George Orwell and Chess

by Bill Wall

On June 25, 1903, Eric

Arthur Blair (George
Orwell) was born in
Motihari (Bihair), India.
His father worked in the
Opium Department of
the Indian Civil
Service.

In 1904, the family

moved to Oxfordshire,
England. Bill Wall

In 1922, he joined the

Imperial Police and
George Orwell chose a posting in
Burma. He returned to
England in 1927. He I spend hours playing
resigned from the chess because I find it so
Burma police to become much fun. The day it stops
a writer and moved to being fun is the day I give
London. it up. —Magnus Carlsen
In early 1928 he moved
to Paris and played
chess there with friends,
including a Russian
friend named Boris. He
was a journalist and
published articles in
Monde, a
political/literary journal.
A lack of writing
success forced him to be
a dish washer at a hotel
and at a restaurant. He
returned to England in
1929.
In 1932, he became a
teacher at The
Hawthorns High School
in London. He wished to
publish under a different
name and chose George
Orwell because "it is a
good round English
name."

In 1933, he published
Down and Out in Paris
and London. He
mentioned that he
played chess and there
were several references
to chess.

"I liked Boris [a Russian

waiter and ex-cavalry
officer], and we had
interesting times
together, playing chess
and talking about war
and Hotels."

"On these days Boris

usually declared himself
too ill to go out and look
for work. He would lie
till evening in the
greyish, verminous
sheets, smoking and
reading old newspapers.
Sometimes we played
chess. We had no board,
but we wrote down the
moves on a piece of
paper, and afterwards
we made a board from
the side of a packing-
case, and a set of men
from buttons, Belgian
coins and the like. Boris,
like many Russians, had
a passion for chess. It
was a saying of his that
the rules of chess are the
same as the rules of love
and war, and that if you
can win at one you can
win at the others. But he
also said that if you have
a chessboard you do not
mind being hungry,
which was certainly not
true in my case."

"I was walking home

through the Rue Broca
when suddenly,
glittering on the cobbles,
I saw a five-sou piece. I
pounced on it, hurried
home, got our other
five-sou piece and
bought a pound of
potatoes. There was only
enough alcohol in the
stove to parboil them,
and we had no salt, but
we wolfed them, skins
and all. After that we
felt like new men, and
sat playing chess till the
pawnshop opened."

"It was almost as great a

shock as the seventy
francs had been the time
before. I believe now
that the clerk had mixed
my number up with
someone else's, for one
could not have sold the
coats outright for fifty
francs. I hurried home
and walked into my
room with my hands
behind my back, saying
nothing. Boris was
playing with the
chessboard."

"Coming to a Salvation
Army shelter, where it is
at least clean, is their
last clutch at
respectability. At the
next table to me were
two foreigners, dressed
in rags but manifestly
gentlemen. They were
playing chess verbally,
not even writing down
the moves. One of them
was blind, and I heard
them say that they had
been saving up for a
long time to buy a
board, price half a
crown, but could never
manage it."

By 1934, he gave up
teaching and tried to
become a full time
writer.

In 1934, he worked as a
part-time assistant in
Booklovers' Corner on
the corner of South End
Green in Hampstead,
owned by Francis and
Myfanwy Westrope. He
worked at the shop in
the afternoons and had
his mornings free to
write and his evenings
free to socialize. He was
now known as George
Orwell.

In March 1935, Orwell

wrote to a friend, saying,
"I have bought an
awfully nice set of
chessmen — wood not
ivory, but they are
beautiful big pieces,
weighted, and the white
ones are real boxwood.
The other day my
employer was at a house
buying books and they
offered him these
chessmen, and he
bought them for a
shilling. We were going
to put them in the
window at ten shillings,
but I bought them for
seven and six instead.
They would cost 30
shillings new, I should
say."

He stopped working at
the book store in
January 1936. The site is
now known as Prompt
Corner, which started
out as a chessplayers'
cafe, then turned into a
pizza parlor in the
1980s.

In 1936, he published
Keep the Aspidistra
Flying. It had one
reference to chess.

"'Mind the step,' said

Dora. They were on the
landing. Black and white
lino like a chessboard.
White-painted doors. A
smell of slops and a
fainter smell of stale
linen."

In 1936, he decided to
go to Spain to take part
in the Spanish Civil
War. In 1937, he saw
some action in a night
attack in the trenches.
Later, he was wounded
in the throat by a
sniper's bullet. He
returned to England in
June 1937.

In 1937, he wrote The

Road to Wigan Pier. It
had one reference to
chess.

"The present state of

affairs offends them not
because it causes
misery, still less because
it makes freedom
impossible, but because
it is untidy; what they
desire, basically, is to
reduce the world to
something resembling a
chessboard."

In 1938, he published
Homage to Catalonia
(one of Garry
Kasparov's favorite
books). It had one chess
reference.

"What purpose is served

by saying that men like
Maxton are in Fascist
pay? Only the purpose
of making serious
discussion impossible. It
is as though in the
middle of a chess
tournament one
competitor should
suddenly begin
screaming that the other
is guilty of arson or
bigamy. The point that
is really at issue remains
untouched. Libel settles
nothing."

In 1938, he traveled to
Morocco to avoid the
English weather and
recover his health. In
one of his letters to his
wife, written on
December 1938 from
Morocco, he mentioned
that he bought some
chessmen and wrote "It
looks rather attractive."

He returned to England
in 1939. For the next
year he was occupied
writing reviews for
plays, films, and books.

In August 1940, he
wrote an essay for New
Statesman and Nation
called "Charles Reade."
It had one reference to
chess.

"There are no problems

in them, no genuine
"message," merely the
fascination of a gifted
mind functioning within
very narrow limits, and
offering as complete a
detachment from real
life as a game of chess
or a jigsaw puzzle."

In 1940, he published an
essay called "Boys'
Weeklies" in Horizon
magazine. He had one
reference to chess.

"Except for the daily

and evening papers, the
stock of these [small
newsagent's] shops
hardly overlaps at all
with that of the big
news-agents. Their main
selling line is the two
penny weekly, and the
number and variety of
these are almost
unbelievable. Every
hobby and pastime —
cage-birds, fretwork,
carpentering, bees,
carrier-pigeons, home
conjuring, philately,
chess — has at least one
paper devoted to it, and
generally several."

In his 1941 (April 22,

1941) war-time diary, he
wrote, "The most
depressing thing in this
war is not the disasters
we are bound to suffer at
this state, but the
knowledge that we are
being led by
weaklings...it is as
though your life
depended on a game of
chess, and you had to sit
watching it, seeing the
most idiotic moves
being made and being
powerless to prevent
them."

In 1941, he supervised
BBC cultural broadcasts
to India to counter
propaganda from Nazi
Germany.

In 1943, he was
appointed literary editor
at Tribune and wrote
over 80 book reviews.

After World War II,

chess was played in a
number of coffee houses
around London. George
Orwell played chess at
the Prompt Corner in
Hampstead, open from
10 am to midnight. It
later closed down, sold
to a pizza parlor named
Perfect Pizza in 1983. In
2007 it became one of
the Hamburger Union
outlets. In 2009, it
became part of the
Belgian bakery chain,
'Le Pain Quotidien.'

In August 1945, his

book Animal Farm
appeared.

He went to Paris after

the liberation of France
and to Cologne once it
has been occupied by
the Allies.

He moved to Scotland in
1946 to escape from
London and write. It
was here that he started
on his book, Nineteen
Eighty-Four. He
finished the manuscript
in December 1948.

In June 1949, his book,

Nineteen Eighty-Four,
was published (now a
best seller in 2017 and
#1 on the New York
Times book list). It has
several chess
references.

"Uncommanded, the
waiter brought fresh
glasses of gin. There as
a chess-board on the
table beside them, with
the pieces set out but no
game started."

"...and sat for half an

hour through a lecture
entitled 'Ingsoc [ruling
political party] in
relation to chess.' His
soul writhed with
boredom, but for once
he had had no impulse
to shirk his evening at
the Centre."

"But the physical

difficulty of meeting
was enormous. It was
like trying to make a
move at chess when you
were already mated."

"One of the notices

carried a printed list of
the members of the
Chess Committee
[inside the Ministry of
Truth], of whom Syme
had been one." A printed
list of the chess
members showed one
name shorter than before
(nothing had been
crossed out), and Syme's
name disappeared. Syme
later incurred the
displeasure of Big
Brother by reading too
many books (assuming
some were chess books)
and vanished.

"A waiter, again

unbidden, brought the
chessboard and the
current issue of 'The
Times', with the page
turned down at the chess
problem. Then, seeing
that Winston's glass was
empty, he brought the
gin bottle and filled it.
There was no need to
give orders. They knew
his habits. The
chessboard was always
waiting for him, his
corner table was always
reserved; even when the
place was full he had it
to himself, since nobody
cared to be seen sitting
too close to him."

"He examined the chess

problem and set out the
pieces. It was a tricky
ending, involving a
couple of knights.
'White to play and mate
in two moves.' Winston
looked up at the portrait
of Big Brother. White
always mates, he
thought with a sort of
cloudy mysticism.
Always, without
exception, it is so
arranged. In no chess
problem since the
beginning of the world
has black ever won. Did
it not symbolize the
eternal, unvarying
triumph of Good over
Evil? The huge face
gazed back at him, full
of calm power. White
always mates."

Orwell uses this passage

to confirm the fact that
Winston Smith has been
"broken," meaning that
he no longer questions
the Party. After reading
the chess problem
Winston looks at the
picture of Big Brother
and connects the two.
Looking at the face of
Big Brother assures
Winston - he is sent into
a mystic state and the
belief "white always
mates" is drilled into his
head as an eternal truth.
Orwell uses chess to
symbolize this change.
The pieces are white and
black which can
represent both Good and
Bad or Right and
Wrong. The transition
can be seen in Winston
as he is persuaded by
Big Brother to believe
that the phrase "white
always mates" means
that there is everlasting
Good and Rightness in
the world. In chess, a
player is in an imaginary
battle and can play this
out without it actually
happening. Winston's
constant chess playing
in the last few pages of
the book symbolize his
shift from being in the
real world to being a
part of the virtual world
of Big Brother.

"The spasm passed. He

put the white knight
back in its place, but for
the moment he could not
settle down to serious
study of the chess
problem. His thoughts
wandered again." In the
dust on his chess table,
Winston wrote 2+2=5.

George Orwell died on

January 21, 1950 of a
burst artery in his lungs.
He was 46.
In his lifetime, Orwell
published nearly 2
million published
words.

In 1984, the film 1984

was produced, starring
John Hurt (1940- ) as
Winston Smith. There
are some chess scenes in
the movie. Winston
Smith happens by the
Chestnut Tree Cafe
where he looks through
the window to see two
men playing chess. He
goes back to work where
he is an historical
revisionist. He is given a
task of altering the
results of the Mini Chess
Championship, forging,
at state request, a new
article. Brother
(Comrade) Harold Syme
is replaced in text and
photo by Brother
Tillotson. Later on, the
State cracks down on
Winston. Now he is
sitting before a
chessboard at the cafe.

Here is a list of books he

wrote:

1933 — Down and Out

in Paris and London
1934 — Burmese Days
1936 — Keep the
Aspidistra Flying
1937 — The Road to
Wigan Pier
1938 — Homage to
Catalona
1939 — Coming Up for
Air
1945 — Animal Farm
1949 — Nineteen
Eighty-Four

Here is a list of George

Orwell's Essays:

A Good Word for the

Vicar of Bray
A Hanging
A Nice Cup of Tea
Antisemitism in Britain
Arthur Koestler
Benefit of Clergy
Books vs. Cigarettes
Bookshop Memories
Boys' Weeklies —
mentioned chess
Charles Dickens
Charles Reade —
mentioned chess
Confessions of a Book
Reviewer
Decline of the English
Murder
Down the Mine
Freedom of the Park
Future of a Ruined
Germany
Good Bad Books
How the Poor Die
In Defence of P.G.
Wodehouse
Inside the Whale
James Burnham and the
Managerial Revolution
Lear, Tolstoy and the
Foo
Looking Back on the
Spanish War
Mark Twain — the
Licensed Jester
Marrakech
Nonsense Poetry
North and South
Notes on Nationalism
Pleasure Spots
Poetry and the
Microphone
Politics and the English
Language
Politics vs. Literature:
An Examination of
Gulliver's Travels
Raffles and Miss
Blandish
Reflections of Ghandi
Revenge is Sour
Riding Down the
Bangor
Rudyard Kipling
Shooting the Elephant
Some Thoughts on the
Common Toad
Spilling the Spanish
Beans
Such, Such Were the
Joys
The Art of Donald
McGill
The Lion and the
Unicorn
The Prevention of
Literature
The Spike
The Sporting Spirit
W B Yeats
Wells, Hitler and the
World State
Why I Write
Writers and the
Leviathan
You and the Atomic
Bomb

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