How close are genius and madness?
Pretty close, if Bobby Fischer serves as the test case. The strangeness and outrageousness of his life are recounted in this NYT obituary. But let’s leave that aside for the moment and think of his 1972 match against Boris Spassky, the first time since 1948 that someone from outside the USSR had won:
The world championship match against the elegant Spassky was an unforgettable spectacle, the cold war fought with chess pieces in an out-of-the-way place. Mr. Fischer’s characteristic petulance, loutishness and sense of outrage were the stuff of front page headlines all over the globe. Incensed by the conditions under which the match was to be played — he was particularly offended by the whirr of television cameras in the hall — he lost the first game, then forfeited the second and insisted the remaining games be played in an isolated room the size of a janitor’s closet. There, he roared back from what, in chess, is a sizable deficit, trouncing Mr. Spassky, 12½ to 8½. (In championship chess, a victory is worth one point, a draw a half-point for each player.) In all, Mr. Fischer won 7 games, lost 3 (including the forfeit) and drew 11.
As early as 1958, the New York Times noted, “playing chess is the best way to communicate with Bobby. But this way is not uncomplicated.” We have seen it speculated in several places that Fischer had Asperger syndrome, and some of the symptoms seem to fit. Certainly, what the NYT recorded in 1958 as the dialogue of the 15 year old Fischer, just off the plane from a tournament in Europe, is somewhat disturbing:
“I had to sign hundreds of autographs. Terrible,” he added.
And then, glancing at Mr. Monath’s side of the chessboard: “I think you have an inferior position.”
And to his mother, trying on her new silk scarf: “That’s very Continental.”
“Say, do you know what my name is in Yugoslavia — ‘Bowbee Feesah’.”
So, in our opinion, from an early age, many people knew not only that Fischer could play chess like a demon, but also seemed to have some strange spirits roaming the interiors of his mind. So here are the questions: would it have been better to have treated young Fischer with psychoactive drugs if the cost was the loss of his chess ability? If you were Fischer, what would you have chosen? Or could you have chosen? Some things to think about on a day when some will choose to portray this troubled life as a caricature.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Fischer was a curmudgeon’s curmudgeon.
January 19th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
would it have been better to have treated young Fischer with psychoactive drugs if the cost was the loss of his chess ability?
I’m unqualified to make that decision, and I don’t consider the compassion industry–whose repertoire of treatments included lobotomy and electroshock not too long ago–qualified to make that decision.
If you were Fischer, what would you have chosen? Or could you have chosen?
I’d want to know the tradeoffs and the odds, but I doubt that they can be reliably determined at present. (I believe that progress in this area is desirable and ongoing, but my unknowledgeable impression is that the state of the art is overhyped and inadequate.)
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Great wits are sure to madness near allied And thin partitions do their bounds divide. –Dryden
Yes, he was warped. Yes, he said vile things–but he sprayed his venom dispersively; he did not inject it into individuals. He did not leave damaged friends and a family with maimed souls.
RIP. Perhaps somewhere somehow, by means impossible to imagine or verify, the discordant elements of his makeup are now harmonized.