by Walter Tevis
The word “wonderful” is so overused that it’s become meaningless: “That meal was wonderful.” “Our running back had a wonderful game.”
But I think wonderful applies to Walter Tevis’s novel The Queen’s Gambit, about a fictional chess prodigy named Beth Harmon.
The story, set primarily in the 1960s, traces young Beth’s rise from her childhood in an orphanage to her ascent to the top of the chess world. She’s a phenom at chess — but life is another matter.
The term “on the spectrum” was not a thing in 1983, when Tevis penned his book, but it seems to describe pill-popping, socially awkward Beth, who is only comfortable sitting at a chessboard. She’s a fascinating character.
By the way, the miniseries starring Anya Taylor-Joy is remarkably faithful to the novel.* And Taylor-Joy’s performance as Beth is — you guessed it — wonderful.
*Note: I recently rewatched the Netflix miniseries, and I’d amend this to say that the first part of the series is “remarkably faithful” to the novel. There are scenes in the second half of the series that expand on the book’s themes and could be construed as a bit “woke,” but mostly these scenes are subtle and do not detract from the production’s overall excellence.
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