In recent years award winning television series “The Queen’s Gambit” has risen to popularity. It is an adaption of Walter Tevis’ less-talked-about novel of the same name
Amongst its 60s iconography, “The Queen’s Gambit” explores themes of escapism, addiction, and self destruction in Tevis’ 1983 novel. The story follows a newly orphaned Beth Harmon through her career as chess prodigy and rise in the chess world.
While the subject of the story is feminist in nature, with a young girl dominating a traditionally male field, being female is actually a very small part of Beth’s character development. While the book still has its faults, Tevis takes care in touching on the topic without overly relying on the character’s gender, something that I feel is not as well executed in a lot of other 80s media. This is best exemplified with Beth commenting on how she would prefer spectators praise her genius over her gender.
One of my complaints about the book was that some of the more graphic content felt excessive and seemed out of touch for a modern readerbase. In the book, there are more explicit scenes told in graphic detail. Most of these were removed in the TV show, which I think is a turn for the better. It does this without undermining Beth’s problems with addiction and substance abuse.
As a book about a chess prodigy there is expectedly a lot of chess. 30% of the books revolve around chess matches and another large portion talks about chess in detail. As someone who doesn’t play a lot of chess, I didn’t have any trouble following along, however, If you have no interest in chess this may not be the book for you.
While the book may not be for everyone, “The Queen’s Gambit” continues to collect its fans. Most known for suspense that draws you in at the turn of every page, the book still has its fair share of faults. The TV show tries to remedy these faults, while still preserving the main plotline and themes, and may be easier to follow than the book. All in all, I think both are worth reading and watching.
