The Queen’s Gambit
Welcome to Did They Write It Like That? For my first book/adaptation analysis I’m going to be reading and watching The Queen’s Gambit, originally written by Walter Tevis and adapted by Scott Frank and Allan Scott. You may be wondering why are you starting with this book? Aren’t there more culturally significant books like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings you should do first? Is it because it’s short and you’re lazy?
Valid questions and I promise those books are on my list but what inspired this blog was a brief (depending on your definition of brief) rant I went on to my very understanding father about (spoilers!) how the show made Beth get drunk with Cleo in Paris and therefore ruin her game with Borgov the following morning when none of that happened in the book! (By the way, dad if you’re reading this thank you, and I can’t promise that it won’t happen again.)
So, I was clearly passionate about the subject which is always a good place to start. And also, yes you are correct, the fact that it’s on the shorter side was a factor. I wanted something I could start and finish in a reasonable amount of time that wouldn’t take over my entire life. A mini-series seemed like just the place to start. And also, the kindle book was only $1.99 on Amazon and I am never one to pass up a deal.
At first, I was going to have one post per book, but then I discovered that I have quite a few opinions and there are always so many differences! And while I hope you all enjoy this blog and become avid followers, I highly doubt any of you are up for reading a college essay-length post about each book. So, I am going to break up each book-to-TV-show analysis by episode and each book-to-movie-adaptation will be slightly longer but not as detailed to save space.
Some of you may be asking What’s the Queen’s Gambit? Or Isn’t that the show about chess? It seemed boring. And yes, this book/TV show centers around Beth’s chess career but there’s a lot more to it, I promise. Most importantly, it’s the show that inspired me to go out and buy a chess set, try to learn chess theory, realize it was way more complicated than I thought, give up on chess, and decide to learn ancient Greek instead because that seemed easier to me for some unknown reason.
Behold, my thrice used chessboard and once opened chess book…
Brief Summary
“The Queen’s Gambit is a 1983 American novel by Walter Tevis, exploring the life of fictional female chess prodigy Beth Harmon. A bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, it covers themes of adoption, feminism, chess, drug addiction and alcoholism.”
If you haven’t read or watched the Queen’s Gambit I mean thank you but why are you here? It’s very flattering, but you should probably pause on this, go read/watch it, and then come back otherwise you might get a bit confused. This blog is not meant to be a comprehensive summary, but rather an analysis of the differences between the original book and the Netflix show. Long story short, I preferred the book, but still really enjoyed the show. Also, there will be so many spoilers in this blog, so be warned. If you don’t want any of the plot ruined before you read/watch it don’t read any further!