The Luzhin Defense

As with other Nabokov novels, 'The Defence' is primarily about Nabokov himself; certainly not in terms of biographical detail, but as a vehicle for his own obsessive translation of the world into prose. His literary skill is quite overwhelming, in both a positive and negative sense, and one wonders whether he, the medium of this skill, was as thrilled and burdened by it as his 'creature' Luzhin was by a comparable skill in chess. * While in some books the characters are memorable, or a turn in the plot is key, or an entire fictional world is born, here the book itself, as an object, as a construction of words, dominates proceedings. Words swarm over every detail recounted in the book, at once transforming the mundane into something precious and, at times, obscuring the distinction bewteen what is important and what trivial - the same skill is devoted to describing a bearskin as to describing a marriage; it is probably no accident that John Updike provides an afterword to some editions, since his work is blessed with the same heavy burden. * The character of Luzhin is largely viewed from the exterior. His interior world, when approached, is still seen from one remove - we do not so much share Luzhin's mind's eye as peer over his shoulder. What we do know of his interior is minimal, not through lack of access but in virtue of lack of content - he is largely bereft of normal human emotion. His fear of the world is very much an amorphous angst. His aspirations are free-standing and without worldly motivation. He is, in many ways, not a character at all. The same could be said of the girl whom he courts, and who, in a virtuouso display, remains anonymous for the entire novel, starting off as a semi-circular black silk handbag (with a faulty Freudian clasp), developing into a personal pronoun, then a fiancee and so on. These may as well be pieces upon a chessboard. * And indeed they are. In his foreword, Nabokov is excited by the structure of the novel, in particular its relation to a chess game. While for mine the analogy is strained, he at least declares the lie of the novel's appeal. * Finally, if you approach the novel through the hope of finding an actual discussion of the game of chess, you will leave disappointed save for imagistic accounts and metaphors, often musical, with few or no moves given. There is a film version but, sadly, the director makes the unfortunate mistake of thinking this to be a work of social realism, and the result is cinematic effluent. * Treated less as a novel and more as a testament of Nabokov's linguistic prowess, 'The Defence' succeeds, and affords pleasure in a way analagous to that afforded by a spectacular game by Kasparov, or Tal, or Alekhine, or any of a number of other Russians.

This early Nabokov book was written during his Kafka influenced phase. Also in this group I would put Invitation To a Beheading. I described this book to a group of friends one day as "a book about a chess master who slowly loses his identity to the game until the final page when he imagines the open bathroom window is one of the white spaces on the chess board and it is his move." Its not a novel for everyone but if you like Kafka and his peculiar worlds this will appeal to you. Also recommended to the perhaps new to Nabokov reader are his short stories, especially one called "Cloud, Castle Lake" written in 1937 about a sensitive youth Vasili who does not much care for the world the Nazis are trying to create and decides he does not have "the strength to belong to mankind any longer." And so Nabokov the author says,"Of course, I let him go." Nabokov's fictions are strange but appealing. Using chess as an analogy for life in the Defense Nabokov creates a claustrophobic environment as there are only so many possible moves and that number is diminished with each move. The Defense's Luzhin is a very sensitive youth like Vasily in the short story and like so many of Nabokov's creations they are trapped in a world of someone elses devising, trying to get out. Like Kafka's heroes Nabokov's early heroes are victims of something too big for them to come to grips with. A sad theme with perhaps very few solutions but even in the trap very interesting human qualities abound.

Out of print? Out of print??? I assume that Vintage are waiting for the movie tie-in edition, or something. It's in print in my country, anyway, under its proper title "The Luzhin Defence".This is, as Brian Boyd says in his excellent Nabokov biography, its author's first masterpiece. I am an execrable chess player, but I know just about enough about the game (and am obsessive enough about various other things) to find its shambling, mumbling hero one of my favourite characters in the Nabokov oeuvre. I've always liked Nabokov's less clubbable heroes - although I recognise that "The Gift" is a greater novel, I can get a bit tired of Fyodor's limitless resourcefulness and poise. (I got impatient with "Ada" for much the same reason.) The unsocial and inarticulate Luzhin is more my kind of character. Surely John Turturro was born to play this character, even if the movie isn't that great.John Updike, in his afterword, gets a bit sniffy about the meticulous patterning of the book, but I think he fails to appreciate the scope and grip of Luzhin's insanity. This is one of the saddest books Nabokov ever wrote, but also one of the most openly compassionate. Later on, there were more intricate and more skilful games being played with our need to (dodgy word coming) "empathise" with a central character, but "The Luzhin Defence" is still the first book Nabokov wrote that has the mark of the master.

This is Nabakov's third novel, a moving and bleak picture of a self-obsessed man who decides to obsess on anything but himself. It is wonderfully written, beautiful, an obvious indication of just how marvelous a prose stylist Vladimir was, but I sometimes found myself wondering if I really cared. Of course, I find chess to be terribly dull (perhaps my own lack of ability at the game having something to do with this), but that didn't stop me from admiring the compelling structure of the narrative--the world reduced to a chess board and the people taking on the individual characteristics (including the methods of movement) of the various pieces.I'm sticking with Nabakov, continuing on, hoping that he was more than just a nifty stylist and eventually blossomed into that rarist treat: A stylish author who understands how to tell an engaging story.

If the prospective readers allow themselves to open up to this novel, it can smudge the difference between fiction and reality for them. The narrative is so masterful, the flow of diction is so natural that one looses the sence of reading the novel and becomes a part of it. The elusive psychological dysfunctions of the protagonist are described exceptionally well; the true strength of Nabokov -- his diction -- shines brilliantly in this novel. The focus of the novel is phenomenal; Nabokov's uniquely passionate, ultrasensuous prose is like fresh ocean air -- one cannot get enough of it. Nabokov can easily become a necessity in one's life, if one is not careful.