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Chessville
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IN MEMORY OF A MASTER
„To walk e’er alone on a well-trodden trail - E. Ben
Prelude from “Chess” by B..Anderson/ B. Ulvaeus The following message was received form Boris Spassky, former world champion:
Gudmundur G. Thórarinsson´s: speech (translated by Anna C. Benassí):
There are men who find their one true goal in life – the single star by which they will steer their vessel, without doubt or hesitation – a single value for which to live. Many consider art one of the most sacred aspects of worldly life, and those who love chess classify it as an art without hesitation.
Such men must swim against the tide, with their sights fixed on the beacon that is their goal, and on their means of achieving it. They stand out in stark contrast against those reeds in the wind that sway to and fro with every shift in the breeze. We often witness this sort of resilience among artists who achieve the great success in their field. It is as though they are driven forward, compelled by forces semi-conscious or unconscious, often enshrouded in a cloud of self-absorption so thick it can only be penetrated by their demonic passion for their one goal. They are never quite at ease here on earth. They often seem homeless in the real world. They have no mother country, no fatherland. Living a rich inner existence demands solitude and a life sparsely punctuated with external events.
His life was one of extremes and antithesis, and fate swept him up in its dizzying tidal wave. Fate gave, and fate took away. His entire life was like a playground for polarity. He was acclaimed and ostracised, he was variously wealthy and wanting, he was both famous and despised, he was victorious at the chess board but unsuccessful in the search for happiness. He enjoyed freedom but was deprived of his liberty and put in prison. His admirers were legion, yet his friends were few. He cared not one iota about the security and attention that most people seek, and he lived his entire life by the ground rules that he fashioned for himself without giving a thought to mass opinion. In the arena that he chose as his own, he surpassed all others, thinking like a demigod while utterly disregarding most of the things others value highest. Is this not consistent with the modern scholarly disciplines, which blind their servants to anything not closely connected to their efforts? The more he avoided the masses and the media, the more famous he became. His every word, his every step attracted attention worldwide. It was astounding how much acclaim and adoration this lonely man garnered in his isolation, through his exploits in front of an 8-by-8 bicoloured board.
Where these matters were concerned, he was willing neither to forgive nor to compromise, but he harmed himself most with his obsessive ideas. He gave no discounts, no head starts, no handicaps – at the chessboard or in his daily life. Hearing such fanaticism and hyperbole as were contained in his opinions and portrayals throws us more pedestrian souls quite off balance. He had no interest in being anywhere near the middle of the road. As a result, many found him an easy target. The world that brought us Bosnia and Darfur, the world that brought us Hiroshima and Nagasaki – this world considered itself entitled to indict this lonely genius for the sole crime of moving carved wooden game pieces from white squares to black ones in defiance of a set of rules that have long since ceased to have any applicability, and for an alleged violation committed in a country that no longer exists. His own country – the country to which he, alone and unsupported, had brought the World Championship title in chess – cast him out into the desert. He was extremely exacting with his friends, and he refused to accept it if they did not abide by the rules he formulated for himself. In his private life as well as at the chess board, he adhered to his unrelenting, draconian demands. In some ways, Fischer’s life is reminiscent of the lives of the Roman gladiators who fought in the Coliseum. Each campaign – each chess match – was a battle to the death. It can be said that he sacrificed the best years of his life on the altar of the Chess goddess. He was not one to worship numerous and various gods. Chess was his all-in-all. And the sacrifice on that altar was not for nought. He rose higher than others could do. His performance at the chessboard will doubtless remain the standard by which others will measure themselves for generations to come, and it is possible that his accomplishments will never be matched. Actually, in his exile Fischer always considered himself the world champion because he had never lost the title in competition. He reminds one of Hamlet:
“I could be bound in a nutshell In latter years, Fischer turned away from his worship of the Chess goddess. That about-face was not a providential one. He cast away the pearl that had been his most treasured gem, and he retreated farther and more inexorably into his shell. He lost sight of the inner glow that had illuminated his path and given him a sense of purpose. As it says in the Bible: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” The meaning of life faded, and emptiness moved in like fog off the ocean. His flirtation with random chess was a sort of pretence, never more than a mistress, and it could never supplant the Goddess. Only the future will determine whether his dream of random chess as a competitive sport will be realised, or whether the multi-program talking chess clock that he had designed and had built will become a reality. The chess world lost a great deal when Fischer elected, at the peak of his skills, to shut himself off and play no more. The sport lost out on the further development that this incomparable genius, with his profound understanding and exceptional knowledge, could have catalysed and fostered. We are awestruck as we review the man’s life and career. There is hardly anything to match it except in adventure tales. He was a national hero in the United States. He won the most famous chess match that has ever been played – the greatest match of all time – and was then hunted like a dog by the government of his native country. At the zenith of his fame and accomplishments, he withdrew from life and disappeared. Cast alone out into the tundra, deprived of his homeland, he was denied the company of the relatives and friends who had stood closest to him. A solitary wanderer, he meandered from place to place in his despair, and then was jailed for nine months for what many consider to be no crime at all.
Icelanders managed to ensure that he did not die in an American prison. And for that, the American nation should be grateful. In the fullness of time, history will judge the United States harshly for its treatment of Robert James Fischer.
Reaction,
commentary, and recollections Anthology of Fischer Quotations
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Bobby
Fischer laid his entire self on the line in the chess game we call life.
He dedicated himself to the art that is confined to a frame of sixty-four
squares but is boundless in its diversity, a craft that is governed by
stringent rules but catapults to the heavens those whose imagination and
genius allow them to grasp its intricacies.
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