Plot Summary
Driven to mental anguish as the result of total isolation by the National Socialists, Dr. B, a monarchist hiding valuable assets of the nobility from the new regime, maintains his sanity only through the theft of a book of past masters' chess games which he plays endlessly, voraciously learning each one until they overwhelm his imagination to such an extent that he becomes consumed by chess.
After absorbing every single move of any variation in the book, and having nothing more to explore, Dr. B begins to play the game against himself, developing the ability to separate his psyche into two personas: I (White) and I (Black). This psychological conflict causes him to ultimately suffer a breakdown, after which he eventually awakens in a sanatorium. Being saved by a sympathetic physician, who attests his insanity to keep him from being imprisoned again by the Nazis, he is finally set free.
After happening to be on the same cruise liner as a group of chess enthusiasts and the world chess champion Czentovic, he incidentally stumbles across their game against the champion. Mirko Czentovic was a peasant prodigy possessing no obvious redeeming qualities besides his gift for chess. Dr. B helps the chess enthusiasts in managing to draw their game in an almost hopeless position. After this effort, they persuade him to play alone against Czentovic. In a stunning demonstration of his imaginative and combinational powers, Dr. B sensationally beats the world champion.
Czentovic immediately demands a return game to restore his honour. But this time, having sensed that Dr. B played quite fast and hardly took time to think, he tries to irritate his opponent by taking a lot of time before making a move, thereby putting psychological pressure on Dr. B, who gets more and more impatient as the game proceeds. His greatest power turns out to be his greatest weakness: he reenacts the match in his mind repeatedly with all imaginable possibilities so rapidly that Czentovic's deliberation and placidness drive him to distraction and ultimately insanity, culminating in an incorrect move after which Dr. B awakens from his frenzy.
Read more about this topic: The Royal Game
Famous quotes containing the words plot and/or summary:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)