Chester and mad poets
chess IRRITABLE
PRIMO LEVI
from "The PEOPLE'S BUSINESS" *
Already Horace, a poet himself, confessed to let it run on many things but not to make enemies of the brood irritable poets, poets and irritable, or more generally, the writers are still just think the events of literary prizes, and the visceral hatred that the poet pays to the critic when his review contains only the shadow of a doubt. We read now, as Karpov and Korchnoi in Merano ** are silently devour, how irritable are chess players. Why is this quality shared by the chess players and poets? There is something in common between chess and poetry?
Lovers of the noble game to support it: a game of chess, but played between amateurs, is an austere life and a metaphor for the struggle for life, and the virtues of chess, reason, memory and invention, are the virtues of every thinking man. The strict rule of chess, so the piece has been touched must be moved, and is not allowed to redo a section of which you have repented, reproduces the relentlessness of the choices of those who live. When your king, as a result of your incompetence or carelessness or imprudence or the superiority of the opponent is close closer and closer, threatened (But the threat must be expressed in a clear voice: It is never a snare), incantonato, and finally pierced, you will not fail to perceive, beyond the board, symbolic shadow. What you're experiencing is a death is your death, and together is a death that you bear the blame. Lives this will strengthen and exorcise.
This game is so fierce and chivalrous poetry: that is felt by all those who have practiced at any level, but I think the reason irritability of poets and chess players do not reside here. The poets, and anyone engaged in a creative profession and individual chess players have in common with the total responsibility for their actions. This rarely happens, or does not happen at all, other human activities, both paid and series, both free and playful. It is perhaps no coincidence that such players, who play alone or at most in pairs, are more angry and neurotic of players or cyclists, who work in teams. About
make himself, without allies or intermediaries between himself and his work, comes to the failure has no excuses, and excuses are a valuable analgesic. The applicant may download the guilt of his failure on the director, or vice versa, those who work in an industry feels its responsibility diluted those of many colleagues, superiors and subordinates, and also polluted by the "contingency," the competition, caprice market, against the unexpected. Who can blame the teaching programs, the principal, and of course students.
The politician, at least in pluralistic regime, make their way through a thicket of tension, collusion, hidden or overt hostility, leghold, favors, and has a thousand occasions when it fails to justify himself and to others before himself, but also The despot, the holder of absolute power, total responsibility for his choice, open and accepted, before the collapse of those who look for answers in his place: he wants the analgesic. Hitler himself besieged in the Chancery, an hour before killing himself, angrily fired all his guilt upon the German people, which was not worthy of him. But those who decide to attack with the bishop believes that the weak point of the line opponent, it's just not even putative co-responsible, and is fully and individually ¬ mind of its decision, as the poet at the table before the "piccioletto to." Even if only during a game, it is adult and mature.
It should be added that poet and chess player only works with the brain, and that the quality of our brain we are all very touchy. Accusing the next to be weak kidneys, or lungs, or heart, is not a crime, call weak brain instead. To be considered stupid and to be told, it is more painful than feeling defined greedy, lying, violent, lustful, lazy, cowardly: every weakness, every vice has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and exaltation, but stupidity not.
'Stupid' is a strong word and a bitter insult, perhaps this is why, in all languages \u200b\u200band dialects in particular, the term has a myriad of synonyms, more or less euphemistic, as with the words related to sex and death. If Christ, according to Matthew Evangelista (5.22), who had heard the warning that should have said 'Raca' to his brother will be brought to trial, and who will be called crazy down among the damned, is a sign that he recognized the nature of vulnerante these judgments.
against them the chess player and the poet are defenseless: they are stripped. Their every verse, every line is signed. Staff-accomplices have not: yes they had masters, in the flesh or range of continents and centuries, but they know our weakness and cowardice to blame the teachers, and still others. Now, who is naked, with the discovery and skin densely covered with nerve endings, without a shield to protect him or clothing that the dividing screens and matte, is vulnerable and irritable. This is a condition which, in our complicated society, there is rarely exposed, but there are few lives in which the time of stripping is not. So we suffer for the nudity that we did not adapted: also leather, not metaphorical, is irritated when exposed to the sun.
For this reason, I think it would be very bad chess player a good thing if the game of chess was more widespread, and perhaps was taught and practiced in schools, as long you do in the Soviet Union. It would be good, in other words, if everyone, especially those who aspire to control or political career, learned early to live chess, that meditating before moving, knowing that the time allowed for each move is limited, bearing in mind that our every move it causes another opponent, difficult but not impossible to predict, and paying for the wrong moves.
The exercise of these virtues is certainly long-term benefits, both for the individual and for the community. In the short term, it has its price, which is to make us a little irritable.
* The job is another non-fiction work written by Primo Levi and published by Einaudi in 1985. The writings that the book contains articles that are primarily Levi published in newspapers and magazines, the mainstream press, from 1964 to 1984. The author deals with issues such as life sciences, zoology, astronomy and literature. Also tells us of some of his youthful memories and ultimately provide a valuable autobiography, written with his clear and precise style. ** In 1981 Merano hosted the final of the World Cup, which saw the absolute rule of about Karpov Korchnoi, who won the match with 6 wins, 2 draws and 10 defeats sun.
