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Jan 31, 2018SkokieStaff_Steven rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Paolo Maurensig’s new work of biographical fiction “Theory of Shadows” represents a certain Old World ideal: slim, elegant, cultured, and distinguished by careful craftsmanship. It centers on the last days of a real-life, down-on-his-heels, Russian-born world chess champion now in postwar Portuguese exile, shadowed by a past that includes complicity with both the Soviets and members of the Nazi elite. The suspense, and the mystery, of the novel comes from awaiting which of his many circling enemies will finally do him in, assuming he doesn’t accomplish the deed himself. One of the characters mentions how the Portuguese fertilize their vineyards with the carcasses of dogs, and this contrast between the refined and the revolting informs the whole novel. It belongs with other autumnal elegies for a Europe grown old and decadent such as Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice,” Sándor Márai’s “Embers,” and Stefan Zweig’s “Chess Story.”