Nabokov\'s third novel, The Luzhin Defense , is a chilling story of obsession and madness.
His own world falls apart during a crucial championship match, when the intricate Defense he has devised withers under his opponent\'s unexpected and unpredictabke lines of assault..
His talent is prodigious and he rises to the rank of grandmaster--but at a cost: in Luzhin\' s obsessive mind, the game of chess gradually supplants the world of reality.
He takes up chess as a refuge from the anxiety of his everyday life.
As a young boy, Luzhin was unattractive, distracted, withdrawn, sullen--an enigma to his parents and an object of ridicule to his classmates.
Nabokov\'s third novel, The Luzhin Defense , is a chilling story of obsession and madness
