John Healy's Coffeehouse Chess Tactics

[Arshad Ali]

I remember watching "The Grass Arena" around twenty years ago, which was based on John Healy's life. Healy's come out with a book -- "Coffeehouse Chess Tactics" -- which is reviewed here:

http://www.chesscafe.com/Reviews/books.htm

I like this excerpt:

Talent and youth, bright middle-class children with psychopathic tendencies - that's whats needed for success at tournament chess; with the emphasis on youth. And so their mums send them forth with the Spartan mother's warning: come back victorious or don't come back at all.

[Arshad Ali]

Arshad, just bought "The Grass Arena" from Amazon, just a fiver. Looks a good read. Thanks.

They showed the movie adaptation on British television a couple of decades back -- don't remember whether it was BBC or ITV.

[John Clarke]

If I remember rightly (it was about 20 years ago, after all), the chess got a lot more emphasis in the film of "The Grass Arena" than it did in the book.

[Colin Ross]

Yes. The grass arena is a great read, but (in the Penguin 2008 edition) chess is first mentioned on page 219 (of p260).

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

How good a player was John Healy at his best? I've read that he could play four blindfold games at once, which is quite a feat if true.

[andrew martin]

In the 130-150 range I would estimate . I played many blitz games with him at London Central YMCA.

[Jon Mahony]

Yes. The grass arena is a great read, but (in the Penguin 2008 edition) chess is first mentioned on page 219 (of p260).

Sad to hear that as I've just got it off Amazon Was hoping it was going to be another "Queens Gambit" by Walter Tevis which I've just devoured in a week.

I'll give it a shot though, watched the start of the film on Youtube, looked pretty good

[Arshad Ali]

Was hoping it was going to be another "Queens Gambit" by Walter Tevis which I've just devoured in a week.

Veering off-topic but while "Queen's Gambit" was a right riveting read (read the whole book on the two-hour bus trip from Cambridge to Biggleswade back in 1987), it is a wee bit unrealistic -- to put it mildly. The film adaptation of "The Grass Arena" doesn't suffer from the same defect (if memory serves).

[Stewart Reuben]

Did Lasker really say "When you see a good movie, look for a better one!" -
He would of course have recommended 'Bobby Fischer against the World'.

There is no list on the ECF website, comparable with my list of video material, of chess fictional works. Just a few, in no order, not even alphabetical - except you must read the first 3:
The Defence by Nabokov
The Chessplayers by Frances Parkinson Keyes
The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig
The Chess Garden by Brooks Hansen
The Eight by Katherine Neville
Trotter's Bottom byTanya Jones, mothr of Gawain
Auto da Fe by Elias Canetti
Going to Jerusalem by Jerome Charyn
Black Gambit by Eric Clark
Pawn to Infinity edited by Fred Saberhagen SF stories includig chess in them
Master Prim by James Whitfield Ellison
Grandmaster by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran
Incident at the Sicilan Dragon by Willim Kent Smith
King Kill by Thomas Gavin
Varadahary's Annotated Chess Masterpieces by Vithal Rajan
The Dragon Variation by Anthony Glyn

Stewart Reuben

[John Saunders]

Zugzwang by Ronan Bennett should be added to the list of books.

Another book has a case for being added to the list, despite the fact that it has (I think) zero chess content! This is The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch. The reason for adding it is that the Dutch author based one of the main protagonists on his friend, Dutch GM Jan-Hein Donner (although he is not depicted as a chessplayer in the book). Later, when it came to making a film of the book, Mulisch withheld consent unless the part was played by Stephen Fry because of his physical similarity to Donner. This duly came to pass, with Fry in the role, about ten years ago.

I confess I have not read the book, though I purchased it many moons ago. It continues to gather dust on the shelf. However, I have seen the film, which is very good (available as a DVD). I reiterate that there is no chess content, though it was mildly diverting trying to envisage Stephen Fry as a sort of non-chessplaying Donner. The film has a second chess connection: it was directed by Jeroen Krabbé, brother of the chessplayer/blogger Tim Krabbé.

[Paul Cooksey]

I have read The Discovery of Heaven. It is not easy, I wondered a bit about translation issues, but I think it is worth the effort.

I'm surprised there is film! And shocked about a character based on Donner. I had no idea, despite the fact I read The King at almost the same time!

[Arshad Ali]

Also add Maurensig's The Luneburg Variation.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Fascinating, but the thread is veering off-topic. I'm going to copy Stewart's list and the other mentions here and start a new thread.

[MikeTasker]

There is a new film about John Healy, Barbaric Genius, which was shown at the Dublin film
festival recently. Its covers and updates the Grass Arena (the play was originally shown on BBC TV).
Not sure how the plans for British distribution are going. You might also like to take a look at
http://www.thegrassarena.net/

[Jon Mahony]

Was hoping it was going to be another "Queens Gambit" by Walter Tevis which I've just devoured in a week.

Veering off-topic but while "Queen's Gambit" was a right riveting read (read the whole book on the two-hour bus trip from Cambridge to Biggleswade back in 1987), it is a wee bit unrealistic -- to put it mildly. The film adaptation of "The Grass Arena" doesn't suffer from the same defect (if memory serves).

A smidge unrealistic yes, but as you say a right riveting read - it was clear Tevis didn’t know as much about Chess as he did Pool (he was also the author of “The Hustler” which was made into quite a famous film) the books central character Beth who is purportedly, at least equal to Fischer (who no, doesn’t make a cameo!) in her level of Chess knowledge, avoids the endgame at all costs because she finds it boring and can’t study it - this sounds more like Tevis’s own lower level club player’s view of Chess rather than any super GM.

But what the hell, it’s the Rocky of chess stories and I loved it

I’m zooming through the grass arena, I started on Friday and already coming up to page 200 - and no, chess hasn’t been mentioned yet!