Fearsome Counterexample

Chess has a third and unique characteristic that is particularly fatal. It is not just monomaniacal and abstract, but its arena is a playing field on which the other guy really is after you. The essence of the game is constant struggle against an adversary who, by whatever means of deception and disguise, is entirely, relentlessly, unfailingly dedicated to your destruction. It is only a board, but it is a field of dreams for paranoia. The game certainly has its pantheon of upstanding citizens. While ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin preferred to eschew the Paris opera for chess, excellent choice. Napoleon played, although to judge by one of his games, a diagrammed and illustrated copy of which hangs in my office, he was a far better general. Nabokov was a fine player and renowned composer of chess problems. But then there is Fischer, the fearsome counterexample, sheltered in Iceland, the only place that appreciates his genius enough to take pity on his madness. So should you let your baby grow up to be a chess champion? Tough question. In his novel The Defense, Nabokov, who loved the game as much as you do, has the hero, the chess master Luzhin, go mad when he is struck by the realization of the "full horror and abysmal depths of chess."