Customer Reviews

The Chess Machine: A Novel

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For some reason I was hoping this book would give me the kind of experience I got from reading Foucault's Pendulum, but The Chess Player doesn't resemble Eco's book in any way. In fact I was put off at first by the writing style (or is it the translation?) which I found to be flat, bland and simple. But the more I read, the more I got used to Lohr's style. As plain as it is, it does have the benefit of being relatively cliché-free. It is serviceable and tells the story without drawing unnecessary attention to itself. The story itself moves along at a good pace and keeps one hooked for a couple of reasons. Lohr starts the tale with a scene set in the future and one wonders how this scene (which continues in instalments throughout the book) relates to the rest of the story and, indeed, how it will turn out. The other, and more important, hook for me was -how can the inventor of the machine, Kempelen, possibly get away with his outrageous illusion over so many performances and under the scrutiny of the best minds of Europe? The characters are colourful, varied and engaging, and the setting and time (just before the French Revolution) are compelling. Lohr uses excellent attention to period detail to bring the setting and times to life. In the end the key to the story for me was not the success or failure of Kempelen's machine, it was the gradual revealing of his true character. Without this factor driving the action, I don't think there would have been much of a story. There aren't a lot of ideas discussed in this book. There aren't a lot of deep thoughts either. It's all a bit of an 18th Century soap opera actually, but it works. And of course it is based on the amazing true story of the Mechanical Turk (whose picture you can find on the internet. I found it helpful to check this out as I was reading the story.)

As someone interested in chess, as I suspect many who read the book will be, I would have liked to have had more about the actual chess scene in Europe at the time -players of note, styles of play, the general state of the game and how the Turk fit in. I would also have liked more details of the games played -openings, tactics, critical moves, etc. I know that the games in the book were fictional, but adding the above would have added verisimilitude to the story. If you read the book expecting to learn more about the Turk's more famous exhibitions in places like Paris or London, or of its encounters with famous people such as Napoleon or Benjamin Franklin, you will be disappointed. The action is almost all fictitious and takes place early in the Turk's life, a largely undocumented period and thus ripe for novelistic treatment.

This book would make a good movie if done with a proper budget and by a competent director. One wonders if it was written with that in mind.

The Chess Machine is based on actual events that occurred during 1770 in Pressburg, what is today the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava. During an era in which science and entertainment were still closely related, the Habsburg Empire became enthralled with Wolfgang von Kempelen's unexpected invention, a chess-playing automation that became known as the Mechanical Turk. This machine, fronted by a turban-wearing "mechanical Turk" who moved his own chess pieces with a life-like right arm and hand easily defeated the best chess players it encountered in exhibition matches around the empire.

Kemplen's invention brought him instant fame and seemed certain to also bring him his fortune. After all, he had invented the first machine that was capable of thought, a machine that could, in fact, think better than the human beings it encountered. But, as many of Kemplen's scientific rivals suspected, the Mechanical Turk was too good to be true. Rather than having created a thinking machine, Kemplen had instead built an automation that depended entirely on the chess-playing dwarf who was hidden inside the wooden box housing the useless clockworks that appeared to make the machine work.

Tibor Scardenelli, the Italian dwarf, hired by Kemplen to be the brains of his machine, is a remarkable chess player but he soon begins to tire of the secret life he is forced to live. Tibor comes to feel that he is living a prisoner's life, always locked away in one room of Kemplen's home or inside the chess machine itself. For the sake of keeping the illusion of a chess-playing automation alive, no one can be allowed to know of his existence. Despite Tibor's growing uneasiness with the scam that he is so large a part of, everything goes well for the chess machine until one of Kemplen's court rivals manages to place his lover, Galatea, into the Kemplen household as a spy. In time, Galatea, known to Kemplen as his house servant Elise, comes to know the truth.

But Kemplen and his team have bigger problems than Elise. After a performance at the ball celebrating the marriage of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, a young countess is found dead. There are no witnesses to her death but she has left traces of her rouge on the Turk's face, and many come to believe that the Turk has seduced and murdered the woman. Especially taken with this notion is the young woman's brother who is determined to take revenge on the Turk and its owner.

Much like one of his own chess pieces, Wolfgang von Kemplen soon finds himself being pushed into defensive moves that require more and more ruthlessness on his part. His Mechanical Turk comes to own him in a way that he never owned the Turk.

Robert Lohr's The Chess Machine is filled with the level of period detail and unforgettable characters that can make historical fiction so rewarding. But at the same time this is a novel full of adventure and psychological insights, one with a story that will stay with the reader for a long time.

Being an avid recreational and tournament chess player, I'm always interested in reading chess themed novels and non-fiction books. I ran across this title entering a book store as a hard-cover copy of it was in the front among new fiction releases. It immediately caught my attention and I grabbed it and saw that it was a fictionalized account of the Turk, the famous 18th century chess playing automaton that I was already familiar with as I had just read Tom Standage's outstanding non-fiction account of it. (The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine )

Anyway, I picked it up and decided to give it a shot. As I read through it, I found it to be rather plodding - in particular with comparison to the pace that I had experienced in Tom Standage's outstanding account of the Turk. Those unfamiliar with this story, might find it more enjoyable than I did. In all, it's decent light fictional fare, but I recommend Standage's book over this for pure entertainment value.

Like the device this story is about, this book is like an intricate mechanism that has cogwheels turning the pages, springs to keep the reader in the lurch, pullies that tug the reader along without pause. It has many gears for continuous movement from start to finish. The Chess Machine offers the reader a lighthearted fun frolic through Europe in the late 1700s as we learn the story that is based on the true life invention of the Mechanical Turk. The Turk was an automaton chess playing machine invented by Wolfgang Kempelen who created this mechanical marvel and took Europe by storm taking it on the road to entertain the wealthy and the royal. This is a creative novel with a plot and story different than the norm and offers the reader many hours of pure reading enjoyment. We have great characters, a creative story, good writing and many well thought out side plots that twist and turn. There are few slow spots but basically the story moves along at a good pace, never predictable and has a few surprises that come at you rather sudden to leave you stunned. There is great character development for a few of the key players and the author blends sincere human emotions with constant conflicting morals and values to allow them to come alive on paper. I thoroughly enjoyed the ingenuity of this novel and felt it a breath of fresh air to read something out of the ordinary. This is a very visual story, very colorful with vivid historical costumed scenes and lavish backdrops. Because of that I think it would make a splendid film as well. This is truly a wonderful debut novel and I eagerly await another book from the author.

The Chess Machine, set in the late 1700s is a thrilling tale with very vivid period detail. The story is about Wolfgang von Kemplen who builds a famed chess machine to impress the crown. Little do people know that the real genius behind the automaton nick-named "Turk", is his little friend Tibor. The tour the country challenging and defeating king and pauper alike. The plot takes a turn with the "Turk" is accused of murdering royalty at a ball.

The author moves his characters like chess pieces giving them purpose and more importantly, conscience. The leading pieces are morally torn between the power of fame and money and the guilt of deception. The story is gripping and very well paced. The detail is very meticulous and lends itself very well for a motion picture adaptation.

When I first read the review of this book , I thought it should be rather colorful , full of suspections & horror. However, I found out that the technique of writing is quite boring & straight forward. The writer reveal all the tricks in the beginning chapters leaving no space for the imagination of the readers. I don't know how the original is when comparing with the the translation. But sure, it's a disappointment.

This is a very entertaiment book. The plot is not a top 5 story, but is easy to read and does not have any hole.

If you are looking for a very adictive novel, this is not for you, but if you don't have any plan about what to read, then this book will do its work: easy read, funny, curious and at the end of the book the author will give you the real story about the Turk.

A chess playing automaton. A dwarf. A murder most fowl. Imprisoned in mind and body. Add to that that The Chess Machine is a smart, well-written delight. How can you go wrong?