Now that the words are out they sound stupid, and they are stupid. He is being manoeuvred into saying stupid things. But he should have expected that. That is how they will make him pay for rejecting them and the job they have given him, a job with IBM, the market leader. Like a beginner in chess, pushed into corners and mated in ten moves, in eight moves, in seven moves.JM Coetzee, Youth, Martin Secker & Warburg, 2003, p.107-8, p.144-5, p.149, p.151. (Original date of publication 2002.)
....
Autumn turns to winter, he is barely aware of it. He is no longer reading poetry. Instead he reads books on chess, follows grandmaster games, does the chess problems in the Observer. He sleeps badly; sometimes he dreams about programming. It is a development within himself that he watches with detached interest. Will he become like those scientists whose brains solve problems while they sleep?
There is another thing he notices. He has stopped yearning. The quest for the mysterious, beautiful stranger who will set free the passion within him no longer preoccupies him. In part, no doubt, that is because Bracknell offers nothing to match the parade of girls in London. But he cannot help seeing a connection between the end of yearning and the end of poetry. Does it mean he is growing up? Is that what growing up amounts to: growing out of yearning, of passion, of all intensities of the soul?
The people among whom he works - men, without exception - are more interesting than the people at IBM: more lively, and perhaps cleverer too, in a way he can understand, a way that is much like being clever at school. They have lunch together in the canteen of the Manor House. There is no nonsense about the food they are served; fish and chips, bangers and mash, toad in the hole, bubble and squeak, rhubarb tart with ice cream. He likes the food, has two helpings if he can, makes it the main meal of the day. In the evenings, at home (if that is what they are now, his rooms at the Arkwrights'), he does not bother to cook, simply eats breed and cheese over the chessboard.
....
Ganapathy is the first Indian he has known more than casually, if this can be called knowing - chess games and conversations comparing England unfavourably with America, plus the one surprise visit to Ganapathy's flat. Conversation would not doubt improve if Ganapathy were an intellectual instead of being just clever. It continues to astound him that people can be as clever as people are in the computer industry, yet have no outside interests beyond cars and house prices. He had thought it was just the notorious philistinism of the English middle class manifesting itself, but Ganapathy is no better.
Is this indifference to the world a consequence of too much intercourse with machines that give the appearance of thinking? How would he fare if one day he was to quit the computer industry and rejoin civilised society? After spending his best energies for so long on games with machines, would he be able to hold his own in conversation? Is there anything he would have gained from years with computers? Would he not at least have learned to think logically? Would logic not by then have become his second nature?
He would like to believe so, but he cannot. Finally he has no respect for any version of thinking that can be embodied in a computer's circuitry. The more he has to do with computing, the more it seems to him like chess: a tight little world defined by made-up rules, one that sucks in boys of a certain susceptible temperament and turns them half-crazy, as he is half-crazy, so that all the time they deludedly think that they are playing the game, the game is in fact playing them.
....
It is raining. He and Ganapathy are alone in the canteen, playing lightning chess on Ganapathy's pocket set. Ganapathy is beating him, as usual.
The Times 8th September 1975
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(Click again when you get there for a very close look)
The Times
Monday September 8th 1975
page 1
Spassky wedding blocked
Moscow, Sept 7. – Boris Spassky, the former world chess champion, plans to marry a Frenchwoman in Moscow, but she has been told to leave the country.
Spassky and Marina Stcherbatcheff, a secretary in the commercial section of the French Embassy, believe that the Soviet authorities are trying to block the marriage.
The Soviet marriage bureau has refused to grant them a wedding date before November 11, but Mlle Stcherbatcheff is due to leave Moscow at the end of September.
“I feel as though I playing against an opponent I cannot see”, Spassky said. Spassky parted from his Russian wife, Larissa, in July last year and he said the divorce became final two months ago.
Mlle Stcherbatcheff said the French Embassy was not defending her. “I am not leaving the country”, she said. “I am going to stay.” – AP.
The Times 1st October 1975
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(click again when you get there for a very close look)
The Times
Wednesday October 1st 1975
page 8
[Photo with caption: Boris Spassky and his new wife, Marina, leaving Moscow’s Palace of Weddings, after their wedding yesterday]
Mr Spassky wins an extra queen
Moscow, Sept 30. – Boris Spassky, the former world chess champion, today married Mlle Marina Stcherbatcheff, a French secretary, and said he intended to go on representing his country at international competitions.
“I hope to improve my play because now I have an extra queen for my game”, Mr Spassky, who is 38, said. He lost his title to Bobby Fischer of America in 1972.
In a two-minute civil ceremony at Moscow’s Palace of Weddings, he married Mlle Stcherbatcheff, 30, a French citizen of Russian émigré parentage, who has been working at the French Embassy here for the past 15 months.
The wedding had been in doubt until Friday because of apparent opposition by the Soviet authorities, who put pressure on her to lave the Soviet Union.
“We want to live in Moscow”, Mrs Spassky said. “But I don’t know about my visa or how long I can work. You know as much as I do.”
It was Mr Spassky’s third marriage, the first two having ended in divorce. He divorced his second wife in July after a long separation.
After the ceremony, drinking champagne at a reception in a nearby room, Mr Spassky was asked if he would go on representing the Soviet Union in chess. “Of course”, he replied. “I am playing in a tournament in Moscow beginning on October 13. Therefore my honeymoon will consist of chess.”
Asked if his new wife played chess, he said: “Fortunately not. She’s shown no interest, but if she does I will teach her.” – UPI and Reuter.
Tom, Peter and, by the time you read this, new Mrs. T.C.
Simon Williams
Adam Hunt
the actual scene can be viewed here
He [CJ de Mooi - ejh] sat in the bar of the Olimpskaya expressing disappointment at the way things were going. "Karpov knew my requirements," he said, scanning the faces around him dejectedly. He had been hoping to meet some attractive young Russian men in the course of his visit, but Karpov had not shown his gratitude by organising any introductions, and CJ was now reduced to attempts at making his own arrangements.There's more of this in the following paragraph, but you already get the drift. Don't you, squire? Nudge nudge, wink wink. Say no more.
Arriving from a long session with the African delegates, Treasurer Freeman expressed distaste for the way he had been obliged to do business. What did he mean - had they all simply walked in and held out their hands for a bribe? "No," he replied, "their hands were out before they came through the door."Nice. Particularly nice, that "all". They're all like that. These Africans.
It was also interesting to observe how the women's event could function as a rough-and-ready indicator of geopolitical threat levels. Even if you knew nothingWhat do you mean, "even"?
about the countries concerned, you could correctly predict from the all-western dress of the Tunisian women that their country is a low-level threat terrorism-wise, and from the top-to-toe swathing of the Yemeni women that their country is high-risk.I'm sorry, are the Yemeni women's team suspected of terrorist activities or something? If not, then what in the name of God is this stuff doing in a report?
Werner Stubenvoll of FIDE's Technical Administration Panel shouted from the podium that they had no power to vary what had been decided in the General Assembly. Of course it is normal enough to hear elderly Austrians like Herr Stubenvoll claim that they were only following orders.Thus, as Muslims are terrorists and Africans are corrupt, Austrians are Nazis.
he could count on the Western European votes to begin with and he had the firm support of Kasparov and Karpov.In the bag then! And yet he got only nine votes out of fifty-four. Who would have thought that there were Europeans outside Western Europe?
"How could you have known? I'm not reliably where I shouldn't be. Are you moving that pawn, or just patting it?"Two short and puzzling passages from Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize and the subject of last Saturday's post.
"J'adoube." Rafe snatches his hand away.....
...from a distant room a child is crying. Footsteps overhead. The crying stops. He picks up his king and looks at the base of it, as if to see how it is made. He murmurs, "J'adoube." He puts it back where it was.
Dear Ms MantelMs Mantel was kind enough to send a reply (and equally kind not to reply along the lines of "why are you wasting my time with this pointless piffle").
Sorry to bother you, but I have an enquiry about a possible error in your book, Wolf Hall, that I recently enjoyed reading.
While Cromwell is confined at home, just after the death of his wife, he plays chess with Rafe who, absent-mindedly touching a piece, says "j'adoube". Cromwell repeats the term himself not long after.
What is puzzling about this is that there does not seem to be any recorded usage of the French term, in English anyway, until more than two hundred and fifty years after your scene is set. It first appears in print at the start of the nineteenth century and though we can assume that it had been current for some time before then, it seems unlikely that it was used for 250+ years without this practice being referred to in print.
It may be worth mentioning that at the turn of the eighteenth century, France was the pre-eminent nation in chess and had been for some time, not least due to the celebrated Philidor, and this might help explain why a French term came to be preferred. But when Cromwell was playing Rafe, the centres of the chess world would have been in Spain, and Italy.
That said, as far as I am aware there is no record of what was said in English, when adjusting a piece, prior to our first recorded references to "j'adoube" and it is also possible that you have a source which indicates that the use of "j'adoube" is much older than previously thought. If you do, it would be useful to the study of chess history (and indeed literature) to know that this were so!
Yours sincerely
ejh
Thank you for your interesting letter. I am sure you are right, & I am aware of the Spanish/Italian pre-eminence but I feel sure there must have been a term with the same meaning - I decided to use the one that would be familiar to readers. Sometimes an anachronism must be judged worthwhile - of course, it is what Cromwell does, he 'adjusts' the King. I hope chess fiends will be forgiving.Be glad to: one to file under how-could-they-possibly-have-known rather than the more habitual carelessness*. But the question Ms Mantel's letter raises is an intriguing one: was there a precursor, in English, to j'adoube, and if so - what was it?
All best wishes
Hilary Mantel
Thomas Avery smuggles in to him Luca Pacioli's book of chess puzzles. He has soon done all the puzzles, and drawn out some of his own on blank pages at the back.Only recently discovered, the manuscript was the subject of some controversy between competing authorities, as to whether or not Leonardo da Vinci might have had a hand in the composition of the problems or the drawing of the diagrams - or that the design of the pieces might have been based on his work.
emphatically dismissed the possibility that Leonardo had any hand in the drawings. "There is not an earthly chance of them being by Leonardo," he said in a telephone interview.This was considerably less hopeful and enthusiastic than the assessment of the chess correspondent of the Times of London, who had suggested that Leonardo
He said that there was no resemblance between the drawings and Leonardo's work. Nor did he find the designs particularly compelling, he said.
Asked whether Leonardo might have designed the actual chess puzzles, Kemp said he doubted that. While Leonardo was interested in geometrical games, Kemp said, no information in surviving manuscripts suggests that he played chess.
may well have supplied the original designs for the pieces.and mentioned
the alluring possibility that Leonardo himself composed the problem...the possibility that Leonardo did compose this puzzle is enticing and by no means impossible.Not, to be fair, that Ray was alone in displaying rather less scepticism than he might: the Guardian's Italy correspondent was no better, not in that respect at least.
Perhaps The Magmeister will use his new-found free time to get his bleendin hair cut
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The Times
Wednesday August 4th, 1976
Page 1
Fischer and Karpov agree to play $5m match
Amsterdam, Aug 3. – Bobby Fischer, the former world chess champion, and Anatoly Karpov, the present champion, met in Tokyo last week and agreed in principle to play an exhibition match towards the end of this year.
Dr Max Euwe, the president of the International Chess Federation (Fide), disclosing this today, said the two grandmasters were to meet in Biel, Switzerland, later this month to work out further details.
Dr Euwe emphasized that he had nothing to do with the negotiations for the match, which will involve a purse of $5m (£2.8m). He said the encounter would not be held under Fide auspices, “if it takes place at all”, and the world title would not be at stake.
He considered the chances of the match really take place as “extremely small”. He said: “Fischer will make new demands. Karpov won’t like it and the whole thing will be off. I have been through this before.”
Fischer forfeited his title last year when he refused to play Karpov. Efforts by Dr Euwe to negotiate a compromise failed and Karpov was officially named champion. – AP.
Harry Golombek writes: This is the match for which the world of chess has been waiting. The mention of $5m suggests that the Philippines has take the initiative in the matter, for $5m was to have been the purse for the match planned for Manila last year.
On the whole I think the match will take place. Both men have always said they wanted to play.
Last year I would have backed Fischer to win. But Fischer has been so long out of the swim of things and Karpov has played so much and so successfully that I think the chances are now about even.
He and Rafe read a book about chess. It is a book printed before they were born, but it has pictures. They frown over them, perfecting their game. For what seems like hours, neither of them makes a move. "I was a fool", Rafe says, a forefinger resting on the head of a pawn. "I should have found you. When they said you weren't at Gray's Inn, I should have known you were."Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate, 2010, p.105-6, p.410-11, p.621. (Original date of publication 2009.)
"How could you have known? I'm not reliably where I shouldn't be. Are you moving that pawn, or just patting it?"
"J'aboube." Rafe snatches his hand away.
For a long time they sit gazing at the pieces, at the configuration which locks them in place. They see it coming: stalemate. "We're too good for each other."
"Perhaps we ought to play against other people."
"Later. When we can wipe out all-comers."
Rafe says, "Ah, wait!" He seizes his knight and makes it leap. Then he looks at the result, aghast.
"Rafe, you are foutu.
"Not necessarily." Rafe rubs his forehead. "You still might do something stupid."
"Right. You live in hope."
Voices murmur. Sunlight outside. He feels he could almost sleep, but when he sleeps Liz Wykys comes back, cheerful and brisk, and when he wakes he has to learn the lack of her all over again.
From a distant room a child is crying. Footsteps overhead. The crying stops. He picks up his king and looks at the base of it, as if to see how it is made. He murmurs, "J'adoube." He puts it back where it was.
....
He feels he should not go far, in case Henry calls for him. He finds a corner for a game of chess with Edward Seymour. Between moves, "Your sister Jane ..." he says.
"Odd little creature, isn't she?"
"What age would she be?"
"I don't know ... twenty or so? She walked around at Wolf Hall saying, 'These are Thomas Cromwell's sleeves' and nobody knew what she was talking about." He laughs. "Very pleased with herself."
"Has your father made a match for her?"
"There was some talk of -" He looks up. "Why do you ask?"
"Just distracting you."
Tom Seymour bursts through the door. "Good e'en, grandfer," he shouts at his brother.
He knocks his cap off and ruffles his hair. "There are women waiting for us."
"My friend here advises not." Edward dusts his cap. "He says they're just the same as Englishmen but dirtier."
"Voice of experience?" Tom says.
Edward resettles his cap primly. "How old would our sister Jane be?"
"Twenty-one, twenty-two. Why?"
Edward looks down at the board, reaches for his queen. He sees how he's trapped. He glances up in appreciation. "How did you manage that?"
....
Thomas Avery smuggles in to him Luca Pacioli's book of chess puzzles. He has soon done all the puzzles, and drawn out some of his own on blank pages at the back.
We start off with the picture to the right - and, uh oh. Tsar Peter seems to have rather been swindled by his son Tsarevitch Alexey. What happened next? To find out you'll need to get hold of the Russian children's magazine Bathyscaphe, from where this delightful scene is taken. Meanwhile, the meticulous creative process behind the image is detailed here. (Via.)
Enjoy the whole thing here.
Position at Adjournment
Guy v JMGB
London League, October 25th 2010
