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Text: English, German (translation)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Benevolent dictatorships go bad.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Checkmate in Prague (Hardcover)
Those expecting a collection of Pachman's chess games are out of luck. This is not it. This autobiography contains information about how and when Pachman learned to play chess. It describes his rise from beginner to an accomplished master with a privileged position in Czechoslovakia. He provides interesting anedotes about several different well-known personalities, such as Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, and Castro, which Pachman met during his chess travels. Ironically, the temperament that made Pachman a master (i.e. the ability to coldly analyze a position, ignoring his emotional feelings about it) is what caused him trouble. As the climate changed in his country and it was invaded by Russian occupational forces, his outspokenness in favor of law, order, and what was right, resulted in Pachman losing his salaried position and being forbidden to play organized chess inside or outside of Czechoslovakia. Many chessplayers from the Soviet bloc, but not all began to avoid him. (It is interesting throughout his troubles to see who avoided him and who continued to speak with him. It is not always the persons that one expects.) He was persecuted, unable to find work, followed by the secret police, and imprisoned. In the early 1970s Pachman, his wife, his mother-in-law, and their cat were allowed to emigrate. This book is for those wanting a picture of life inside a Soviet-occupied country or a picture of what life was like at the top in a country that financially supports its chessmasters and makes heros of them. It also demonstrates that no matter how bad things get, there are still people who do not forget that they have the ability to show kindness to those they may meet in their everyday life. I would like for someone to write a sequel to this work detailing Pachman's life after his emigration and showcasing say 30 of his best games from throughout his life. [To the best of my knowledge the closest thing to a collection of his games is the fragments used in his excellent "Modern Chess Tactics" and "Modern Chess Strategy".]
3.0 out of 5 stars
A personal historical revision, but a highly interesting one!,
By
This review is from: Checkmate in Prague: Memoirs of Ludek Pachman (Hardcover)
This book is better titled "Memories of a Grandmaster" than memoir. The book starts when the author is a teenager during World War II and ends in the early 1970s at the time of his emigration from Czechoslovakia. The book is truly unique due to the event changes in the author's life, first facing facism during the Nazi occupation, then the transition to communism in the Stalin era and finally through to the Soviet occupation of his homeland.
First a few comments on the technical execution of the book. The author writes like a chess author who has never written anything that doesn't involve chess analysis. The author jumps around in time quite often (unnecessarily in my opinion) and as a result, makes his story a lot less fluid. He really would have been well served by a good editor who might have restructured the book to make it more chronologically sound. Also, the book was written after he was already an ex-communist due to his problems during the Soviet occupation. This in itself makes it very difficult to process the first part of the book where he is a staunch communist. And not only was he a communist, but he had an important position where he determined the fate of others based on how much he thought they were aligned with the communist principle (according to the writings of Stalin ... note: this information was found in a piece on Pachman in a book by Sosonko called Smart Chip from St Petersburg). He very hypocritically criticized the Soviets for making highly skilled professional into common laborers, he did the same in the 50s before the occupation. But more than anything, this highlights the problem with a memoir after a life changing event. You just can't get an objective picture or an accurate unobjective presentation consistent with what the author thought and did at the time. This is primarily what cost the book two stars in my opinion. Despite the short points, the author did have a very unique story to tell and that just can't be replaced. Very few experienced the Nazi occupation, then went on to socialize internationally through their chess accomplishments and then later fall so far to the point of imprisonment. Reading between the lines, the author definitely exaggerated some things and then did not provide enough experience from certain periods such as the Nazi occupation. The 1950s was almost completely vacant in related experience. He does say at the end that he was an idiot in those days, but he never really elaborates on why or provides any really emotion in the book. That is why it was hard to accept the times when he tried to convince the reader that he was emotional or even more altruistic. All other accounts that I found about him supported the viewpoint that he was a bit bizarre, self-centered, and highly arrogant. A believable description of a high level chess player. Even though I only gave the book three stars, I think it should be read by anyone who is interested in this kind of experience. You just need to mentally come to grips with the idea that the book isn't necessarily factual and probably a classic case of historical revision due to personal circumstance. Most of all, it's a personal story that provides a highly interesting psychological profile.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a lovely memorable book,
By shahram arbab (Tehran, Iran) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Checkmate in Prague: Memoirs of Ludek Pachman (Hardcover)
I read it over and over and enjoy it
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