Word: luzhin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Many years ago, when I was 17 or 18, living in China, my father introduced me to books of Vladimir Sirin, which was Nabokov's pseudonym at that time. The first books that I read were The Luzhin Defence; King, Queen, Knave; Invitation to an Execution and some delightful short stories written in Russian. I kept all of his books for years, reading them over and over until they resembled worn-out library books; unfortunately, I lost them in a fire during the war in Manila...
...production is remarkably finished for a repertory company opening night. Every element works toward lucid characterizations. Everingham stands the characters in close confrontation: Raskolnikov (Paul Glaser) who murders to test a philosophy, stands in a limp full shirt and baggy trousers next to John Lithgow's ramrod prissy Luzhin, the rich, hollow financee of Raskolnikov's sister. The lines of character like the lines of John Braden's sets are balanced, clear and instantly defined. Bea Paipert creates two brief roles, the hunched, old pawnbroker Raskolnikov kills and a crazy madam at a police station, in maybe three minutes...
...most dependable items (almost as obligatory as the one about a tuberculosis sanitarium) in the repertory of the young European romantic after World War I. It is the story of a genius chess player who is at last driven insane by his obsession with the game. Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin is an unappealing, neurasthenic child who finds refuge from an incomprehensible world in the ordered clarity of the chessboard. The child prodigy grows to be a grand master and to play for the world championship-only to crack up from fatigue and immaturity at the crucial move of his last match...
From that point, even a devoted wife cannot save Luzhin from eventual suicide, nor can Nabokov's most artful verbal games save the reader from the realization that the gently maniacal Luzhin is a sentimental stereotype. This time out, Nabokov's butterfly net has brought back only an old chess...