The direct link to the book at amazon.com is
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...waiichesspr-20

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Has anybody read the this book? If so, what do you think of it?



The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World's Oldest Game
by J. C. Hallman (Author)


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Edition: Hardcover ,
September 2003


Product Details


Hardcover: 352 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.14 x 9.54 x 6.42
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (September 22, 2003)
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 0312272936



ABOUT THE BOOK



From the Publisher
In the tiny Russian province of Kalmykia, obsession with chess has
reached new heights. Its leader, a charistmatic and eccentric
millionaire/ex-car salesman named Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is a former
chess prodigy and the most recent president of FIDE, the world's
controlling chess body. Despite credible allegations of his
involvement in drug running, embezzlement, and murder, the
impoverished Kalmykian people have rallied around their leader's
obsession - chess is played on Kalmykian prime-time television and is
compulsory in Kalmykian schools. In addition, Kalmyk women have been
known to alter their traditional costumes of pillbox hats and satin
gowns to include chessboard-patterned sashes.


Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
During a postcollege stint as a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City,
freelance writer Hallman discovered the chess community that thrives
in dealer lounges. There he met 39-year-old chess master Glenn
Umstead, who performed exhibitions while blindfolded and had "hoped to
become the world's first black grandmaster." The two became friends
and embarked on an exploration of the chess subculture, a grand tour
that took them from Princeton to prisons, from windowless rooms to the
"giant electronic chess room" of the Internet Chess Club (ICC). At his
first tournament, in Philadelphia, Hallman found "watered-down
machismo and bent personalities." He visits the chess-obsessed
characters of Manhattan's Washington Square Park: "In winter chess
players could be found in the park dressed in huge down jackets, the
only problem presented by the cold being the difficulty of moving
pieces while so encumbered." He interviews Claude Bloodgood, a
high-ranking chess player serving a life sentence for murdering his
mother who once reputedly tried to use chess to escape from prison (he
denies it). Much of the book is devoted to a fascinating visit to
Kalmykia, an impoverished Russian province, whose president, Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov, is "a not entirely unsympathetic supervillain with a
kooky plan to dominate the chess world," evident in his 1998
construction of Chess City with its centerpiece, the Chess Palace, a
five- story glass pavilion. Interweaving art and literary references
along with the game's 1,200-year history, Hallman summarizes the many
meanings and metaphors of chess in the final chapter: "Chess had come
to represent intimacy, economics, politics, theories bleeding from
rhetoric to outrageous science." Chess enthusiasts will enjoy this
delightful tour.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
This is a book that chess players should not be without. Not only is
it a voyage through the subculture of chess; not only is it a portrait
of two men, an American chess master and a Russian dictator, obsessed
with the game; not only is it a history of the game whose origins
stretch back nearly a millennium and a half; not only is it all that,
it's also an exploration of the complex psychology and philosophy of
chess. Traveling with his friend, a rather eccentric chess master
(eccentricity and a unique kind of intelligence seem to be vital
components of the successful chess player's mind), the author samples
many aspects of the subcultu chess clubs, theme parties, even a
match played against a prison inmate. But the most fascinating part of
the book, the part that demonstrates just how powerful a hold chess
can have over a person, is the author's trip to Kalmykia, a small
province in Russia where the dictator is also a suspected murderer and
a bona fide chess prodigy. In Kalmykia, chess is compulsory in school,
and here the author finds "Chess City," a self-contained
mini-metropolis dedicated to the game. Educational, fanciful,
entertaining, this is a book that will make every reader see the game
of chess in an entirely new--if slightly weird--light. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
In the tiny Russian province of Kalmykia, obsession with chess has
reached new heights. Its leader, a charismatic and eccentric
millionaire/ex--car salesman named Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is a former
chess prodigy and the most recent president of FIDE, the world's
controlling chess body. Despite credible allegations of his
involvement in drug running, embezzlement, and murder, the
impoverished Kalmykian people have rallied around their leader's
obsession---chess is played on Kalmykian prime-time television and is
compulsory in Kalmykian schools. In addition, Kalmyk women have been
known to alter their traditional costumes of pillbox hats and satin
gowns to include chessboard-patterned sashes.

The Chess Artist is both an intellectual journey and first-rate travel
writing dedicated to the love of chess and all of its related
oddities, writer and chess enthusiast J. C. Hallman explores the
obsessive hold chess exerts on its followers by examining the history
and evolution of the game and the people who dedicate their lives to
it. Together with his friend Glenn Umstead, an African-American
chessmaster who is arguably as chess obsessed as Ilyumzhinov, Hallman
tours New York City's legendary chess district, crashes a Princeton
Math Department game party, challenges a convicted murderer to a chess
match in prison, and travels to Kalmykia, where they are confronted
with members of the Russian intelligence service, beautiful
translators who may be spies, seven-year-old chess prodigies, and the
sad blight of a land struggling toward capitalism.

In the tradition of The Professor and the Madman, Longitude, and The
Orchid Thief, Hallman transforms an obsessive quest for obscure things
into a compulsively readable and entertaining weaving of travelogue,
journalism, and chess history.


About the Author
J. C. Hallman is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the
Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. His work has appeared in
GQ, Boulevard, Prairie Schooner, and a number of other journals and
anthologies.


================================================== ===============

Not even a chess fan and I liked it!, September 5, 2003
Reviewer: A reader from Minneapolis, MN United States
I picked this book up by mistake and was hooked from the very
beginning. It is more of a travel book rather than a "how to" book on
chess. The characters had depth and the colorful characters were
compelling.
Can't wait to see what else this guy comes up with!
----------------------------------------

Very important lesson on obsession in chess, September 16, 2003
Reviewer: oblivion95 (see more about me) from Austin, TX USA
Very enjoyable book, unless you are obsessed with chess, in which case
this book is about you.

It contains wonderful descriptions of chess lovers from sidewalk
cafes, to Siberian car lots, from Princetonians to prisoners. Hallman
traveled the world with his chess-addicted compatriot, meeting chess
players wherever he could find them and chronicling their experiences.

I love chess, but I play Shuffle Chess (aka Fischerandom) so that I
will never become a chess zombie. Some of the stories here are really
sad, but still funny!

The biggest drawback of the book is Hallman's "obsession" with the
skin color of his buddy, a highly skilled chess player who happens to
be black. He is constantly worried about the reactions of people they
encounter. Why would a Nobel prize-winning mathematician give a hoot
about someone's race? (I know. There is no Nobel prize in Mathematics,
since Nobel's wife left him for a mathematician. Hallman runs into the
ghost of John Nash, who won in economics.) When Hallman concentrates
on the personalities, or lack thereof, instead of on his own paranoia,
his observations are very witty.

All of this is interwoven with some interesting history of the game:
the origins, the evolution of the movements of the pieces, the
etymology of their names, etc. I highly recommend this book,
especially to anyone who spends his Saturdays memorizing opening
variations of the Sicilian Najdorf. (If you think that's pronounced
the way it's spelled, you're not yet fully addicted. There's hope for
you.)
---------------------------------
Beautiful Storytelling, September 21, 2003
Reviewer: A reader from San Francisco, CA
"The train was all lullaby, the gyroscopic jostle of the tracks, the
steady click of the wheels like the eighth notes of some slower
melody, the stars stationary out the small window, all of it a lull of
travel nostalgia, a cradle or warm womb, Glenn and I like twins
incubating in that cramped space."

The Chess Artist is its own lullaby, a beautifully told story with the
game of chess playing the role of train, cradling author Hallman and
cohort Glenn in its ample belly as it propels them from the break room
of an Atlantic City casino to the surreal backdrop of the Kalmykian
steppe, "its beauty Martian, the chalky dirt solid on the ground but
rising as dust as though evaporating".

I was captivated by the characters, sub-plots, and settings, with
chess history weaving its way through the story like a consistent and
traceable thread in a larger tapestry. Chess is a metaphor for
obsession, but also for the complexity of human relationships and
motivations. The friendship between Hallman and Glenn is its own
civilized but at times antagonistic chess game, and it plays itself
across the pages like chess pieces leaping across history and
cultures.

Skillfully rendered (at times poetic, at times insightful and wry) The
Chess Artist is a book for chess players and non-chess players alike!