It was my dad who taught my brother and I to play chess.
Old fashioned board games were the games I remember us playing as a family. We had my mum’s old Ludo and Snakes and Ladders sets and honestly, give us a cup and a dice and we’d turn anything into a competition between each other. Even listing the football teams of the day and pitching them against each other with the throw of the dice. Little gamblers in the making so imagine our delight when someone bought us a miniature roulette set complete with croupier’s rake. My parents definitely frowned but didn’t intervene and hours of pleasure followed. It probably allowed us to get it all out of our system at a young age because I’ve never had the urge to gamble beyond the odd lottery ticket.
Once draughts had lost its appeal my dad sorted us out with chess. We had a lovely wooden set, and also a tiny travelling chess set in a tiny maroon box with all the pieces pegged in place on a perforated base. This would serve us well on the long train journeys down to Devon and Cornwall from London for holidays.
I can’t pretend I was ever any good at chess, or mastered any of the openings or strategies. It was my brother who had the little grey handbook and had perfected all those, but I’d limp along whizzing my rooks up and down, and my bishops along the diagonals and hopping my knights up two and across one.
Having watched some of Queen’s Gambit (thank you Netflix..)
I was tempted to open a book I’d been sent Game of the Gods by Paolo Maurensig.
Set in 1930’s India, a tiger has been terrorising the village. People are fearful, trapped inside their homes as the beast wanders and attacks indiscriminately. During a lull in attacks, and feeling safer, the village emerges and starts to relax only to find they are plagued again by this relentless and largely unseen enemy. I’m thinking, oddly, virus and Lockdown One and Lockdown Two. It is the landowner, Sir Umar Khan, who rides in like the cavalry and queels the fear.
As a reward to the village for its period of hardship Sir Umar Khan offers to grant everyone a single wish. A lowly servant asks to learn the ancient art of chaturanga, the Eastern and original game that would become chess.
‘Chaturanga, then, was a game, of course, but also a philosophical text. It embraced the arts, the trades, the religious hierarchy, the social order, and the division into castes...’
It’s a small leap mentally to see the analogy with kings and pawns, and wars and the class system. The pawns sent out to do battle, protecting the king and Queen, attacking the enemy, often sacrificed but also often saving the day. Chaturanga is after all ‘as close to war as one could imagine’.
Not unlike Queen’s Gambit...
...the genius quickly masters the board and takes on all-comers, winning multiple games played simultaneously. In response to a bet, the Prince enters his charge in competitions around the world.
British arrogance is not in short supply along with bad sportsmanship as Malik deafets all-comers and I was reminded of another book by Lloyd Jones, The Book of Fame, where the first team of All Blacks travel by sea from New Zealand to the U.K. for a series of rugby matches. Very much the underdogs, and treated as such by their hosts, the inevitable happens and successive British teams get a real thumping. Honestly, when will we ever learn... or maybe we have.
It’s quite the treat when a good book appears out of nowhere, especially when its themes fit the historical moment as if meant. First published in Italian in 2019 Game of the Gods feels almost prophetic, as a metaphor for our times and I will definitely seek out more by Paolo Maurensig.
In the meantime I’ve been hunting down more chess-related fiction and could only come up with The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig. As I recall it concerns a particularly ferocious game of chess on board as trans-Atlantic liner. I’d love some more chess fiction suggestions if you have any.
Also, how about chess the game. Anyone else mastered the art, anyone else still playing...
And if not chess then what...
My brother and I actually wore our Monopoly set to shreds and my parents regularly confiscated Risk because it caused so many arguments and tantrums (me probably). Who would ever have imagined that world domination could cause such a thing when ‘playing nicely’, as we were urged, seemed barely compatible with the task at hand.
So many board games available now...we have a new shop in town where you can hire them for £5 a week. What a clever idea. Three weeks in New Zealand a few years ago and I had almost mastered the rules of Settlers of Catan, almost, but I’d love to know what else you play.
Recent Comments