Kill the King and fuck the Queen

Caissa, the muse of chess, was no less ruthless than the muse of poetry. Muses had a way of killing those whom they inspired.

The Eight, by Katherine Neville, originally published in 1988, is a rollicking thriller full of puzzles and esoteric plot points that starts with a chess match — one minor faceoff in a tournament for the ages. With symbols enough to make Robert Langdon's head swim, Neville takes us on a tour of the corridors of power connecting Napoleon and Catherine the Great with ancient Masonic orders as well as America's founding fathers. 

One must never lose sight of the big picture. And remember: a pawn that reaches the eighth rank can be promoted to Queen. (I mean, Caïssa wasn't one of the original Nine.)

"Chess, my dear, is such an Oedipal game. Kill the King and fuck the Queen, that's what it's all about. Psychologists love to follow chess players about to see if they wash their hands too much, sniff at old sneakers, or masturbate between sessions. Then they write it all up in the Journal of the AMA."

From 1970s Manhattan, our (female!) computer wiz protagonist sets off for Algeria on a work contract. The story slips through time, spanning cultures and continents — from Phoenician mythology and the French Revolution to the Colonies and the looming OPEC crisis. 

Basically, The Eight has a serious Assassin's Creed vibe, only the Pieces of Eden are pieces of a legendary chess set (fictitious), gifted to Charlemagne by the Moors, scattered across the globe. There's no overt alien angle, but it brushes up against arcane formulas like the Music of the Spheres that unlock secret knowledge like the elixir of life.

Neville imagines an encounter between Leonhard Euler and Johann Sebastien Bach in which the composer has translated the mathematician's knight's tour to music, producing philosophical alchemies where physical transmutations are wanting for proof.

Cameo appearances feature William Blake, Benedict Arnold, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, painter Jacques-Louis David, and William Wordsworth, among others.

"This one — the man with the head of a bird — is the great god Thoth. He was a doctor who could heal any illness. He invented writing, too. It was his job to write the name of everyone in the Book of the Dead. Shahin says each person has a secret name given him at birth, written on a stone, and handed to him when he dies. And each god had a number instead of a secret name...  [...] We believe the universe is comprised of number, and it is only a question of vibrating to the correct resonance of these numbers to become one with God."

Caïssa, by Domenico Maria Fratta

[When I was in grade 8, in the early 80s, my teacher was something of a computer enthusiast. We were the only grade-school classroom in the region with a computer "lab" — three monster machines we took turns on. I wrote a program in Basic to complete the calculations for an income tax return. Our teacher was an immovable force, physically resembling a very tall, thick brick wall. He had a bushy black moustache and a Ukrainian name, and he spoke softly but forcefully, like he might be holding you at gunpoint. Because he maintained our student records on computer, he argued that it was easier to call us by number than to remember our names. I was number 8. I've held an affinity for this number ever since.]

The novel is about chess the same way Alice Through the Looking Glass is, with no great insight into the game or its players, but it pauses to ponder whether to play the man or play the board, and speculates that chess's popularity in America is not evidence of intellect so much as of morality.

Neville quotes Polish Grand Master Savielly Tartakower: "Tactics is knowing what to do when there something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do." I realize I am becoming a master strategist of life.

The secret was not hidden beneath a rock in the desert. Nor was it tucked inside a musty library. It lay hidden within the softly whispered tales of these nomadic men. Moving across the sands by night, passing from mouth to mouth, the secret had moved as the sparks of a dying bonfire are scattered across the silent sands and buried in darkness. The secret was hidden in the very sounds of the desert, in the tales of her people — in the mysterious whispers of the rocks and stones themselves.

It ain't like that

I am a very recent convert to and addict of The Wire. Finishing up season 1 this weekend.

Those baleful dusks

He continued to work with his Russian teacher, Andrescovich, but something had started to go wrong with the mechanism. The young Polish master stopped winning tournaments. Instead, he would always come second or third. These were anxious years, and the history of Poland, which had always been sad, seemed to be somehow embodied in this young man full of dreams. And what happens to young men like Ferenck, when they gain a certain fame and their personal lives get in a mess? They generally start to develop a weakness for hard liquor, which they justify by stress, or nerves, or those baleful dusks when the sky of Warsaw fills with a purple light, as if tongues of fire were swallowing the city and souls of its citizens, and then the glasses succeed one another on the bar counters, filled with transparent, highly concentrated liquids intended to counteract that complicated sense of abandonment in which the mind can find no rest, a glass, knocked back in one go, is followed by a second, then a third, and so Oslovski's hours started to darken and black clouds cover his soul, presaging bad weather.

— from Necropolis, by Santiago Gamboa.

I like this passage because if references the history of Poland. I've known a few Polish souls, tormented poets (I call them "poets" in a poetic sense) who, it might be said, also embodied that anxious, desperate, tragic history. Maybe you have to be Polish, or know Polish history at least, to fully appreciate what this means. Or maybe one can say similar things about citizens of countries all over the world — embodying the histories of, say, Panama, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Portugal.

This excerpt comes from a story about two chess players, a Pole and a Swede, which story is being presented at a conference in Jerusalem on memory and biography attended by the narrator of Necropolis.

There are elements of Oslovski's biography (and here's one peeve: Ferenck Oslovski is not a very Polish name — the first name is near unpronounceable, and as for the surname, there's no "v" in the Polish alphabet) that remind me of Hans Reiter in 2666, by Roberto Bolaño, and this is one of the beauties of Necropolis — how it draws, often explicitly, on wide and varied sources.

The narrator recalls Stefan Zweig's Chess Story (or Royal Game, as it is sometimes known) as a point of reference, but while these chess players are also obsessed with the game (as it seems all decent players must be), they channel it, or sublimate it, into something altogether more reasonable — healthier, happier, wiser.

Coltodino drank his beer as he listened to them, and said, how is it that the two of you, who not only have a passion for chess, but also play it brilliantly, never wanted to take is farther? and Gunard said, there's too much pressure to deal with. Oslovski confirmed his friend's words, and added, what prize in the world is greater then [sic] this? Watching the sun set over the sea, playing with a friend, eating and drinking, eh? That's life, friend, what a privilege it is to be alive, would you like a sandwich?

Chess

Chess Story (previously published as The Royal Game), by Stefan Zweig, is a great novella, with all the elegance I'm told the game itself possesses.

Chess fascinates me, but on some level, I feel I don't really know how to play. That is, I know all the moves, but I can't make the pieces dance the way I think they ought to. I played the very occasional game when I was growing up, with a cousin at the cottage, on game day at school. I sought out a few more games as an adult; my boyfriend du jour (well, three I can think of off the top of my head) would say he played, so we would, every other night for a week or two, and I was pathetic really, but eventually I'd beat him, and we'd never play again, and then we'd break up. I'd say these most satisfactory wins had more to with pig-headedness, somehow magically staring the board into submission, than with any kind of mastery of skill or insight.

(I can't possibly be very good; I still find it challenging to play.)

These days the kid is in chess club, so I'm learning terms and notation, and rules I never knew existed. I guess I'm also trying harder to see the art and philosophy of it, to know its mindset, to help her find a way in. I know that the possibilities on the board at any given time are finite. Certainly I cannot calculate them all, nor is there a need to — so many of them amount to being meaningless or inconsequential (it's not quite the same thing, is it?) that the relevant possibilities are significantly reduced. Still, I can only "think ahead" so far, and I'm in awe of the "instinct" some people seem to have for it.

Anyway. The book. The story is essentially a meeting of two players, two different types of player who come to the game via very unique histories. It's also very clear that psychology is a major element of the game — the very particular game that's the main event here, but also of their individual game styles.

One player is world chess champion. Of humble upbringing, he came to the game quite by accident as a teenager, and rather astounded everyone with his skill, because he was otherwise generally thought to be something of an idiot. He is criticized by some for his limitation of not being able to play "blind" — he has to have a board physically in front of him — and this betrays a lack of imaginative power. But it's a power game, isn't it? He bullies his way through, controlling the conditions, intimidating his opponent.

The other player also came upon chess quite accidentally. In confined circumstances a chess manual comes into his possession, and he spends his days, for months on end, poring over it. He has never played on a board, only in his mind.

I don't doubt, given the reference to the politics of Nazism, that there is some allegory here also, for the struggle between classes, or whatever else these two characters might represent, but that interests me less.

Right, so: 84 pages, absolutely gripping.

I first heard about this book from Richard: Thanks! I may search out some more Stefan Zweig. I admit I got a bit tired of hearing about The Post-Office Girl, and I still can't get excited about it, but I hear Beware of Pity is devastatingly good. Also, the recent screed against Zweig in the London Review of Books makes me want to read him more.

(According to Wikipedia, Chess Story inspired the 1960 Gerd Oswald film Brainwashed (Die Schachnovelle), as well as the 1980 Czechoslovakian film The Royal Game, neither of which seem to be readily available, but I'll keep an eye open for them.)

If this sort of book interests you, might I also suggest The Master of Go, by Yasunari Kawabata, which relates a real-life match of Go ("If chess is a battle, Go is a war."), pitting the upstart modern world against the traditional old guard.

At this point, my rambling here is almost as long as Chess Story itself. (Oh, I hope I haven't said too much and spoiled it for anyone.) Go read it.

Chess and the child

As much as she'd seemed to love it, as well as she did, Helena was not interested in continuing with chess club after the Christmas break.

We weighed our options, signed her up for choir instead of dance — something else she wasn't interested in pursuing, though she changed her tune when she discovered some of her friends were continuing and new ones were joining.

And chess, well, I signed her up anyway. Because, though it's extracurricular, it's the most (the only?) intellectually challenging aspect of her kindergarten year. And I believe that she thrives on it.

Friday morning she astounded me. She double checks that I found her chess folder and put it in her backpack. Very casually she mentions how she's looking forward to chess today (even though only a couple of her classmates are enrolled, and they're boys), and wouldn't it be nice if she got another medal — she's going to work toward that medal.

Sunday morning, we work on her sheet of problems: which piece should Black capture on the given sample board.

The choice is governed by where Black can move that is safe versus what immediate threat does White pose that Black must thwart, and, in one case, all other things being equal, the relative value of taking, say, a bishop over a pawn.

I don't recall my exact comment, or why I made it. Something empty, to the effect of "isn't it good to be taking a course where you can learn such interesting things." To which she rejoins: I don't need a course to learn these things, I already know these things. I need only to play now.

I'd spent a couple days already pondering her competitive spirit. Where does it come from? Not from me, I don't think, on either the nature or nurture front. The need to best her classmates? To prove something? To whom? The thrill of victory in itself? Reward or recognition?

After a few hours, I'd determined it was merely an extension of that purely natural human drive — for survival, of the fittest — that is either encouraged or quashed along the way.

But now. Now I have cocky self-assuredness to contend with. Now this is a quality I know next to nothing about, and I don't know what to do with it in a child of mine.

Hours later I understand something deeper and true in Helena's words: these are not things that can be learned. You learn the facts, the moves; the rest follows. You don't learn logic (do you?), you observe it. The game unfolds: something you know, put into practice. You learn from mistakes, from experience; but this is not fundamental. It's the fine tuning of the expression of something innate.

(I think. And I think this is what Helena thinks.)

Beyond pawns

Helena is frantic as we're gathering her things for school. Today's Thursday! It's chess club! She needs her folder! Where's her folder? Did I remember to put it in her backpack?!

I reassure her, and she finally sheds a little light on her panic. Today is the last day of this chess club session. Medals are to be awarded. She is convinced she has no chance of receiving one if she fails to bring her folder. I think she has little chance, period, being the youngest of the lot, but her enthusiasm tramples my negativity. We will cross the bridge of her disappointment when we come to it.

The workday finished, I run into Helena with her father just outside the school, so we can all walk home together. Helena reaches down into her jacket to pull out her medal.

I lavish her with obligatory congratulations and adulation, how I proud I am of her. But eventually I have to ask, cautiously. How many people received medals? Three, she tells me. The look in J-F's eyes tells me he knows and understands exactly what my line of questioning is, and that it's OK to proceed. How many kids are in your group? Eleven, she tells me, and only three of us got medals!

R-- got a medal because she's really the best, and the oldest, and she's really good. Helena got a medal because she had the most stickers on her folder, for homework problems completed. And M-- got one too, I'm not really sure why.

Flattery gushes more sincerely now. I'm ashamed of that moment in which I saw my own mother in me, doubting my daughter's accomplishments. I tell myself that it is a natural hesitation, measuring my response against a world where everyone gets a star for attendance, reserving it for justly deserved gains.

A week later, she's still proud and wants as much as ever to learn chess. We keep working through the problems she never finished. We set up the board to match the diagrams, so we can more easily see solutions.

J-F drops Helena at school one morning. He tells me they caught the attention of one of the other mothers. She seeks confirmation: So that's Helena. She got a medal? My son didn't get a medal. Do you coach her?

J-F tells her we play chess with Helena every day until she cries.

Pawns

Helena is in chess club.

Chess is not part of her regular curriculum but is offered as part of the after-school program:

The "Challenging Mathematics" program is based on extensive research and field-testing. It focuses on problem-solving as a strategy for developing an understanding of mathematical concepts.

The goal of the series is to develop judgement and the ability to reason in children, to foster an ability to explain why and how when it comes to their solutions to problems and to develop their self-confidence as well as their own efficient strategies for solving problems.

[Source: Chess'n Math Association, Canada's National Scholastic Chess Organization]

I hesitated to sign her up, thinking it might be too demanding, and too early to be cultivating her geek factor. But it's never too early to learn to solve problems! She is joined by a boy from her class, and their instructor seems well-equipped to inspire a kind of discipline in them. (My own efforts to show Helena the actual starting positions of all the pieces always ended up in a procession of Helena's devising, of characters greeting the king and queen and riding away on horseback, in an orderly fashion.)

It is by far the most (academically) challenging aspect of the kindergarten experience, and the only one that demands homework. We have problems diagrammed on paper that we transfer to a board in front of us. (Initially identifying the pieces out of order. Now testing the rules of the moves: in a given diagram, how many pieces can a given piece capture, or how many squares can it safely move to.)

She wants to play a game proper. I know it will be only a few moves before she feigns disinterest in order to disguise her frustration. She will pack it in and silently resolve to be better prepared another day.

We open.

I blink and she's in tears — deep, sincere, sad sobs. "C'est pas juste!"

That she's only 5? doesn't know all the rules? that we're unfairly matched?

No.

That the pawn can move only straight ahead, one slow square at a time. The pawn advances to the end, and for what? It's not fair, when others can move farther, in different directions. Poor, stupid pawn! What good is it?

It's a weird and proud moment for me, to see in my daughter this glimmer of existential speculation, social injustice.

I try to rationalize. The pawn is important to the security of others. If it is smart enough to survive, to endure the journey to the other side, the pawn can be anything you want it to be.

We are laying the groundwork for the battles ahead.