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A review by richardrbecker
The World Played Chess by Robert Dugoni
4.0
This should be a 5-star novel. It would be if Robert Dugoni had cut about 5 percent of it — anytime he broke the spell of three simultaneous coming-of-age stories by hammering the points we're supposed to pull from them. The irony is that we would have found them all anyway.
The World Played Chess is three stories told by Vincent Bianco, a successful lawyer (and fledgling author), happily married, and two children's father. He talks about his life as a recent high school graduate in 1979, his son Beau's life at about the same age in about 2015, and also an older co-worker and Vietnam vet William Goodman whose story comes from both Bianco's point of view in 1979 and also a journal written by Goodman when he served in 1969 at the same age Bianco is when they work together. The contrast and complexity of how each of these boys enters manhood is what makes the book work — along with Dugoni's insight into what society expects boys to do to become men without any guidance, aside from emulating a few men they might meet along the way.
Where the work also shines is how authentic it reads, especially in the retelling of Vietnam experiences and Bianco's relationship with two Vietnam vets during a summer construction job. It comes across as a memoir despite being a work of fiction. Dugoni is a convincing storyteller.
He is so convincing, in fact, maybe we should blame Bianco for becoming a bit preachy at times, primarily when he is talking about or trying to relate to his son. Otherwise, the hammer only happens when Bianco applies life lessons from Goodman as a condemnation of teenage actions (and his friends' actions) — a condemnation that Bianco also carries forward and attempts to supplant on his son for better or worse. I don't know. It's in these moments it doesn't ring true and sound like Dugoni asking us, as readers, if we get it.
And yet, if you forgive that 5 percent or so, The World Played Chess is still one of the finer novels I've read this year. Somehow Dugoni weaves together three lives, with each having it a little easier while paying what they learned forward. Some of it is worth learning, especially that growing old is a privilege not a burden for the alternative is ... nothing.
The World Played Chess is three stories told by Vincent Bianco, a successful lawyer (and fledgling author), happily married, and two children's father. He talks about his life as a recent high school graduate in 1979, his son Beau's life at about the same age in about 2015, and also an older co-worker and Vietnam vet William Goodman whose story comes from both Bianco's point of view in 1979 and also a journal written by Goodman when he served in 1969 at the same age Bianco is when they work together. The contrast and complexity of how each of these boys enters manhood is what makes the book work — along with Dugoni's insight into what society expects boys to do to become men without any guidance, aside from emulating a few men they might meet along the way.
Where the work also shines is how authentic it reads, especially in the retelling of Vietnam experiences and Bianco's relationship with two Vietnam vets during a summer construction job. It comes across as a memoir despite being a work of fiction. Dugoni is a convincing storyteller.
He is so convincing, in fact, maybe we should blame Bianco for becoming a bit preachy at times, primarily when he is talking about or trying to relate to his son. Otherwise, the hammer only happens when Bianco applies life lessons from Goodman as a condemnation of teenage actions (and his friends' actions) — a condemnation that Bianco also carries forward and attempts to supplant on his son for better or worse. I don't know. It's in these moments it doesn't ring true and sound like Dugoni asking us, as readers, if we get it.
And yet, if you forgive that 5 percent or so, The World Played Chess is still one of the finer novels I've read this year. Somehow Dugoni weaves together three lives, with each having it a little easier while paying what they learned forward. Some of it is worth learning, especially that growing old is a privilege not a burden for the alternative is ... nothing.