[EDNOTE. Jerry Friedman sends the following. Please use the above subject heading to reply and also copy Jerry at jerry_friedman@yahoo.com. -- SES]

The quotation from Nabokov at that Italian page is from the introduction to
*Poems and Problems*. Part of it is visible at
http://books.google.com/books?id=CvJoV52X-TUC&pg=PA386

With the help of Google Translate, I'm going to take a stab at recreating
the rest:

"Problems are the poetry of chess, and poetry, as such, is forced to take
sides in various conflicts between old and new schools of thought. In the
field of the chess problem, modern conventionalism annoys me as intensely
as socialist realism and
abstract sculpture. To speak more clearly, I detest the problems called
tasks (mechanical compositions with the aim of facilitating a Stakhanovite
maximum of similar models) and strictly avoid duals after the first move of
the solution (another Soviet fashion), even when they are due to
non-thematic moves by black."

Doesn't look like Nabokov. If someone's got *Poems and Problems*, maybe
they'll be interested in posting the real version. By the way, I'm pretty
sure the comments on each problem are Nabokov's comments in *P&P*.

A task is apaprently a spectacular feature of a problem. For instance, in
the Allumwandlung, black has four defenses, each of which requires a
different pawn promotion by white--to knight, bishop, rook, or queen. In
the black knight wheel, black can defend by moving a knight to eight
squares (the most a knight can reach), each of which allows a different
mate.

Thus problems resemble poetry in that the solver, for full enjoyment, must
not stop on finding the key (perhaps comparable to explicating the poem)
but also see thematic relations between different parts. Perhaps we could
compare a "task" problem to a story with subplots that echo each other too
perfectly.

By the way, the comparison to poetry was not original to Nabokov. *Chess
Lyrics* was the title of a collection of chess problems by one A. F.
Mackenzie published in 1905.

http://archive.org/stream/chesslyricscolle00mack/chesslyricscolle00mack_djvu.txt

I hope I'm not giving the impression that I understand chess problems. I
also hope I'll be forgiven for posting a small one. What requires
forgiveness is its lack of esthetic interest; if problems are like poems,
this one is like "Roses are red,/ Violets are blue." However, it has a
Nabokov connection.

In Forsyth notation: 7k/4K3/5P1P/6N1

Or you can see a diagram and play against black at

http://www.chessvideos.tv/endgame-training/custom-crafty-position.php?f=7k%2F4K3%2F5P1P%2F6N1%2F8%2F8%2F8%2F8&t=Nabokov%27s+other+theme

http://tinyurl.com/q5lfh93

The first to post the solution and the Nabokov connection--or to e-mail it
to jerry_friedman@yahoo.com if the editors prefer--wins an
all-expenses-paid tour of Zoorland, Padukgrad, Zembla (not Nova Zembla),
and Antiterra.

Jerry Friedman

P.S.

Sorry, my chess problem is supposed to be a mate in 3.