An Enthralling Odyssey 
by Taylor Kingston

The Human Comedy of Chess, by Hans Ree, 1999 Russell
Enterprises, English Algebraic Notation, Softcover, 334 pp.,
$24.95.

Grandmaster Hans Ree is well known in his native Holland:
around 1966 he emerged as one of the top Dutch players and stayed
so for about 20 years, among other things winning the national
championship four times, defeating GM Jan Donner in a 1971
match, tying with world champion Boris Spassky for 1st at
Vancouver 1971, and playing on several Olympic teams. Since
retiring from serious play he has become one of that chess-loving
country's best and most popular journalists. His work should be
familiar to Chess Cafe readers; he has been one of this site's regular
contributors since its early days. Though this is Ree's tenth book, it
is his first in English. With its publication he should become much
better known to English-speaking readers outside of cyberspace,
and deservedly so.

Human Comedy belongs to a relatively small category of chess
literature: the collection of essays to be read for pleasure. The only
comparable recent works reviewed in this space have been
Donner's The King and parts of Edward Winter's Kings,
Commoners, and Knaves. There are 56 essays, most of which
appeared originally in Dutch periodicals. Ree shows fine command
of the essayist's craft, performing well in a variety of roles:
reporter, historian, commentator, investigator, analyst, critic,
satirist. In attitudes varying from utter contempt to deep
admiration, from wry amusement to rapt amazement, he discusses
subjects ranging from the recent international scene to chess in the
ancient Islamic world, from obituaries of world champions to
portraits of almost-forgotten minor figures, from chess in the mass
media to esoteric limited-edition art books, from celebrated Tal
and Kasparov brilliancies to the little-known works of obsessed,
half-mad endgame composers who toil in obscurity.

The essays are divided into seven sections. The first two, "World
Champions" and "Politics", are the most current in their subject
matter and offer the most scope for Ree as journalist and
commentator. He examines recent world title competitions and
FIDE politics in a cogent, articulate mix of objective reporting and
pungent but well-educated opinion. Such major events as the 1993
Kasparov-Short and 1998 Karpov-Anand matches are skillfully
narrated. In particular the story behind Kasparov and Short's 1993
split from FIDE and their "privatization" of the world title is highly
interesting. The personalities involved are colorfully sketched.
When discussing personalities, Ree is hardly a dirt- monger, but he
does not pull punches. For example, while continually admiring of
their brilliant chess, Ree is less impressed with Kasparov and
Karpov as people; discussing their autobiographies he comments
"On the one hand they are completely self-centered; never for a
moment does it occur to either one of them to step aside and see
himself as others do. And on the other, they have this terrific need
for self-justification; the reader must be made to understand that
the author is always right and that he is a good person." That is
relatively mild compared to Ree's scathing view of Nigel Short's
associate Dominic Lawson, "a veritable chess philistine."

On the subject of FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Ree is even
less reticent: "... the world chess federation is in the hands of a
bizarre clown ... He is rich, handsome and charming. He is also a
ruthless despot who makes short shrift of rules, agreements, and
the process of law." In Ree's view (and he is far from alone in this)
what was a purposeful, dignified organization under Euwe and
Olafsson has become under Campomanes and Ilyumzhinov a
travesty at best, and at worst an abomination: "As the misanthropic
French author Celine once wrote, our only hope is that shit will
eventually start to taste good, but honesty compels me to add he
wasn't talking about FIDE."

Having vented his spleen and shown us some of the worst of the
current international situation, Ree then shifts to more positive but
no less interesting aspects of the game. "In Memoriam" has
sensitive, insightful obituary tributes to Reshevsky, Tal, Botvinnik,
Polugaevsky, Dutch masters Cortlever and Enklaar, endgame
composer Genrikh Kasparyan, and, most interestingly, Ree's rival,
associate, enemy and friend Jan Donner. 

It is hard to escape comparing Ree's work with Donner's (see the
review of The King in the Chess Cafe archives). However to ask
which is better is almost meaningless, their purposes in writing are
so different. Ostensibly we have two Dutch chessplayers writing on
the same subject, but the similarity is only nominal. Donner
expressed an idiosyncratic, intensely personal viewpoint; he wrote
brilliantly but his main subject essentially was himself. While Ree
has strong opinions, he is more interested in the world at large. If
Donner's cynical wit was sharper, Ree has a greater interest in,
respect for, and command of, factual truth. Donner could "call
spirits from the vasty deep," but Ree can also fascinate while
navigating calm waters. Donner's book was like sampling a variety
of potent liquors, while Ree's is more like the Indonesian-Dutch
dish rijsttafel, small servings of many different foods, all
interesting and flavorsome.

While Ree overall is not as consistently acerbic as Donner (nor as
"politically incorrect"), his wit is of comparable sophistication, and
his command of language no less skillful. He has a great knack for
colorful phrases, intriguing details, sharp insights, and the telling
personal anecdote. I cannot resist giving more than a few
examples:

 " he professes not to submit to the arbitrary dictatorship of
empirical reality."

"Apocryphal anecdotes that are told about a chess master during
his lifetime are relevant to his biography, even when they are not
true."

"Imagine if chess were taken seriously in the United States! An
American newspaper would long ago have sent out a team of
investigative reporters to expose the chess world."

 "[Today chess] technique has improved even more, but the result
has not been the reign of the solid draw, but something rather like
the headhunting frenzy of axe-wielding savages."

"In the mosque the God of mathematics seems at work, whereas
the cathedral looks more like a Grand Guignol of martyred saints."

"When [Dzindzichashvili] emigrated ... it was rumored he did it
because he could not pay his gaming debts ... I noticed he was
avoiding me. Although I had not lent him any money, he didn't
seem to realize that: his financial administration had become too
complicated."

"In his heyday, Matulovic could sell you a place in the World
Championship Candidates Matches. Now he was sixty. There was
no money at stake ... But he was still up to his old tricks, now
performing them for free, as art for art's sake. I must admit I was
moved by it."

"She makes quite a fuss of the psycho-analytical interpretation that
regards chess as an acting-out of the Oedipal drama ... It is always
irritating when someone who has not the vaguest notion of chess
claims so triumphantly such ridiculous insights."

"It was a real pleasure to listen to the conversations of Donner and
Cortlever. Donner would be explaining the world, and after he had
finished Cortlever ... would follow up with a small but telling fact
... This would drive Donner to distraction and he would denounce
... the disgusting middle class mentality that thought it could
dismiss a beautiful insight with something as banal as a fact."

"The official reason [Taimanov was disciplined after losing to
Fischer in 1971] was that he had brought back from his trip a book
by Solzhenitsyn. However, if Taimanov had beaten Fischer, he
would have been allowed to bring back Solzhenitsyn's collected
works and if need be a suitcase-full of Bibles." 

Returning to our survey of Human Comedy's different sections,
practical players who see nothing in composed studies may feel
differently after reading "The Endgame", which is memorable if
only for its portrait of Carel Mann, who at the bidding of unseen
voices left his trade as a butcher, one, to become Holland's first
significant endgame composer, and, two, hunt the vampire he
believed was stealing his red blood cells. 

"Matches and Tournaments" tells inside stories of many recent
major competitions; in particular Ree's account of the 1996 Xie Jun
- S. Polgar women's world championship is superb. "Miscellanea"
is an entertaining grab-bag, discussing among other things GM
Raymond Keene's role in a murder investigation, the flaming shoes
of the Eudaemon gambling cabal, and why artist Marcel
Duchamp's wife glued his chess pieces to the board.

Lest I give the impression that Human Comedy is all journalism,
personalities and anecdotes, some mention of actual chess play is
in order. While not primarily a games collection or compendium of
analysis, the book discusses at least 50 games and/or positions,
ranging from some of the most important encounters in recent GM
competition, to weird chess variants including a 1903 game
between "Santa Claus" and "St. Nicholas". One of the most
interesting of the positions is this, composed well over 1,000 years ago. It was probably
solved around 950 AD by the Arab master as-Suli, and the solution
rediscovered by Russian GM Yuri Averbakh. It is White to play
and win, and no, the first move is not 1. Qxa1, but 1. Kb4.

That particular essay is titled "as-Suli's Diamond", but the real
jewel of the "History" section, perhaps of the whole book, is
"Ziryab the Musician". A Persian born around 800 AD, Ziryab rose
from slavery to become an accomplished musician, singer, poet,
aesthetic authority and influential courtier to emir Abd-al-Rahman
of C¢rdoba, capital of Moorish Spain. He also may, or may not,
have been the man who first brought chess to Europe. Ree does not
find a definite answer to that question, but the story of his search is
wonderful reading. 

Also in this section Ree shows his eye both for minor but
interesting figures of chess history, and for new details in the
stories of those already well known. We learn of several figures in
Dutch chess, such as the imperious 19th-century editor Antonius
van der Linde, and the indomitable Jan Esser, chess master and
surgeon, who tried to found an independent state devoted to
reconstructive surgery for the deformed and wounded. We also
learn how Alekhine narrowly missed being remembered as an anti-
Nazi instead of a collaborator, and of the night Frank Marshall
pulled out a gun and shouted "Stand clear or I'll shoot you like a
dog!".

Beyond any specific points of interest, Human Comedy carries an
underlying, general sense of chess as a significant cultural pursuit,
equal in aesthetic worth to music, poetry, painting, literature or
other arts commonly considered "higher," with heroes as worthy of
praise as the greats of those fields or of popular sports, and with a
history equally worthy of respect, preservation and research. Ree
does not belabor this idea, the book is simply suffused with it.
Those who buy chess books only to learn the latest opening lines
may object that there is little of instructional value here, but that is
a narrow attitude. Like an overly practical businessman who
doesn't bother with art or philosophy because they make him no
money, such people miss out on much of the richness of chess
culture, the full wealth this small but diverse world has to offer.

The Human Comedy of Chess is an enthralling odyssey through
that world, full of memorable characters and events, taking the
reader from deep in its past to almost the present day in 56
fascinating stops. It is a trip I guarantee almost any lover of the
game will enjoy.