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queenluaI read this soon after watching the Netflix miniseries. On a plot level, and on a dialogue level, the book is almost identical to the show—entire scenes & chapters & swathes of dialogue are lifted completely unaltered. (I made a record of all the differences I noticed; there aren’t very many!)
In terms of mood & atmosphere, however—the world of the book seems lonelier and stranger, overall. The prose is simultaneously sparse & removed, yet incredibly intimate—it reminded me of Jansson, both authors inhabiting this uncanny valley between thriller-terseness and literary-fiction-sparseness, melded into something wonderfully new.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this book if you’ve already seen the show, since they’re so similar, but I’d definitely love to read something else by the same author.
(Also, fun aside: apparently Michael Ondaatje is a huge fan of the book: "The Queen's Gambit is sheer entertainment. It is a book I reread every few years—for the pure pleasure and skill of it." It seems so different from the dude's writing style that I'm surprised, but hey, omnivores gonna omnivore, etc)
In terms of mood & atmosphere, however—the world of the book seems lonelier and stranger, overall. The prose is simultaneously sparse & removed, yet incredibly intimate—it reminded me of Jansson, both authors inhabiting this uncanny valley between thriller-terseness and literary-fiction-sparseness, melded into something wonderfully new.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this book if you’ve already seen the show, since they’re so similar, but I’d definitely love to read something else by the same author.
(Also, fun aside: apparently Michael Ondaatje is a huge fan of the book: "The Queen's Gambit is sheer entertainment. It is a book I reread every few years—for the pure pleasure and skill of it." It seems so different from the dude's writing style that I'm surprised, but hey, omnivores gonna omnivore, etc)
