Word: mad
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TIME Now that you've finished the entire saga, what do you feel? Sad? Glad? Half mad...
...least get mad scientist Prof. Markus Mobius—the dean of psych study giveaways—to hook you up somehow...
...Fischer is the poster boy for the mad chess genius, a species with a pedigree going back at least to Paul Morphy, who after his triumphal 1858-59 tour of Europe returned to the U.S., abruptly quit the game and is said to have wandered the streets of New Orleans talking to himself. Others have verged more on the edge of eccentricity. The great Wilhelm Steinitz claimed to have played against God, given him an extra pawn and won. Neither player left a record of the game...
...sure I like this line of reasoning because it means that I, who have spent countless hours in public parks, chess clubs and my library at home fighting for my (king's) life, would be stark raving mad by now. I suspect that I am not. I like to tell myself that I am in pretty sane company. The game certainly has its pantheon of upstanding citizens. While ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin preferred to eschew the Paris opera for chess at the Caf? de la R?gence. (Excellent choice.) Napoleon played, although to judge by one of his games...
...then there is Fischer, the fearsome counterexample, now pathetically sheltered in Iceland, the only place that appreciates his genius enough to take pity on his madness. So, Mama, should you let your baby grow up to be a chess champion? Tough question. In his novel The Defense, Nabokov, who loved the game as much as I do, has the hero, the chess master Luzhin, go mad when he is struck by the realization of the "full horror and abysmal depths of chess...