November 7, 2009


the novel as chess

All plots, as Don DeLillo memorably put it, end in death. Moreover, en route to their respective endgames, both chess and the novel offer powerful arenas in which to investigate the question of questions: the ever-vexatious issue of the relationship between fate and agency, between necessity and freedom. Every move is our own, except when it’s not. Either way, the board thins, the sheaf of paper in the right hand dwindles, sifting 
left as if blown by an inexorable wind—though of course, we turn every page. Chess, in this sense, is the opposite of dice, just as the novel is the opposite of Scripture (the exact difference between chance and providence has never been clear, but they share an antithesis in deliberative subjectivity, and this may be 
a clue).

And that’s just the intro. D. Graham Burnett and W. J. Walter have, actually, devised a program that allows players to pit novels against novels in games of chess.

(via marginal revolution)

posted by Deron Bauman in books, fiction, games, how to, literature 

comments

One Response to “the novel as chess”

  1. Checkmate, Huck Finn « Meanderings on November 10th, 2009 at 8:23 am

    [...] (Via Clusterflock) [...]

Leave a Reply