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Fischer: Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse (featuring the Morals of Chess by Benjamin Franklin)

Buy your copy today of Fischer: Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse (featuring the Morals of Chess by Benjamin Franklin), available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The name Bobby Fischer reigns supreme in the world of chess, yet there was a time when it hogged headlines, struck fear into the eyes of the competition, and was on the lips of folks all across the globe. More than the face of the centuries-old game, there was a time when Bobby Fischer was synonymous with the cause and spirit of America, that his moves on the chessboard sought more than checkmate but to pit the strength of “raw-boned American individualism” against “the Soviet megalithic system” which had come to dominate the game of chess at the same time it dominated Cold War politics. Fischer’s triumph over the USSR's Boris Spassky in the ’72 World Chess Championship would ultimately be celebrated as a symbolic and diplomatic victory for the U.S., but, as time would tell, it would not mean the American dream for the man himself. 

The name Bobby Fischer is synonymous with chess and genius, yet for those who have ever cared to know the man, the intellect and the personality, his name is one of great mystery and legend. Fischer was a larger-than-life figure whose life story proves the point: whether it be his opinions on matters of politics, his experiences at the Pasadena Jailhouse, or his life of exile in Iceland, throughout his life Fischer remained true to himself and his convictions regardless of the consequences. He remained Bobby Fischer until his death in Reykjavík, Iceland, on 1/17/2008, dying at the age of 64, his age equalling the number of squares on a chessboard. This book reproduces the original text written by Fischer in June 1981, documenting the “incredible and absolutely true events” of his arrest and torture in Pasadena, California, of May 26-28 1981. 

The text offers a glimpse not only into the aguish of a brilliant man and the harrowing circumstances which beset one of the greatest thinkers of his time; it is written testament to the long history of abuse suffered at the hands of unchecked, arrogant authority, the plight of a thinking man in ‘civilized’ society—the kind of society distinguished for its thoughtless obedience and its expectation of conformity. Fischer's text is followed by Benjamin Franklin's The Morals of Chess as a means to capturing the characteristics of the player who masters the game of chess, who appreciates the special qualities of a game emulating the aspects of life itself. Fischer's text is preceded by the writings of J. M. Rock, author of Death by Socialism, as a means to priming the reader to receive Fischer's message in its proper context, to relate his experiences and the themes of his writing to more recent and relatable events, to enable the reader to appreciate the implications of such a society tolerant of abuse. 

This book serves thus not only as a time capsule but as a reminder of the clash between man and machine, the latter in this case being the machinery of the state which claims to be the master of men. Ultimately, this story represents the thinking man’s plight against the conventions, his yearning to be valued and respected where he already knows he will never be truly understood, where any public appreciation of events tends to favor the forces against him: the government, the establishment, the status quo; the problem with the human condition being such that, in one’s desire to understand (or to justify his continued complacency), the bystander inherently finds himself seeking a justification even for the unjustifiable, the kinds of injustices beyond basic understanding or too disturbing for the sensitive stomachs of people with little tolerance for unsettling facts. It is due to these facts of life that genius tends toward a state of desperation, loneliness, and few allies, and perhaps why the likes of Fischer possess such extremes of foresight, circumspection, caution, and perseverance, and why, as Franklin put it, the game itself “is not merely an idle amusement” but “the image of human life… and war.”

Buy your copy today of Fischer: Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse (featuring the Morals of Chess by Benjamin Franklin), available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


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