Celebrating Chess, Literature, And Judit Polgar On Bloomsday

No artistic masterpiece—whether a novel, movie, play, or painting—should be considered complete without a chess scene, right? How much do you enjoy seeing chess being in a great work of art?

In the literary world, today is known as Bloomsday, a day to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce. Ulysses, his most prominent work, is an important component of modernist literature and one of the greatest literary achievements in history, and a chess scene is part of the 265,000-word narrative (albeit a brief one).

The entire novel chronicles the journey of Leopold Bloom, the fictional hero and central character, across Dublin on a single day—June 16, 1904. A chess game is described among his activities and encounters in Dublin that mirror those of Odysseus in Homer's epic poem, the Odyssey.

In the 10th episode of Ulysses (the Latinized name of Odysseus), Joyce paints Dublin as a bustling city with specific locations, streets, buildings, and shops that can be verified on a map. In one encounter in this episode, John Howard Parnell, the brother of an Irish hero, is playing chess and is described as having a “beard and gaze [that] hung intently down” on the board (10:1047). (My reference identifies the episode and line in Ulysses.) Soon “his eyes looked quickly, ghostbright, at his foe and fell once more upon a working corner” (10:1053) of the chessboard where pieces are concentrated.

At the Dublin Bakery Company’s restaurant, chess players meet in the smoking room. In this scene, Parnell who is the city marshal of Dublin is skipping an important duty to play chess instead at the DBC (10:504-510). (Imagine that!) Parnell’s significance in Irish culture is that he is the brother of Charles Stewart Parnell, who served as Leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party and Leader of the Home Rule League.

Chess, James Joyce and Dublin share another curious relationship besides the game in Ulysses. GM Judit Polgar received the James Joyce Award at University College, Dublin (whose notable alumni include Joyce), from the Literary and Historical Society (the oldest debating society at UCD) in May 2017 (if they had only waited until June and presented it on Bloomsday). The award recognizes Polgar for contributing “significantly to the field of human endeavor.” When she received the honor in Dublin, she explained her path to success in chess and emphasized, “Without work, talent is lost.”

Without work, talent is lost.
—GM Judit Polgar

Celebrated since 1924, Bloomsday commemorates the single day in 1904 that events in Ulysses take place. Annual events celebrating Bloomsday are held across the globe, most notably in Dublin. Other examples include celebrations in Hungary in the town of Szombathely, the birthplace of Leopold Bloom's fictional father; in Italy where the first part of Ulysses was written in Trieste; in Canada that holds a five-day festival in Montreal and features walking tours of historic Irish areas of the city; in many cities of the United States such as Philadelphia, home of Joyce’s handwritten manuscript of Ulysses; in Australia with theatrical events in Melbourne; and in the Czech Republic where festivities are held in Prague.

Let’s celebrate Bloomsday by playing chess. Will your gaze hang down intently on a chessboard as Joyce describes in Ulysses?

Now it’s your turn. Are you familiar with Bloomsday as a significant literary date? Do you think chess scenes add value to artistic works?