Sunday Book Review: Paul Morphy: Confederate Spy

Paul Morphy: Confederate Spy
by Stan Vaughan
Three Towers Press (2010)
soft cover, 402 pages
descriptive notation



I could hardly wait to pick up Paul Morphy: Confederate Spy. The American chess champion from Louisiana, cast as an undercover agent during the War Between the States!

First, though, I had to set aside my concerns about the author, Stan Vaughan, of the American Chess Association (as opposed to the better known United States Chess Federation) and claimant to the World Chess Federation World Champion title (as opposed to the better known FIDE). There was more than a bit of trepidation in reviewing the July 1, 2011 WCF Top rating list, since there seemed to be a few players missing:

1. Stan Vaughan 2965 (current WCF "The World Chess Champion" after 2011 ACA Nevada State Open)
2. Bobby Fischer (deceased) 2897 (after WCF "The World Chess Championship" title match of 1992 versus Spassky)
3. Boris Spassky 2805 (after WCF "The World Chess Championship" title match of 1992 versus Fischer)
4. Ron Gross 2575 (after WCF 2011 Starbucks International- official WCF 2012 title match challenger after winning the 2010 WCF Candidates matches Final at Las Vegas Riviera Hotel Casino).

However, I took the leap.

The author writes from the omniscient, third person point-of-view, fully strident in a way that befits the Southern perspective of American Civil War

According to Article I, section 8 of the US Constitution, only US Congress has the power to call forth state militia (and even then it must be as a result of a call for assistance from a state legislature, or when said state's legislature is not in session, its governor). Yet, once the trespassers had been evicted from Fort Sumter, which should have been the end of the matter, Lincoln usurped this authority and issued his own illegal proclamation call on April 15, 1861. Not only was it illegal from the standpoint that he had no authority to issue it, it called for suppression of a so-called insurrection in South Carolina, a state no longer even part of the Union, as South Carolina had seceded the previous year!

Whew! As a Yankee, I was quickly getting schooled on Dishonest Abe Lincoln and his War of Northern Aggression. Of course, I awaited the author's treatment of the "Peculiar Institution", which was not immediately forthcoming...

I tripped over an occasional mismatch in verb tenses and some misspellings that should not have been there, but I was settling into a tale set in a vibrant time in chess and non-chess history.

The presentation of the chess games seemed a bit silly, however, placing "annotations" within the dialogue, e.g.

[After 1.P-K4 P-K3 2.P-Q4 P-Q4 3.PxP] Talking with some nearby spectators, Morphy commented, "This is my favorite treatment of the French Defense, whereby I get an open game."
4.Kt-Kb[sic]3 B-Q3 5.B-Q3 Kt-KB3 6.Castles, castles 7.Kt-B3 P-B3 8.B-KKt5 [Black's move is missing; it should be 8...B-KKt5] 9.P-KR3 BxKt 10.QxB QKt-Q2 11.KR-K1 Q-B2 12.P-KKt4
De Maurian, in a low voice to a fellow spectator, so that Jose Maria [Sicre] could not overhear, re marked, [sic] "This is one of his patented P.C. (Paul Charles) moves. Not only is it justified in a position like the present, but it is twice as strong, for it provokes anxiety, confusion and fear!"

Awkward.

Still, things moved along, and Morphy, in the role of diplomat, found himself across the Atlantic, in Spain... and the style of writing in Paul Morphy: Confederate Spy changed from politics and intrigue to more of a travelogue. I rode it out for about a dozen pages (like so much of the book, the places and buildings were interesting, even if I struggled with the prose), and then parked myself on a couple.

The phrase "characterized by a magical use of space, light, water and decoration" (page 62) describing a particular piece of architecture caught my eye, and I Googled it. Hmmm... That phrase shows up in the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Seville & Andalusia (page 194).

Somewhat disappointed, I then chose "where the reigning sultan listened to the petitions of his subjects and held meetings" (page 62) and Googled that, only to find that the phrase is also from DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Seville & Andalusia (page 194).

It turned out that "an undigested cube of rock, and whoever designed it failed to realize that when plumped down beside the delicate Moorish palaces upon which it encroaches, it could only look ridiculous" (page 63), however, appears in Iberia, (page 227) by James A. Michener.

I set the book down. I do not know if I will pick it back up again.

Pity. I was just getting into the story.

I wonder how things turned out in the end.

Sunday Book Review: Endgame

Endgame
Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall – from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness
Frank Brady
Crown Publishers (2011)

Frank Brady (who authored an earlier biography of Fischer, Profile of a Prodigy) knew Bobby Fischer. For Endgame he interviewed many people who knew the Champion – on his way up, from a young boy who suddenly "got good" at chess, aiming to be the top player in the world; through his titanic battles to become primus inter pares (and a whole lot more); to his sad and lonely last days as a pariah of the chess world, a man without a country, a caricature of his former self.

Brady's extensive research (including KGB and FBI files, and even an autobiographical essay that Fischer wrote as a teenager) allows him to paint a very human picture of his subject, one that is accessible to any reader, not just those infected with the chess bug. This is one of Endgame's strengths: Robert J. Fischer's caissiac wizardry may have unnerved his opponents, and tales of his domination on the 64 squares may have frightened non-players ("I can't even tell the horsie from the castle") away from learning about the American gladiator – but, no more.

With his efforts, the author sweeps away a number of outrageous notions that have held sway in the public's mind.

Was Bobby and idiot savant ? Hardly. Although he was intensely involved in chess, his interests also included religion and history (among other things) and he read widely, especially as an adult. He could hold his end of a conversation quite well. (If you need a fancy description, try auto didact. A high school dropout, Fischer, nonetheless, never stopped learning.) 

Was Bobby autistic ? Clearly, he could be a bit unpolished in his social and communication skills, but once you side-step the jokes about chess-playing itself as "restricted and repetitive behavior" (one of the diagnostic criteria of autism) it is difficult to look at all of the relationships that he had (with Boris Spassky, as one high profile example) which included plenty of interpersonal warmth (often, heat) and reciprocity, and come up with that label.

Was Bobby schizophrenic ? That is a word much easier tossed around by lay people than applied by a professional after an evaluation. Brady quotes at least one clinician who knew Bobby who did not think so. There are several untrained acquaintances who assuredly say he was. (Certainly his life included a brand of social and occupational dysfunction, but the matter of a disintegration of thought processes is still quite dicey.)

Was Bobby paranoid ? Aha: here is where the old saying "you're not paranoid if they are out to get you" gets an extra workout. As he moved into international chess play as a teenager, Fischer was not initially as successful as he had expected and predicted. His explanation? The "Russians" were conspiring against him. Taken by many at the time as an attitude of "sour grapes", these claims were subsequently assessed by fair-minded observers – to be true.

Yet, sadly, we see in Endgame, as Bobby moved through his teens and twenties and thirties, his feelings of persecution and his world view of so many people out to get him steadfastly out-paced anything that was actually happening in the world around him. Like a summer storm that starts with intermittent rain drops, follows with an increasingly persistent shower, and finishes with a drenching downpour, Bobby's paranoia eventually drowned him.

It is easy to see Fischer through the lens of a mythical hero, a demi-god steadfastly conquering adversity and eventually attaining his life-long goal of becoming World Champion. What happens next can be filed under " once you reach the pinnacle, it's a long, long way down from the top of Mount Olympus".

What Brady does in Endgame is different, however. He humanizes Bobby, making him pretty much the boy next door. Readers, like the neighbors, can get excited as they watch the kid pile on success after success. Go, Bobby!

And, tragically, like the neighbors who always seem to be interviewed by the press after someone they know has done something horrible, we all look at Fischer's declining years and say, we don't understand, sure he was a bit quirky, but he was always kind of a nice kid, we never would have expected this...      

Frank Brady's Endgame: fine reading for anyone.