The defense

Definitely early Nabokov! I likely went in with the wrong expectations for the book since the premise was chess, Nabokov being a great chess fan and the intricate structures of Lolita, Ada, Pale Fire etc. made me think this book would be a supremely impressive meshing of narrative imagination and the nebulous jungle of chess. It was not... You can tell Nabokov is a chess fan but I think it sort of becomes a tragic chess Rocky rather than the beautiful tapestries of his later books. A shame, even his elaborate almost superfluous prose hasn't developed yet in this book either, it's rather plain by Nabokovian standards. Some of this may be due to it being a translated work. Still one of the goats though!