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Chessville
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Bobby Fischer, the Wandering King Reviewed by David Surratt
Save your money. OK, I know - it's 50% longer than Tony Miles famously classic review ("Utter crap!") and doesn't quite have the same sense of style. Nevertheless it is about the nicest thing I can say about this effort (sic). Hans Böhm and Kees Jongking are "Dutch media professionals" and chess players whose 2003 TV documentary "Bobby Fischer: The Wandering King", forms the basis of this book. I have not seen that work, and judging from the book I don't think I want to, either. The first part of this book purports to cover Bobby from 1943-1972, or from birth to Champion. The authors provide only the scantiest of overviews of this all-important stage of his life, spending a mere dozen pages or so to get him from birth to the beginning of the 1972 match with Spassky. Not quite what one might expect from a pair of investigative journalists who "...dug through the archives, including recently opened FBI files, in order to place the more negative aspects of the man into context - his tough upbringing, his exceptional talent, his anti-social behavior, his fight against the chess authorities and his growing eccentricity." There was, for a while, the hope that these two had really done what they claimed, but then, I opened the book and started reading... Another two pages dispose of the title match itself. Following their opening debacle, the authors next interviewed Viktor Korchnoi, Pal Benkö, Hans Ree and Harry Schneider (Schneider is described as "...a special friend of Bobby Fischer. He doesn't play chess, but is a world champion weight-lifter, with a record for his current age group of 230 kg [Editor: Schneider was 63 at the time of publication]. These brief interviews average about four pages each. Korchnoi's interview essentially confirms Fischer's claims of cheating by Soviet players at the 1962 tournament in Curaçao, going so far as to claim that the plot was also directed at himself. Benkö does the same, and also talks about the latest Fischer news based on his personal contacts with Bobby. Ree discusses his time in Israel with Bobby, and Schneider Bobby's time in Pasadena. This is one of the more interesting sections of the book, yet each interview seemed, shallow, as if the interviewer had a list of prepared questions and wasn't going to deviate from them, regardless of the openings presented during the interviewee's responses. And what's this about asking Schneider, a guy who didn't even meet Bobby until 1972, about his childhood? I think the chess world can do without any more hearsay testimony about Bobby, thank you very much. In Part 2 we find that another 13-14 pages covers the remainder of Bobby's life to date. This is followed by the interviews. Again, some interesting stuff in here, but nothing really dramatic or novel from the likes of Lothar Schmidt, Anatoly Karpov, Yasser Seirawan and Zsofia Polgar, among others. Hans Böhm himself is interviewed in this section, and once again we have to hear about Bobby's youth, although Hans was just 22 when Bobby first fought Spassky for the world title. Again, hearsay, since he offers this in the context of an interview, rather than a recounting of his research. The reader is next subjected to four pages of excerpts from Fischer's infamous Philippine radio interviews, and another two pages of a phone interview conducted with the interviewer. Most of the rest of the book (another 25 pages or so) are of similar ilk, and I won't offend your sensibilities by detailing them here. I've already spent far too much time on this apparent effort to cash in on Fischermania. I repeat, "Save your money."
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