canada

Authors David Edmonds and John Eidinow, responsible for the best-selling "Wittgenstein's Poker," have now turned to the surprisingly gripping 1972 World Championship chess match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer in their new book, "Bobby Fischer Goes to War."

As someone who is old enough to remember the match (and who watched Shelby Lyman's engagingly dorky commentary about the matches on Channel 13), I thought I knew the outline of this story fairly well. But Edmonds and Eidinow have come up with plenty of new details about what happened in the Icelandic city of Reykjavik that Summer, and the result is a book that, oddly enough, will keep you on the edge of your seat wondering how a chess match is going to turn out. Or, given Bobby Fischer's legendary eccentricities, whether the match is going to happen at all.

The book is not free from flaws. Perhaps out of a desire not to alienate the non-chess playing reader, the commentary on the individual games seldom rises above the perfunctory: in fact, they don't bother to print the moves of any given game in their entirety, not even in an appendix, which strikes me as extremely misguided.

Also, the book has a few conspicuous errors of fact. On page 175 the authors mention Henry Kissinger taking Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin and his wife to Hollywood "to mingle with the stars." The next sentence begins, "There is no record of them meeting the Marx Brothers..." which would have been a trifle unlikely, since Harpo and Chico were both long dead by 1972. On page 228 they claim that the Metropolitan Museum is "just up the road from the UN..." which they would never have written had they ever actually walked from one building to the other, since they're more than three miles apart (and halfway across town from each other).

But the heart of this book is Bobby Fischer, the brilliant but wildly unstable genius who was the most gifted (and easily the most troubled) chess player of the last century. This story is, as the authors admit towards the end, a tragedy: a perfect example of the saying "Be careful what you wish for: you might get it." Fischer had trained almost all his life with a monomaniacal passion to be the World Chess Champion, although on more than one occasion putting self-destructive obstacles in his own way, as if he was afraid of achieving what everyone said he was destined for, and when he finally achieved his lifelong ambition, he promptly fell apart mentally, to the point where today he is a fugitive from American justice, giving insane interviews to whoever will listen to him spewing out vicious anti-Semitic and anti-American propaganda.

The final part of the story, Fischer's descent into seeming madness, is a little skimped by the authors, and really deserves a book of its own (although it would be decidedly depressing reading). But with all its flaws, this is a fascinating book about a moment in history that anyone, chess player or non-chess player, can find interesting. And if it intrigues you enough to inspire you to pick up a chess set and start playing, so much the better.

For a brief time in 1972, chess was the only game in the world. Bobby Fischer came face to face with Boris Spassky in Iceland, and the world took delight in a simple morality play. Fischer was depicted as the lone American hero gunning to win the title from the Soviets who had held it for decades. The Cold War was reduced to the free world's champion versus the apparatchiks spawned by the Soviet socialist chess machine. It was fun to watch the battle in such black and white terms, but in _Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time_ (Ecco), David Edmonds and John Eidinow show that the true story was much more complicated although just as exciting. For instance, Spassky may have been a Russian patriot, but he was not a Soviet patriot and he was not a member of the Communist Party. Fischer was eccentric and asocial, and his bratty behavior seemed un-American to many of his fellow Americans. But both their governments had a stake in the match, and people all over the world who knew nothing about chess watched the contest carefully, and many took up the game. It was quite truly the most extraordinary chess match of all time, just as the book's subtitle says, and the book makes clear in how many ways it was extraordinary.

Spassky loved the game for itself, and, as a well-rounded gentleman who liked fishing and festive parties with his friends, seemed sincerely to be looking forward to what he called "a feast of chess," win or lose. He admired Fischer, but the book shows that beyond a colossal talent for chess, Fischer possessed few admirable qualities. He was a morose man who one journalist said "was likely to greet even an old friend as if he were expecting a subpoena". His frequent tantrums (which earned him much derision from his compatriots) did, at least, stop when he sat down to play, and he never attempted to disturb an opponent across the table. He was called by Dr. Henry Kissinger when he did not show up for the match, assured that he was "our man up against the commies." Having lost the first game, he didn't even show up for the second, and thus lost it as well. But then he crushed Spassky in the third, and went on to a match full of hard-fought draws and wins, many of which are regarded as among the finest games ever played. President Nixon sent congratulations. Spassky eventually went into contented retirement in France, continuing to regard the Soviet chess administration with disdain. Fischer never defended his title, although he has played some exposition games. He went on to join a fundamentalist Christian church, then to denounce it as satanic. He may have been the American hope during the match, but he is now deeply anti-American, spouting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories (ironic, given his parentage on both sides, revealed here) to any radio station that will allow him voice.

The authors have interviewed all the important officials involved who are still alive, especially Spassky; they didn't interview Fischer, and don't say why, but that was probably just not possible. _Bobby Fischer Goes to War_ is not a book for those who want to study the chess games. It has exactly one board diagram, and the games are described generally, not play by play. Chess players interested in this aspect of the match already have bought better books on the games themselves. This is a book about personalities, about the history of the times, and about the off-board gambits and counter-gambits, and you certainly don't have to know any details about chess to enjoy it. There is, to be sure, a great deal to enjoy here, in the re-creation of the match and the geopolitics of the time that lent it importance.

Okay, IF YOU ARE A CHESS ENTHUSIAST, and you already have read everything about Bobby Fischer, but you still need a Bobby Fischer fix, then maybe you'll want to read this book. However, for the most part, Frank Brady's excellent biography does an adequate job of covering this match, and many others, and it provides annotated games that will allow you to replay, and better comprehend the nature of Bobby's brilliance.

Also, IF YOU ARE A CHESS ENTHUSIAST, then you already understand something about the sad and troubled character that Bobby was, and continues to be. So, the sordid details of Bobby's interactions with all of the major and minor players in this drama really are kind of pointless. Well, actually "depressing" would be a better word. Nonetheless, this book does provide insight into the character of Boris Spasky that I have not seen elsewhere, but in truth, I haven't searched. It also provides a brief post-match summary that covers developments to date. Lastly, it drops hints that maybe Bobby is out there on the internet waiting to play any one of us. Do you really think that is likely? Hmmm, well maybe.

IF YOU ARE NOT A CHESS ENTHUSIAST then I'm not sure why you'd want to read this book. If you are seriously interested in "cold war" related histories, there have got to be better references than this one.