“The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite.”
1. e4 e5
One of my last visits to Space Oddities before it closed, I found The Lüneburg Variation by Paolo Maurensig. I was not familiar with the author but a blurb compared him to Italo Calvino. The description on the back cover made it seem like it would be a murder mystery. Given a recent infatuation with chess (since waned) I decided to give it a try. Never hurts to have something lighter around to read - as light as a Calvino-inspired murder-mystery could be at least.
2. Nf3 Nc6
Stefan Zweig is a writer that I do not recall how I first heard about. Perhaps browsing in a different bookstore, perhaps he swam in the same waters as other writers and authors I was familiar with and appreciate. The novella Chess Story probably isn’t the best introduction to his work but it’s the one that kept calling out to me. Adding to cart every time the NYRB had an online sale, but never quite checking out. Until all the pieces were ready.
3. Bc4 Nf6
“They did nothing - other than subjecting us to complete nothingness. For, as is well known, nothing on earth puts more pressure on the human mind than nothing.”
4. d4 exd4
These two books. Their stories are about chess. They have even more in common. Vienna (cue Ultravox). Metalepsis storytelling (he told him, he told me). Taking place in transit, (a boat, a train). Both about the horrors of Nazism. This isn’t mentioned at all on the back cover of The Lüneburg Variation. In fact, by the time you realize that Mayer is telling his story about the rise of anti-Semitism and fascism in Europe, it’s already too late.
5. O-O h6
Chess Story has been attempted by filmmakers to bridge the gap between novella and visual narrative. The LA Times review of a recent adaption writes: “Smugly dismissive of the darkening political climate surrounding the country in 1938, debonair notary Dr. Josef Bartok (Oliver Masucci) assures his wife, Anna (Birgit Minichmayr), that “as long as Vienna keeps dancing, the world can’t end.”” An echo of Kavan, the faint drumbeats in the distance of a society still dancing at the end of the world. We all partake in a conscious and non-conscious end-of-the-world dance. I’ve read enough to know the world is always ending. It’s really a long drawn out process, isn’t it?
6. Nh4 Nxe4
Adapting. It’s exhausting. The exhaust is exhausting - the exhaust of a forest’s flames, extinguishing the oxygen above a city thousands of miles away. The end of the world. So close and so far, always closing, always ending. The optimist says that in every ending is a new beginning. More dancing.
7. Qh5 g6
“Playing chess against oneself is thus as paradoxical as jumping over one’s own shadow.”
8. Bxf7+ Kxf7
Is that all existence is becoming? Chess against oneself? Life itself a paradox. Forks and pins and backward pawns. Limits and infinites. Two books, seemingly held together by one idea, but by more than one idea, and by more than two ideas.
9. Qxg6+ Ke7
And not taking the time to checkmate any longer than necessary.
10. Nf5#
[Ten-move Chess game found here.]