Word: steiner
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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FIELDS OF FORCE by GEORGE STEINER 86 pages. Viking Press...
...Chess," as George Steiner indicates in this little antidote to Reykjavik's hyperbolic summer of '72, "may well be the deepest, least exhaustible of pastimes, but it is nothing more. Bobby Fischer's assertion that it is 'everything' is merely necessary monomania. As for the maniac: "A chess genius is a human being who focuses vast, little-understood mental gifts and labors on an ultimately trivial human enterprise. Almost inevitably, this focus produces pathological symptoms of nervous stress and unreality...
...sure, Steiner admits, Bobby inoculated the world with chess fever singlehanded. Piling demands upon tantrums, he elevated the first prize from $3,000 to $2 million and transformed a board game into a blood sport. But Steiner, a literary critic first and a chess patzer second, is appalled by Fischer's xenophobic rancor, his avarice and below all, his literary taste (Fu Manchu, Tarzan and Playboy...
...side of the board, matters are more elevated: Steiner's Reykjavik encounter with the Russian was "a privilege. He is an individual of great charm and impeccable courtesy. In contrast to Fischer, Spassky's literacy is wide and his political awareness is at once subtle and adult." Yet as the admirer acknowledges, that cultivation may have undone Spassky. Despite the Russian's domination of the game for a decade, the Boris of Iceland displayed a literal and philosophical resignation in the face of Fischer's predatory inventions. The result was less drama than ritual: civilization vanquished...
Leadership usually begins with a vision of success, a glimmering intuition that solutions are possible. Now, as Critic George Steiner has said, "we no longer experience history as ascendant." At the same time, there seems to be something naggingly excessive about such gloom, out of proportion with the great amount of skill, intelligence and energy that exists in America and elsewhere. Even while the largest problems (including the largest cities) seem to have grown unmanageable, there have been countless new examples of leadership, imagination and dedication on a lesser scale: in smaller communities, in many organizations, in business. The gallery...