooth and easy on the surface but tricky and infuriating beneath,” she thinks to herself. “The cool son of a bitch. It was quick sex with her, and then off to the boys. He had probably planned it that way for a week. Tactics and strategy. She could have killed him.”
But all is not lost for Benny-Beth shippers turning to the Tevis book for a fix. Flying to Russia alone, Beth wishes Benny were there:
She missed Benny’s quick and sober mind, his judgment and tenacity, his knowledge of chess and his knowledge of her. He would be in the seat beside her, and they could talk chess, and in Moscow after her games they would analyze the play and then plan for the next opponent. They would eat their meals together in the hotel, the way she had done with Mrs. Wheatley. They could see Moscow, and whenever they wanted to they could make love at their hotel.
The novel leaves the door open for Benny and Beth to come together again, after she beats Borgov and flies home, as triumphant on the page as she is onscreen.
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Word of Mouth
Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, the queen's gambit.
It was the spring of 1983. On a long plane trip, I started THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT by Walter Tevis, a just-published novel I'd bought on impulse. And I was gobsmacked. Tevis --- author of THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH and THE HUSTLER (and, later, THE COLOR OF MONEY) --- had written a book that, very simply, could not be put down. The woman who would become my first wife tried to talk to me; I shushed her. A meal came; I pushed it aside. All I could do was read, straight to the end --- weeping, cheering, punching the air.
When I got off the plane, I called the publisher about the film rights. A few months later, I was writing the greatest script I will probably ever undertake. Everyone wanted to star in it, everyone wanted to direct it. Then the parade moved on. I couldn't afford to keep the option. Walter Tevis died. His widow, needing money, sold the movie rights to people who will never get the film made. The book went out of print.
In 1986, when we started bookreporter.com, we decided to serialize a novel. Inevitably, we chose THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT. We had to pay $500, a fortune for us. But the payoff was huge. Our readers loved it --- we got scores of e-mails from people who'd printed the chapters out and put them into binders so they could pass it on to friends. We sent some of these letters to publishers. But the book stayed out of print.
Two decades later, it's available again --- there is, at long last, a paperback edition.
What's the fuss about? An eight-year-old orphan named Beth Harmon. Who turns out to be the Mozart of chess. Which brings her joy (she wins! people notice her!) and misery (she's alone and unloved and incapable of asking for help). So she gets addicted to pills. She drinks. She loses. And then, as 17-year-old Beth starts pulling herself together, she must face the biggest challenge of all --- a match with the world champion, a Russian of scary brilliance.
You think: This is thrilling? You think: chess? You think: Must be an "arty" novel, full of interior scenes.
Wrong. All wrong.
I tell you: THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT is "Rocky" for smart people.
I tell you: You will care about Beth Harmon more than any fictional character you've encountered in years and years.
I tell you: You will grasp the wrench of loneliness --- and the power of love --- as if this book were happening to you.
Do you need to know anything about chess? Nope. Nothing. Tevis was a storyteller whose genius was to tell great stories; there's nothing between you and the people.
Suggestion for a memorable evening: Buy two copies. Pick a friend or relative who loves to read. Hand him/her the book (and a box of Kleenex.). Start reading in the same room. See what happens.
My bet: You too will weep. And cheer. And at the end, raise your fist like a fool for a little girl who never existed and a game only wimps play.
Reviewed by Jesse Kornbluth on January 23, 2011
The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis
- Publication Date: March 11, 2003
- Genres: Fiction
- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Vintage
- ISBN-10: 1400030609
- ISBN-13: 9781400030606
- Literature & Fiction
- Genre Fiction
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The Queen's Gambit: A Novel Paperback – March 11, 2003
- Print length 256 pages
- Language English
- Publication date March 11, 2003
- Dimensions 5.16 x 0.54 x 7.97 inches
- ISBN-10 1400030609
- ISBN-13 978-1400030606
- See all details
Editorial Reviews
From the inside flap, from the back cover, about the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.
- Publisher : Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; Reprint edition (March 11, 2003)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1400030609
- ISBN-13 : 978-1400030606
- Item Weight : 8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.16 x 0.54 x 7.97 inches
- #813 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books)
- #1,075 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #3,174 in Literary Fiction (Books)
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About the author
Walter tevis.
Walter Stone Tevis (February 28, 1928 – August 8, 1984) was an American novelist and short story writer. Three of his six novels were adapted into major films: The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Man Who Fell to Earth. His books have been translated into at least 18 languages.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Customers find the story compelling, touching, and thrilling. They describe the pacing as fast and even. Readers also find the book thought-provoking and unexpected. They praise the characters as wonderful, complex, and strong. They find the writing quality enjoyable and riveting.
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Customers find the book amazing, enjoyable, and incredible. They say it's a great series that can be read as a coming-of-age story about a compelling character. Readers mention the miniseries shows a high level of fidelity to the book and is worth their time and money.
"...It’s a great series that can be read as a coming-of-age story about a young chess prodigy – or as a feminist tale of a woman striving towards the..." Read more
"...Such people are rare but do exist. I found the book very enjoyable with Beth a very engaging character...." Read more
" It is amazing , extraordinary even, how the author makes the detailed description of chess matches so fascinating!..." Read more
"...prose, simple sentences, an almost plodding style, and yet it works quite well ...." Read more
Customers find the story compelling, fast-paced, and enchanted. They say the book is thrilling, inspiring, and suspenseful. Readers also mention the story is timeless.
"...No, it’s not a feminist manifesto. It’s a story well told that is both faithful to its times and prescient in that it heralds a time when women can..." Read more
"...Somehow, chess matches (whjch are slow) are made exciting . Good human elements." Read more
"...This is a fast read that actually keeps you engaged to the delightful conclusion ...." Read more
"...Do not think this is a boring book! It is an engrossing, compelling , feel-good book that I did not want to end, and which I cannot stop thinking..." Read more
Customers find the writing quality of the book well-written, simple, and easy to envision everything in their heads. They appreciate the descriptions of the games, which are expertly told.
"...one’s understanding of the streaming series, making that excellent production more nuanced , well-rounded, and comprehensible...." Read more
"The writing is direct and easy to read . Somehow, chess matches (whjch are slow) are made exciting. Good human elements." Read more
"...A note about the writing style: The book is written in very simple prose , simple sentences, an almost plodding style, and yet it works quite well...." Read more
"...; the writing is spare , almost spartan, and reflects a perfectly played game of chess...." Read more
Customers find the characters wonderful, complex, and strong. They appreciate the flawed hero and likable genius. Readers also say the book is compelling and well-cast.
"...It's well cast and well acted , and the period detail alone is worth watching." Read more
"...Tevis writes well and the book is fast-moving, filled with believable characters ...." Read more
"...Somehow, chess matches (whjch are slow) are made exciting. Good human elements ." Read more
"This is a wonderful book about a remarkable character . "..." Read more
Customers find the pacing of the book fast, even, and flowing. They say it's a quick read. Readers also mention the tension never lets up.
"...streaming series, making that excellent production more nuanced, well-rounded , and comprehensible...." Read more
"...Tevis writes well and the book is fast-moving , filled with believable characters...." Read more
"...This is a fast read that actually keeps you engaged to the delightful conclusion...." Read more
"...The Queen's Gambit" is short, quick and easy to read, and is surprisingly profound...." Read more
Customers find the book beautiful, with well-thought-out embellishments. They say it's intricate and meticulous. Readers also appreciate the subtleties of the game and the fascinating glimpse of the highest level of chess.
"...the streaming series excels over the book is in its wonderful attention to period detail : we’re shown the protagonist’s world of the United States,..." Read more
"...extraordinary even, how the author makes the detailed description of chess matches so fascinating !..." Read more
"...; the writing is spare, almost spartan, and reflects a perfectly played game of chess ...." Read more
"...And I know next to nothing about chess. This is book is beautiful and compassionate, as well as suspenseful. Five stars." Read more
Customers find the story good and thought-provoking. They say the message of the book unravels beautifully. Readers also describe the book as tightly researched and fascinating.
"...Absolutely marvelous themes of self doubt , self medication, feminism, and unity.My heart was THUMPING at the end!!! Over CHESS!!!!..." Read more
"...again after watching the Netflix Miniseries and found it as powerfully impacting as the first audiobook read...." Read more
"...I found that this helped the reader understand Beth , who was a marvelously written character especially since she was written by a man...." Read more
"...like interesting books with character development, pathos, and intellectual depth , this is a book well worth your time...." Read more
Customers find the book a waste of time and boring. They say it has no literary value and little to offer non-chess players. Readers also mention the ending is disappointing and poorly executed.
"...The chess world presented in this book is not very true to life . Here are some of the problems I see:..." Read more
"...tone of the novel in nearly every situation is flat, an almost disinterested observance of all the happenings in Beth’s life...." Read more
"I’d like to give it 3.5 stars. It’s really good, but not nearly as good as the show ...." Read more
"...every episode only to have the ending so disappointing and poorly executed " Read more
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Novelist Explores Chess, Addiction And Mastery In 'The Queen's Gambit'
Noah Adams speaks with author Walter Tevis about his novel The Queen's Gambit . Tevis tells the story of orphan Beth Harmon, her struggle with addiction and her triumph as a female chess prodigy.
This story originally aired on All Things Considered on February 28, 1983.
The digital preservation of this audio has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Queen’s Gambit is an intoxicating chess thriller
Anya Taylor-Joy’s alcoholic chess prodigy puts herself to the test in Scott Frank’s enthralling new Netflix series that proves again that the novels of Walter Tevis are fertile ground for adaptation.
▶︎ The Queen’s Gambit is on Netflix in seven episodes.
The slender output of American novelist Walter Tevis (1928-84) divides equally between literary yet page-turning novels about niche competitive sports and dystopian science fiction. It’s always puzzling and stimulating that one writer produced source material for superficially different yet classic auteur films – Robert Rossen’s The Hustler (1961), based on Tevis’s 1959 novel about pool, and Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), based on the 1963 novel.
Now Scott Frank’s Netflix ‘limited series’ adapts Tevis’s 1983 novel about a female chess grand master. In an apt fusion of previous screen Tevis protagonists, the huge-eyed Anya Taylor-Joy is at once as obsessive and savant-like a game-player as Paul Newman’s Fast Eddie Felton in The Hustler and as alien-seeming and lost on Earth as David Bowie’s Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth.
The thread that binds the strands of Tevis’s work is alcoholism: he described writing about an extra-terrestrial visitor marooned on our strange planet as a way of self-diagnosing the long-term effects of his drink problem. Taylor-Joy’s Beth Harmon is a portrait of an alcoholic woman on par with Piper Laurie’s in The Hustler and Candy Clark’s in The Man Who Fell to Earth (she even, in some lights, resembles both). The heroine’s self-destructive, raggedly glamorous behaviour – at her lowest, she dances alone in her underwear to Shocking Blue’s Venus while necking bottles of wine – matches Bowie’s similarly fashion-conscious dissolution. However, after Beth’s fall to Earth she reassembles herself for a rematch against Soviet champion Borgov (Marcin Dorocinski), who has the status in the chess world that legendary pool player Minnesota Fats does in the halls of The Hustler.
The plot of The Queen’s Gambit parallels The Hustler, building through preliminary rounds and bildungsroman flashbacks to a climax in which the contender – after losses and humiliations and strokes of good and bad luck – faces her nemesis on the best form of her life and wonders whether that’s still good enough. If it seems a foregone conclusion in sports movies that the young gun will best the old pro, it’s worth remembering it doesn’t turn out that way in The Cincinatti Kid (or Rocky, for that matter).
For Tevis, the player’s first opponent is always themself. Beth survives a tough orphanage childhood after her mad genius mother’s suicide, learning her game from a reclusive janitor (Bill Camp), then adopted by another erratic drunk (Marielle Heller). She sashays out of the 1950s into the 60s, with cool soundtrack and fashion choices, involved with a succession of opponents who become coaches, crushes, lovers or gun-barrel notches. Taylor-Joy pursues her own star character actress arc, from the haunted child of The Witch to the Austen heroine of Emma, and reaffirms her position – obvious even in fare like Morgan and The New Mutants – as one of the most distinctive presences in contemporary cinema and TV .
Tevis writes brilliantly about chess – a less obviously film-friendly game than pool – and Frank devises a variety of stratagems to reproduce the tension as Beth plays many, many games over the course of seven episodes. Only once stooping to using her sex as a distraction – straying across the room doing odd little dance moves in a match with a little Russian boy who, like most of the men who face her across a board, is wonderstruck but underestimates her.
In film, chess games usually cover for fatalist philosophy (The Seventh Seal) or flirtation (The Thomas Crown Affair). Here, they’re most of the plot and fascinating as battles of the mind even to a viewer who barely knows the moves.
Thomas Brodie-Sangster is eccentric as the cowboy-hatted, knife-toting, country-talking kid who’s the American master before Beth comes along, but a great many character actors sketch vivid personalities with little or no dialogue, expressing themselves through studied stone faces and the minimal gestures of rigidly-defined moves. Like great chess (or pool), it’s exhilarating to watch and mastery is easy to miss.
As a writer, Scott Frank has always been interested in mutant kids – as far back as Jodie Foster’s Little Man Tate (1991) and as recently as Logan (2017). As a writer-director, he has made solid genre fare (The Lookout, A Walk Among the Tombstones) for the cinema and become one of the first auteurs of the Netflix era, specialising in ambitious miniseries. The Queen’s Gambit follows the western Godless, set in a town populated after a mining disaster mostly by widows, and is extraordinarily assured.
One of its strengths is knowing when to leave a good thing alone – much of the dialogue is word-for-word what Tevis wrote (Rossen and Roeg did that too) – but this might serve as a textbook example of that hybrid new form, somewhere between a TV serial designed to be consumed in instalments and a seven-hour movie suitable for watching straight through.
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Tuesday, November 30, 2021
Book review: the queen's gambit by walter tevis.
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The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis
I first watched the series like probably most of the people did. I was amazed by the actors and cinematography. So I thought why not try the original book.
As expected the series wasn’t completely accurate. The first thing that I couldn’t help but notice was that Beth isn’t redheaded. Later on, I learned that it was Anya-Taylor Joy’s suggestion to make her stand out even more.
Also, Townes doesn't come to help Beth in the end. But to be honest I do like that they added that to the series. Felt like a natural way of things progressing. Even though I would rather see Benny instead of Townes.
The book itself was an easy read. I finished it faster than I usually do.
4 out of 5, would recommend.
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The Queen’s Gambit Book Review ~ Chess Moves that Moved Me
I must admit, when my husband suggested this as our next Netflix binge I was iffy at best. An entire series on chess? How completely boring, I so wrongly thought! This series was so fascinating that as soon as I realized it was based on a book by Walter Tevis I had to read it! The book did not disappoint.
The Queen's Gambit
An orphaned girl glows up to become a shark in the world of chess shocking men around the globe. This book takes place in the 1950s when women are still considered intellectually subpar. Beth is both young and female as well as battling an addiction which started at the jarring age of nine. But she is also clever, calculating and extremely good at chess.
The Queen’s Gambit is a heartwarming and empowering coming of age novel. I immediately formed a deep bond to little Beth. She was such a real protagonist that I longed for this book to be based off of a true story just to know that Beth really existed and overcame. Tevis truly entered the psyche of a young girl turned young woman. I didn’t feel a male presence behind the story at all, even when Beth started her first period during a chess tournament.
After watching the entire series and knowing what was going to happen, I still couldn’t stop reading this book. (Which by the way, the Netflix show is a great adaptation of the book; a seamless and respectful transition that covers all important details.)
The Queen’s Gambit hit all of the emotions- an overall incredibly sad but inspiring journey with heartwarming moments of friendship, love and pure joy. I’m not sure why I had never heard of this book before. I highly recommend it to all!
You can buy The Queen’s Gambit here from Amazon or you can also choose to support local bookstores by purchasing it from Bookshop .
Tevis also wrote The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Man Who Fell to Earth which were made into major films. The Hustler was adapted into the 1961 movie featuring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason inspiring a generation of pool sharks.
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If you are planning on reading (or have recently read) this book, I recommend checking out my Pinterest Board- especially the vintage fashion. It’s stunning! Other sections: music, movies and books mentioned as well as an article on the true story behind those green tranquilizer pills……
The Queen’s Gambit
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The Queen's Gambit is the first novel I've read in some time that I looked forward to cracking open in the evening to finish. Rather than simply wanting to get through it, I didn't want it to end. Published in 1983, the title has multiplied its Google searches in the last month by virtue of a successful Netflix mini-series.Walter Tevis is an author who'd been on my radar for a while though ...
I picked up Walter Tevis's novel "The Queen's Gambit," from 1983, at Skylight Books, in Los Angeles, sometime around 2002.It was a staff pick, and the blurb on the blue index card taped ...
Tevis once pegged himself as "a good American writer of the second rank.". But Allan Scott, the screenwriter who first optioned "The Queen's Gambit" in the 1980s, disagrees. Mr. Scott co ...
Walter Tevis' 1983 novel The Queen's Gambit is on the New York Times best-seller list, thanks to what Netflix calls its "biggest limited scripted series ever." But what will fans of the ...
The Queen's Gambit. The Queen's Gambit is a 1983 American novel by Walter Tevis, exploring the life of fictional female chess prodigy Beth Harmon. A bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, it covers themes of adoption, feminism, chess, drug addiction and alcoholism. The book was adapted for the 2020 Netflix miniseries of the same name.
Eight year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen and by all appearances unremarkable. That is, until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of 16, she's competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as Beth hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get ...
"The Queen's Gambit is sheer entertainment. It is a book I reread every few years--for the pure pleasure and skill of it." --Michael Ondaatje "Compelling. . . . A magnificent obsession." --Los Angeles Times "Beth Harmon is an unforgettable creation--and The Queen's Gambit is Walter Tevis's most consummate and heartbreaking work." --Jonathan Lethem "Gripping reading. . . .
Noah Adams. Noah Adams speaks with author Walter Tevis about his novel The Queen's Gambit. Tevis tells the story of orphan Beth Harmon, her struggle with addiction and her triumph as a female ...
Hear the Review Apple Spotify Stitcher Watch the Review Youtube 'The Queen's Gambit' is an incredibly engrossing book. I finished the book in a single sitting because it gripped me from the first sentence. Beth's character, the fast pacing, as well as the rags to riches story, are the three primary reasons for this.
The Queen's Gambit is an intoxicating chess thriller. Anya Taylor-Joy's alcoholic chess prodigy puts herself to the test in Scott Frank's enthralling new Netflix series that proves again that the novels of Walter Tevis are fertile ground for adaptation. 6 November 2020. The Queen's Gambit (2020)
The Queen's Gambit. : Walter Tevis. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Mar 11, 2003 - Fiction - 256 pages. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Engaging and fast-paced, this gripping coming-of-age novel of chess, feminism, and addiction speeds to a conclusion as elegant and satisfying as a mate in four. Now a highly acclaimed, award-winning Netflix series.
Book Review: The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis. Goodreads Overview: 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.
The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis. I first watched the series like probably most of the people did. I was amazed by the actors and cinematography. So I thought why not try the original book. As expected the series wasn't completely accurate. The first thing that I couldn't help but notice was that Beth isn't redheaded.
The Queen's Gambit. . A n orphaned girl glows up to become a shark in the world of chess shocking men around the globe. This book takes place in the 1950s when women are still considered intellectually subpar. Beth is both young and female as well as battling an addiction which started at the jarring age of nine.
Amazon rating: 4 1/2 stars. Genre: Fiction. BOOK COMPANION Editor Gerry Andeen Discusses The Queen's Gambit. This is a story about finding out things as you grow up. We begin with Beth Harmon in an orphanage. She is a bright child and gets to clap the erasers in the basement where she sees the janitor with his attention on a chess board.
The Queen's Gambit is sheer entertainment. It is a book I reread every few years--for the pure pleasure and skill of it." --Michael Ondaatje "Compelling. . . . A magnificent obsession." --Los Angeles Times "Beth Harmon is an unforgettable creation--and The Queen's Gambit is Walter Tevis's most consummate and heartbreaking work ...
She must navigate love, court intrigues, and the treacherous religious landscape of England in the 1540s to survive. Katherine's life as Queen of England and how close she came to a disastrous fall from grace are explored in Elizabeth Fremantle's first novel, "Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr."
Today Kim is going to bring you a book review and Netflix series comparison to Walter Tevis' novel The Queen's Gambit: The Queen's Gamit. Author: Walter Tevis. Published: March 11, 2003. 243 Pages. Reviewed By: Kim. Kim's Rating: 5 stars. Book Description: When she is sent to an orphanage at the age of eight, Beth Harmon soon discovers ...
The Queen's Gambit was adapted into a miniseries in 2020 to widespread acclaim. Anya Taylor-Joy won a Golden Globe Award for her performance as Beth and the series won a Golden Globe for Best Limited Series. The best study guide to The Queen's Gambit on the planet, from the creators of SparkNotes. Get the summaries, analysis, and quotes you ...
It follows the beats of a sports tale, like a classic Hollywood boxing film, but it's also a coming-of-age story about a woman succeeding in a male-dominated world, and a restrained spin on an ...
Reviews The Queen's Gambit Review: A (Grand)masterful Portrait of Genius and Addiction. Netflix's period piece miniseries tracks a chess prodigy's highs and lows through striking visuals and ...
A young chess savant finds herself a propaganda tool in this novelistic Cold War tale. It took this viewer about seven consecutive hours to watch all seven episodes of "The Queen's Gambit ...
The author depicts a kindly queen driven to desperation by a life of peril and concealment who, even after Henry's death, enjoys mixed fortunes. With not much plot to drive her narrative, Fremantle's emphasis is on intrigue, character portraits and the texture of mid-16th-century life. Solid and sympathetic. 0.