I love this book. It is just so interesting, fascinating, detailed, and conflicting. I always thought chess was this elitist game for people who wanted to prove their intelligence. I just never understood how moving little pieces on a black and white board, proved that you were both intelligent and important. It is just a game and nothing more. However, after reading this book, I realized that chess has not only a longer history than I thought it did, but it has a diverse history. A history that I think no one talks about. I love that its origins comes from India and Persia. I love learning how chess was played and the scandal of having a queen but playing with human like pieces.

I have never looked at the pieces of chess as ever being significant, except for the game. I never thought their was a history to why those pieces existed, represented and the playing techniques. The queen was just something you had to capture or play and that was it. After reading this book, the queen is not a piece anymore. It is a symbol of both femininity and women. We are complex. We are both fragile and strong. We are nice and evil. I love the detailed history of the each queen. All the queens became human, in my eyes, instead of this figureheads that we all are to respect or not care about. Some queens were difficult and others were not. Some were combative and others loved everyone.

And it just makes me wonder why we do not have more games or pieces of games inspired by other great people or events? Everything now a day is just so plastic, fake, and disposable, what is worthy of immortality in a game or a piece? What historical purpose will games have or say about this century?

 

Image:

I love the lower image on page 145, the chess pieces. I just love the color and the Buddhist influence. I think because Buddhism, is an interest of mine, that I just gravitated towards this image. I just find this image interesting because from my research of Buddhism, to make its symbols chess pieces kind of goes against the teachings Buddhism. The fact that chess is a game, and a game leads to competition, kind of goes against the teachings. However, I understand that is does not really because chess still teaches the idea of suffering.

But I really do not know.. I just love the details and art of the pieces. It is just so beautiful and unique.. Not manufactured and plastic