The Royal Game - Definition and Overview

The Royal Game (Schachnovelle in the original German) is a novel by Austrian author Stefan Zweig first published in 1944, after the author's death.

The novel is ostensibly concerned with a chess match conducted on a cruise liner and the contrasting characters and epic struggle between the two protagonists.

Mirko Czentovic is a peasant prodigy with no obvious redeeming features who has broken onto the world scene. Despite his inability to play from memory (blindfold chess), which Zweig likens to a concert pianist not able to perform without a written score, he bludgeons his way to the world title in a quest for fame and monetary reward.

In contrast, his opponent in the final game, Dr B, has an immense imaginative capacity for the game and, indeed, only managed to survive solitary confinement by the Nazis due to his extraordinary feat of playing chess entirely in his mind.

The story's main theme is to explore the relation between chess and madness. In the mental anguish of his incarceration, Dr B saves his sanity by the discovery of a book of master games, which he plays endlessly, learning each one voraciously until they overwhelm his imagination to such an extent that he becomes consumed by chess. Zweig calls the results of this obsessive behaviour chess poisoning. The prisoner continuously plays against himself within the confines of his own mind until he becomes delirious, breaks down and eventually awakes in the hospital bed of a sanatorium.