Pyl dit is een kippenvel review. Je hoeft het niet te lezen maar ik post het toch.
"The King" by J. H. Donner (translated by Richard De Weger), 1997
New In Chess, Hardcover, 385 pp., $65.00.
Reviewed by Taylor Kingston
To be frank, Jan Donner is not someone to whom this reviewer
(along probably with most Americans) paid much attention or
attached much significance during his life (1927-1988). Winning
Dutch championships in 1954, 1957 and 1958, and gaining the GM
title in 1959, Donner had a few good international results in the
early to mid-1960s (notably 1st at Beverwijk 1963 ahead of
Bronstein, and at Venice 1967 ahead of Petrosian), but he was
never a FIDE Candidate nor reckoned among the real
heavyweights of his time. At his only chance to make a strong
impression in the U.S.A., the 2nd Piatigorsky Cup at Santa
Monica, 1966, he finished last of 10, and photos in the tournament
book show him looking downright unkempt and unhealthy, almost
dissipated. Mainly he occupied a vague space in my memory as
one of the best Holland could produce in a relatively unexciting
period between the retirement of Euwe and the rise of Timman.
However, Donner worked not only at the chess board, but also at
the typewriter. And in Holland, where chess gets as much press as,
say, baseball in the U.S.A., he did plenty of work. In the course of
over 30 years he produced thousands of columns and articles, for a
variety of Dutch publications including daily newspapers such as
"De Tijd" and "de Volksrant," general interest periodicals such as
"Elseviers Weekblad," and the purely chess-oriented
"Schaakbulletin." For "The King" (subtitled: "Chess Pieces"),
Donner's friends Tim Krabbe and Max Pam have chosen 133
examples from that large body of work, to represent the best of
Donner's writings. It was first published in Holland in 1987, but
now a limited edition English translation has been produced. If
Donner the player failed to impress on this side of the Atlantic, the
same is no longer true of Donner the writer. "The King" hits with
such a variety of impacts that I am hard put to describe them. Like
a fresh cold breeze? Like a stiff cup of black coffee? Like a
selection of redolently ripe Dutch cheeses? Like a heavy snort of
laughing gas? Like a whoopee-cushion on a pew in High Church?
Like a sharp needle puncturing pompous bags of wind? "The King"
is all of these and more. It is so varied in its material that it cannot
be easily summarized, so bear with me if this review goes to some
length in an effort to do justice to this remarkable book.
The selections cover a tremendous variety of chess-related
subjects. Some are more or less "straight" journalism: tournament
and match reports (ranging from Dutch events to world
championships), profiles of chess personalities, both major
(Fischer, Tal, Korchnoy, Euwe) and minor (Diemer, Saemisch,
Prins), and reports on major chess events (Fischer's abdication, the
defections of Korchnoy and Pachman) from a behind-the-scenes
perspective. Some are pointed critiques of the politics behind
chess, both in Holland and at the international level. Some are
social commentary ("Women Cannot Play Chess"), metaphorical
musings (why a chess tournament is like sperm seeking to fertilize
an ovum), discussions of Greek philosophy ("Seautoscopic
Vision"), or arcane metaphysics ("The Bishop Jumps, the Knight
Goes"). Some are hilarious humor pieces. Some are rhapsodic
celebrations of the joys of chess ("Sweet Little Thing"), others
stark, yet blackly humorous recognition of its essentially tragic
nature ("Shame"). A great many are polemics, in some cases
outright literary dismemberments, directed against Donner's
enemies and rivals in the Dutch chess scene.
All of these are carried off in a unique style. The normal forms and
conventions of chess writing were in Donner's hands altered,
transformed, and often gleefully twisted to serve the demands of
his highly educated intelligence, sardonic wit, and biting critical
insight. The normal run of chess writers most of us are used to (I
won't name names; you know who I mean) seem positively drab
and insipid compared to Donner the parodist, the satirist, the
debunker, the misogynist, the iconoclast, the provocateur, the
fulminator. His reportorial style reminds one of the outrageous
"gonzo journalism" of Hunter S. Thompson (of "Fear and
Loathing" fame), and his polemics are reminiscent of such great
scourges of hypocrisy as H. L. Mencken. In short, what we had in
Donner was one of the great chess curmudgeons, perhaps the best
of that rare ilk since Wilhelm Steinitz.
While it is hard to do justice to Donner with short excerpts, some
examples from The King will give a better idea of his work than
further words from me. Warning: Donner was outspoken, often to
the point of brutal frankness. Those sensitive to the tenets of
"political correctness" are advised that they read on at their own
risk.
Women were a frequent Donner target. Some illustrative quotes:
"However painful it may be, we must not shrink from the truth:
women cannot play chess. ... they cannot paint either, or write, or
philosophize. ... the fact [is] that women are much more stupid than
men."
"The authoress Hanny Michaelis protested against [my] assertion
that women cannot write, citing a number of names as evidence to
the contrary. What a ghastly list it was! The nastiest hags and
frumps that ever wielded a pen!"
"Men want to beat you up, but women want to take care of you.
Personally I prefer a beating, because there's an end of it."
Donner's own people, the Dutch, regularly came in for a share of
abuse:
"[There is] a conviction deeply rooted in the Netherlands that
no Dutchman can ever achieve anything worthwhile ... Euwe was
so upset when he became world champion that he got rid of the
title as soon as possible."
"The theory [of seautoscopic vision] is difficult for the untrained
mind to understand, and my attempt must be regarded as a failure
due to the gigantic stupidity which keeps the whole of the Dutch-
speaking area in an iron grip."
On Dutch tournament organizers: "Kind, full of promises and
guarantees before the contest but a blank amnesia afterwards
that's the way these gentlemen are."
However, Donner was an equal-opportunity curmudgeon, and
other nationalities were regularly skewered:
"Vidmar was a very strong drawing master, whose lily-livered
style of chess makes itself felt in the style of his fellow Yugoslavs
even nowadays. ... [His countryman Trifunovic] has contributed a
few notorious drawing variations to chess theory and obviously
holds to the firm belief that winning or losing is an abnormal end
to a chess game."
Lest the reader conclude that Donner was purely a splenetic
despiser, it should be noted that his admiration for Euwe was deep
and genuine (a tribute to Euwe upon his death in 1981 is sincere
and moving), as it was for several other greats such as Spassky and
Korchnoy. And when the woman Nona Gaprindashvili won the
1977 Lone Pine tournament ahead of many male GMs, Donner
mock-grudgingly admitted the worth of her achievement: "Even in
the world of chess there is at least one woman who rates as a
world-class player. For inveterate masculinists and for those who
must write jocular pieces to earn a living, this is a serious setback,
which will naturally not prevent us in the least ... from continuing
our struggle unabatedly."
As the above quote shows, Donner was not afraid of writing self-
evident absurdities. It is his refusal to take himself too seriously
that takes the edge off his misanthropy and changes it from bile to
wit. However, one person does receive the full brunt of his
unmitigated scorn: the Dutch master Lodewijk Prins, for whose
chess play and writing both Donner had nothing but contempt, and
about whom he wrote a long series of hilarious hatchet jobs:
"[Prins] plays a hideously crooked kind of chess ... If correct play
and judgement were what counted ... he would never win a game.
... He hasn't got a clue. He is the worst player in the whole wide
world."
When Prins managed to win a Dutch championship (held while
Donner was away at Havana), Donner wrote "Prins was in his
element ... Utter nonsense proved a complete success. ... It is a sad
thing that a player of his level must rate officially as the strongest
in Holland. ... Ugh."
Whereupon Donner challenged Prins to a match: "Dear Lodewijk
... I think you cannot tell a knight from a bishop and I'm prepared
to prove it." When Prins was unwilling to play: "Such a blunt
refusal I had not thought possible. We now have a chess champion
who refuses to play chess."
Even in discussing an obscure line of the Gruenfeld, Donner
managed to work in a nasty dig:
"Many people who know the Prins Variation are glad, deep down,
that there is a Prins Variation in journalism as well, although it
tends to lie till it is black in the face."
However Donner was not perversely stubborn about such opinions
in defiance of facts. When he took similar aim at Hans Ree, giving
150-1 odds that he would defeat Ree in a match, and then lost, he
publicly retracted his bombast and paid sincere compliments to
Ree's play.
Compared to most chess books, "The King" is somewhat short on
actual games, and certainly is not a "Donner's Greatest Triumphs"
vanity project. Though not a world-beater (peak Elo in the low
2500s) Donner was capable of some excellent chess, of which this
(Donner-Troianescu, Wageningen, 1957; See Diagram) is the
prettiest example:
White: Kg1, Qh6, Rd1, Re1, Ba2, Bg5; pawns - a3, b2, f2, g2, h2
Black: Kg8,Qb6, Rc8, Rf8, Nd4, Bb7; pawns - a6, b5, f7, g6, h7
21. Re7!! Qd6 (21. ... Nf5 22. Rxf7 Rxf7 23. Bxf7+ Kxf7 24.
Qxh7+ Kf8 25. Rd7) 22. Kh1 (else 22. ... Ne2+) Qc6 23. Rxb7 Nf5
24. Bd5!! Qc2 25. Rc1!! Qe2 26. Bxf7+!!, 1-0 (26. ... Kh8 27.
Bf6+).
However, Donner was keenly aware of chess's dark side, and its
ability to induce madness: "The chess player who has lost his game
who will describe him? ... I have heard him calling annihilation
upon himself in crude blasphemy ... Derisively, he rejected our
words of solace, demanding insults and chastisement. Standing
afar and horror-stricken, I have witnessed how he swore to tear out
his genitals, because he had played Qb6 instead of Qf6."
Rather than any "perfect" game, though, what Donner enjoyed
most was a theoretically lost game that (with his opponent's help)
he somehow, miraculously, managed to win. He regarded these
exhilarating swindles as signs of divine favor. Of one such against
Ghitescu at Hoogovens, 1974, he waxed lyrical in mock-biblical
style:
"An odor of sanctity began spreading through the tournament hall
and outside too, as far as the blast furnaces spewing smoke in the
distance. A few Reformed brethren, correctly assuming that the
*MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM* was present in me then and there,
gathered around me and asked me if this overwhelming token of
Grace was not a Sign for me to return to the service of the Lord of
Hosts. ... He ... of Whom we can only speak obliquely ... is my
Friend, the Helper, by Whom I leap over a wall."
The above is typical of Donner's idiosyncratic sense of humor,
which is the most highly developed, most deliciously ironic, of any
chess author I have ever read. I cannot resist two further examples.
In 1964 Bobby Fischer published his choices for the top 10 chess
players of all time, from which, unsurprisingly, Donner was absent.
Donner reacted in hilarious mock bombast and outrage: "He
probably has not overlooked me at all. No, he has omitted me on
purpose. What is more, I have the distinct impression that he has
only given his views in order not to mention me! ... how dare he,
the little brat!"
And in a parody of a Dutch children's chess classic, "Uncle Jan
Teaches his Nephew to Play Chess," he invents a new character,
the dissolute Uncle Hein (Donner's own middle name), who tells
Jan "What's this? Are you teaching the poor thing to play chess?
Fie, for shame! Why not have him drink hard liquor or take him off
to a brothel, while you're at it!", followed by a brisk refutation of
the combination Uncle Jan was so proudly showing off.
Donner's acerbic, often dark wit is perhaps not to everyone's taste,
but personally I found myself unable to keep from laughing out
loud about every other page, sometimes several times a page.
Do not get the impression that "The King" is all humor, though.
Donner's journalistic efforts, including analyses of important chess
events such as Fischer's abdication of the world title, are detailed,
thorough, serious, insightful, and of interest to historians. And
while he may have found much to lampoon in the Dutch chess
scene, behind his farcical portrayals lay a real anger at the petty
obstructions it placed in the path of chess professionals, through a
hypocritical devotion to a sham ideal of "amateurism". With bitter
sarcasm he remarks "My case happens to be less harrowing than it
would have been if I had been totally dependent on the Dutch chess
world, but not everyone gets the chance to marry a rich woman."
(The sarcasm derives from the fact that Donner's wife actually was
not rich.)
Donner's controversial left-wing, often pro-Soviet political beliefs
are present in "The King," though not stressed. He is shown
carrying a sign saying "America Out of Vietnam!" Well, heck, I
was doing the same thing at the time, but his reverential tone
toward the deluded fanatic Che Guevara will, for anyone to the
right of Lenin, cause his gorge to rise. He also expresses
admiration for Castro and another Cuban, a General Bayo, who
wrote a catechism for guerrilla fighters ("Q: What do we do with
traitors? A: Traitors are shot after a short trial."). Donner
comments: "It sums up the sort of man that we, in Holland, have
not known for centuries." I can just hear most Hollanders thinking
"Thank God!" But Donner must be taken as he was, and it would
be absurd to judge him by today's decidedly less leftward
standards. In any event, "The King" is by no means a political
work.
Of his stories from Cuba (and there are quite a few, as many
tournaments were held there during Donner's time), there are such
amusing and fascinating behind-the-scenes accounts as how
Fischer's participation via teletype at Havana, 1965, was arranged
with the help of large amounts of rum. Also not to be missed is his
explanation of Fischer's flop at Buenos Aires, 1960 (it involves
GM Larry Evans, a sum of money, and a friendly, well-endowed
woman of flexible virtue).
Those seeking instruction in opening theory or middlegame
strategy will find almost nothing in "The King." Yet this book is
more *about chess,* about what chess really is and what it means
to be a chessplayer, than anything an "instructive" book could
possibly convey. Frankly I think rather than spend the same
amount on 3 "instructional" books that you'll probably never really
read and which won't raise your rating even 10 points, you'd be
better off buying Donner's book and having a good time.
Some will no doubt balk at the price. It is admittedly high, but I
can assure the reader that he will get his money's worth. The
translation, by Richard De Weger, is superb. Footnotes explain
references unfamiliar to non-Dutch readers. In addition to the
writing, the book itself is extremely fine: handsomely clothbound
in dark blue, the paper, print, and diagrams of excellent quality,
with one of those delightful old-fashioned built-in ribbon
bookmarks as an added grace note. The copy I received is one of a
limited edition of only 750, apparently intended for a small
audience of connoisseurs. It deserves a much wider readership, but
at this time the publisher has no further plans in that direction. As
the saying goes, "Act now, supplies are limited."
In 1983, Donner suffered a brain hemorrhage that ended his
playing career at age 56 ("just in time," he sardonically put it). He
continued working, typing with one finger, until shortly before his
death. As a final word, one last quote from him seems appropriate.
Speaking of a chance sighting of Robert Graves (author of "I,
Claudius") he wrote: "Great writers must be dead. Their being
alive is no good to us. On the contrary, because they are alive,
there is something unfinished about their work. ... they may change
their minds or give further explanations, spoiling their work."
Donner's work is finished, but I wish it were not. I recommend
taking this first and perhaps only opportunity for English-speaking
readers to make the acquaintance of an original and singular talent.
Ik noem een Tony van Heemschut,een Loeki Knol,een Brammetje Biesterveld en natuurlijk een Japie Stobbe !