Daniel Tammet’s new book on the legendary 1960 chess match

PARIS. Les Arenes Eds publishes Asperger Daniel Tammet’s book on Mikhail Tal’s victory in the World Chess Championship.

Mishenka’s book by Daniel Tammet, published by Les Arenes Eds, a Parisian publisher, can repeat the success of his previous works: Born on a Blue Day, Embracing the Wide Sky and Thinking in Numbers. In each of them, an English mathematician, writer and polyglot, living in France, talks about the capabilities of the human brain through the prism of their own unique abilities.

Asperger Syndrome, coupled with Savant Syndrome, awarded him the ability to learn a new language from scratch in just a few days and make lightning calculations. The gift of sinestet allows you to associate numbers with a specific color and configuration.

The novel "Mishenka" takes the reader in 1960 to the "battlefield" for the title of world chess champion. The confrontation of the most titled Soviet chess player Mikhail Botvinnik with the young grandmaster from Riga Mikhail Tal ends in the victory of the latter. For fictitious surnames - Korogin and Gelb - real prototypes are easily guessed. Contrasting Botvinnik’s fundamental “bulldozer” style with Tal’s risky improvisations, adherence to the first communist ideology and poorly mounted Baltic reality of the second, fascinating psychological nuances of the chess game — the intrigue surrounding the plot of the novel.

The romance, unpredictability and beauty of the game are the criteria for Tammet, who rejects the asceticism and thoroughness of Botvinnik’s style, which are fundamental. However, an attempt to present Botvinnik as a retrograde representing the communist regime and a conservative chess school does not seem correct. The personality of Mikhail Moiseevich is much larger and multidimensional. Membership in the party and privileges did not make him a signatory to the clauses against dissenters or a careerist sitting on the presidium indefinitely. He was an outstanding strategist, analyst, and teacher, from whom, according to Tal’s figurative expression, all talented chess players came out.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru