Fernando Arrabal,Anthony Kerrigan
The final, definitive match in the competition for the World Chess Championship is about to begin. Contenders Elias Tarsis and Marc Amary take their places at the board. The judges' implacable clock begins to tick, and a hush falls over the capacity crowd in Paris's Beaubourg Center Theater.,But before the players can make their first moves, they are distracted by news of the kidnapping of a high-ranking Soviet diplomat. Tarsisâ€”an artist and an intuitive geniusâ€”is convinced that his despised opponentâ€”a world-renowned physicistâ€”is behind the kidnapping. So begins the game, and so begins this darkly comic, metaphysical mystery novelâ€”a European best-sellerâ€”by renowned avant-garde playwright Fernando Arrabal.,As the players make their moves (diagrams of which are provided), and we learn how their lives have led them to this climactic moment, the chess match becomes a fierce, seriocomic contest of egos and ideologies. It is a struggle between a man of God and an anarchist, between art and science, between sex and spirit, between two powerful men and two brilliant chess players. It is also an opportunity for the irrepressible Arrabal to lead us on a hundred hilarious riffsâ€”on leftist politics, Freudian psychology, religious philosophy, modern European history, and, of course, the game of chess. In the end, the players' lives, the hostage crisis, and the World Chess Championship climax in a series of twists and surprises that challenge our sympathies and our intellects.
Games,Chess,Fiction,Cultural,Spain,European Literature,Spanish Literature
The Tower Struck by Lightning