Bobby Fischer was possibly the greatest chess player who ever lived. Unfortunately, he was also as mad as a hatter.
Endgame tells the story of Bobby Fischer from the moment he is a small child with a cheap department store chess set until he is a frozen corpse in Iceland being dug up for a DNA test. In between, he becomes an International Grandmaster, an obsessed religious fanatic, a diehard anti-Semite, anti-American, and all around world class asshole.
I had heard of Bobby Fischer, but my main memories of him were as a slightly mad looking fellow with a large white beard who ran off to live in Iceland. I don’t even recall having heard about all the hate talk that mark the last twenty years or so of his life. I am much more familiar with the film, Waiting For Bobby Fischer. After hearing Bobby’s story of despair and insanity, I have to wonder why anyone would want their child be the next Bobby Fischer.
As someone who had never heard Bobby Fischer’s story, I found it both amazing and almost unbelievable. Bobby goes from nowhere to chess champion to homeless crazy to millionaire to ranting madman to lonely exile living and dying in Iceland. He remains a brilliant chess player, but adamantly refuses to play chess for the bulk of his life. He invents his own style of chess he calls Fischer Random. He writes two books during his chess playing years-and then abandons writing about chess after winning the World Championship.
The most important parts of Bobby Fischer’s story are the ones about chess-the games, the obsessive study, the endless speed chess games, the endless replaying of games, and the amazing concentration required to become a Grandmaster in record time. And it is Bobby’s turning his back on chess that makes his story a tragic one.
I don’t really care that Bobby Fischer wanted every Jew to die and that he rejoiced at the news of the 9/11 attacks-it is baffling, but it is only important in that it helped keep him away from chess. Frank Brady goes out of his way to tell us that Bobby Fischer may have been a nasty bit of business, but that he was not certifiablely insane.
Hmm, is it better or worse that Bobby Fischer’s strange obsessions were the product of a sane mind? I think Bobby was nuts, no matter what Frank has to say about it.
Endgame was a good book and I enjoyed the delivery and pacing of the audiobook reader Ray Porter.
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