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Fw: Nabokov Sighting: Perez-Reverte's chess mystery
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----- Original Message -----
From: Nick Mulherin
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2003 1:01 PM
Subject: Re: Nabokov Sighting: Perez-Reverte's chess mystery
The book is The Flanders Panel. Specifically, in the epigraphs for chapters 8 and 13 (p. 136 and 237 of the Bantam paperback edition, translated by Margaret Jull Costa). As far as other references, it's been a long time since I've read the book through, so I can't speak to where else it happens. The two epigraphs are:
"The chess pieces were merciless. They held and absorbed him. There was horror in this, but in this also was the sole harmony. Because what else exists in the world besides chess?" (136)
"In the fiery gap he had seen something unbearably awesome, the full horror of the abysmal depths of chess." (237)
Best,
Nick
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: D. Barton Johnson
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2003 3:35 AM
Subject: Hello/ Nabokov Sighting
I´ve just read in the Nabokov-L a reference to a Spanish detective novel by Arturo Perez-Reverte, " The Seville Communion", and I now remember that this author quotes VN quite often, and extensively, in another book whose title I´ve forgotten now ( and I hope that have kept the novel instead of lending it away! ).
I recall that the story was about the auction of a painting about chess-players and a game. This Rennaissance painting offered clues to the identity of the person who had killed the King represented in it, showing his moves on the chess board. The entire novel was constructed around chess-games, with a modern killer expressing himself also through chess moves. It quotes Nabokov from the first to the last page.