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#5 Platform - Bobby Fischer Goes to War
May. 10th, 2008 01:30 amA retelling and reexamination of the best known chess match of all time.
Book #18: Bobby Fischer Goes to War
Authors: David Edmonds and John Eidenow
Provenance: Bought used at Regent
Chances are, if you know anything about chess history, you've heard about this match, where the lone American star triumphs over the big Soviet chess machine to take the world championship. Fischer has his advocates as the best player ever, as well, and this was his crowning moment, the apex of his career. It's definitely important.
Here, though, it seems that the received story doesn't get the full picture, and that's the point of the book: to draw out the rest of the details and reframe the story, as many history books aim to do. In this case, it's not just an intellectual exercise, as the availability of documents and interviews with people from the Soviet side, along with Freedom of Information Act documents for the American, really does add a lot to the story, and does make it come across differently. I knew Fischer was nuts, but I didn't realize to what degree; Spassky, the champ, turned out to be a lot more complex, thoughtful, and interesting than I thought. He viewed himself as a Russian, and not a Soviet, patriot, and the implication that has on the course of the process were surprising for me.
So while the basic story was familiar, a lot of the details, and thus the implications, were different, and I enjoyed that. On the minus side, I think they should have at least included the games in an appendix or such, if not in the main text; I realize it wasn't part of the story they were telling, exactly, but they go into enough detail, I'd have liked to see what was going on. Also, while they talk about a lot of the geopolitical stuff and the ramifications of all the hoopla and building of the match and such, it's not always well-organized, and so it feels a bit scattershot sometimes.
It's still a fast and interesting read, though, with a lot of interesting characters and insight into how the heights of the chess world work. If you're into chess, you'll probably enjoy it. If not, it'll probably never occur to you to try, anyway. It's a self-selecting book that way.
Next up: Fragile Things. I've heard a lot of these already, too.
Book #18: Bobby Fischer Goes to War
Authors: David Edmonds and John Eidenow
Provenance: Bought used at Regent
Chances are, if you know anything about chess history, you've heard about this match, where the lone American star triumphs over the big Soviet chess machine to take the world championship. Fischer has his advocates as the best player ever, as well, and this was his crowning moment, the apex of his career. It's definitely important.
Here, though, it seems that the received story doesn't get the full picture, and that's the point of the book: to draw out the rest of the details and reframe the story, as many history books aim to do. In this case, it's not just an intellectual exercise, as the availability of documents and interviews with people from the Soviet side, along with Freedom of Information Act documents for the American, really does add a lot to the story, and does make it come across differently. I knew Fischer was nuts, but I didn't realize to what degree; Spassky, the champ, turned out to be a lot more complex, thoughtful, and interesting than I thought. He viewed himself as a Russian, and not a Soviet, patriot, and the implication that has on the course of the process were surprising for me.
So while the basic story was familiar, a lot of the details, and thus the implications, were different, and I enjoyed that. On the minus side, I think they should have at least included the games in an appendix or such, if not in the main text; I realize it wasn't part of the story they were telling, exactly, but they go into enough detail, I'd have liked to see what was going on. Also, while they talk about a lot of the geopolitical stuff and the ramifications of all the hoopla and building of the match and such, it's not always well-organized, and so it feels a bit scattershot sometimes.
It's still a fast and interesting read, though, with a lot of interesting characters and insight into how the heights of the chess world work. If you're into chess, you'll probably enjoy it. If not, it'll probably never occur to you to try, anyway. It's a self-selecting book that way.
Next up: Fragile Things. I've heard a lot of these already, too.
