The Say Chess Newsletter
In the Substack economy, there is apparently a feature where one blog can recommend another, as I discovered a few days ago when Martin Justesen’s “The Say Chess Newsletter” did so with this blog. Thank you to its proprietor, and I’ll reciprocate by inviting my readers to have a look over there.
I’ll also draw your attention to this post, “Will Magnus Play Another World Championship Match?” The post isn’t really a deep exploration into that question, for the reason that there’s not too much to explore. All we can do is wait for Carlsen to make his decision. What Justesen does instead is use the post as the occasion for a discussion of Joseph Campbell’s well-known trope of the hero’s journey. He (Justesen) mentions a couple of well-known examples from fiction (Achilles, Bilbo Baggins), along with one of Carlsen’s great predecessors - Bobby Fischer, but most of the discussion is about Carlsen’s situation. Will he go on the “hero’s journey” by playing Ian Nepomniachtchi again in 2023, or not?
But I don’t really think it fits Carlsen’s situation very well. Whatever the merits of the hero’s journey template, it’s typically understood as a sort of rite of passage. The would-be hero receives the call, then trains, and then undertakes the ordeal, whereupon he returns transformed and empowered, and moves on to a new stage of life. It seems to me that if we want to fit Carlsen into this model, the relevant date for its application is not 2023 but 2013, when he defeated Viswanathan Anand to take the crown. And then there’s 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2021 for good measure. He has been the “hero” for a long time now; it seems that this is something less folkloric and more like a midlife crisis. If there’s anything that’s hero’s journey-ish about Carlsen’s situation, it would occur if he gives up the title to pursue other adventures.
So, I’m not persuaded by what Justesen is up to in his article. Regardless, I like that he’s trying to do something interesting and unusual compared to most chess writers. Keep at it!