Log 3_The Queen's Gambit

 

I watched the Netflix series of The Queen's Gambit before, and I found it intriguing, so I chose the book as the material for my logs. The story is basically about Beth, a girl who was sent to an orphanage, because her mother was dead due to an accident. The life in the orphanage was monotonous and boring, but Beth found something interesting when she went to the basement, and it was the chess. After visiting the basement several times, Beth started to learn how to play chess with the janitor in the basement.

I was wondering why Beth had to be sent to the orphanage when her mother was dead, while her father was still alive. I realized that the background of the story was in the USA in the mid 1950s to the late 1960s, when some social trends such as civil rights movement, anti-war movement, and the sexual liberation emerged. Economy was also affected, people's financial conditions were becoming better at that time. However, men were the main source of domestic economy back then, so women had to live under the shadow of their husbands, which was the reason why the divorce rate increased at that time. When Beth's mother died from the accident, Beth's father chose not to raise her, but sent her to the orphanage, which could be a nightmare to little Beth.

I could picture the scenes of the words when I was reading the articles, for the author was good at using descriptive language to narrate the story. For instance, "One day she was sent to the basement to clean the blackboard erasers by clomping them together, and she found him (the janitor) sitting on a metal stool near the furnace scowling over a green-and-white checkerboard in front of him. But where the checkers should be there were little plastic things in funny shapes. Some were larger than others. There were more of the small ones than any of the others. The janitor looked up at her. She left in silence." It was a short paragraph in Chapter 1. The author described the scene so clearly with details of the place, the stuff, and the person, that I could imaging the whole scene in my mind. I found that writing a descriptive essay is like shooting a video. You have to focus on the details you want your audience to see, hear, or smell. Moreover, with the desire to accurately describe the story will drive you to learn new words and phrases you didn't know.

When I am reading the story, I felt like I was learning how to play chess with Beth and the janitor. I learned some words that were used when playing chess, such as scholar’s mate (四回合將殺), checkmate (將殺；圍攻), rook (西洋棋的車), bishop（西洋棋的象，主教棋子), and pawn (西洋棋的兵). Though I didn't really knew how to play chess after learning these words, gaining knowledge from the field that I was not familiar with was challenging but interesting. That also made me recall something I heard in today's interpreting class. "No effort will be in vain." What I learn now may seem useless, but in someday in the future, the things I learn will jump out to my mind and help me when I need them.