the following is the chess game featured in samuel beckett’s first published novel, murphy. all notes and annotations on the immediate stage of thought may be found in the novel, but I have added a secondary stage of thought in which murphy discusses with himself random senseless shit that have absolutely nothing to do with beckett’s original work just for the hell of it.
the game, an endon’s affence, or zweispringerspott, was as follows:
white (murphy) black (mr. endon)
immediate stage of thought:
-void-
second stage of thought:
-void-
mr. endon always played black. if presented with white he would fade, without the least trace of annoyance, away into a light stupor.
the primary cause of all white’s subsequent difficulties.
1. P-K4 (b) 1. Kt-KR3
2. Kt-KR3 2. R-KKt1
3. RKKt1 3. Kt-QB3
4. Kt-QB3 4. Kt-K4
immediate stage of thought:
apparently nothing better, bad as this is.
5. Kt-Q5 5. R-KR1
6. R-KR1 6. Kt-QB3
7. Kt-QB3 7. Kt-KKt1
an ingenious and beautiful début, sometimes called the pipe-opener.
8. Kt-QKt1 8. Kt-QKt1
9. Kt-KKt1 9. P-K3
second stage of thought:
conscience is not god talking to me, but me talking to myself. the uncanny call of conscience – the pang and pain of its sudden appearance – feels like an alien voice, but is, dasein calling to itself. I am called back from inauthentic life in the world, complete with what sartre would call its “counterfeit immortality”, towards myself. that self is defined in terms of being-towards-death. so, conscience is the experience of the human being calling itself back to its mortality, a little like hamlet in the grave with yorick’s skull.
what gets said in the call of conscience? like cordelia in king lear, nothing is said. the call of conscience is silent. it contains no instructions or advice. in order to understand this, it is important to grasp that inauthentic life is characterised by chatte… so, the call of conscience is a silent call that silences the chatter of the world and brings me back to myself.
immediate stage of thought:
-void-
second stage of thought:
it is a sign of a higher culture to esteem more highly the little, humble truths, those discovered by a strict method, rather than the gladdening and dazzling errors that originate in metaphysical and artistic ages and men. at first, one has scorn on his lips for the humble truths, as if they could offer no match for the others: they stand so modest, simple, sober, even apparently discouraging, while other truths are so beautiful, splendid, enchanting, or even enrapturing. but truths that are hard-won, certain, enduring, and therefore still of consequence for all further knowledge are the higher…
ill-judged.
10. P-KKt3 (e) 10. Kt-K2
11. Kt-K2 11. Kt-KKt3
12. P-KKt4 12. B-K2
13. Kt-KKt3 13. P-Q3
14. B-K2 14. Q-Q2
never seen in the café de la régence, seldom in simpson’s divan.
15. P-Q3 15. K-Q1
16. Q-Q2 16. Q-K1
17. K-Q1 17. Kt-Q2
the flag of distress.
18. 18. Kt-QB3 18. R-QKt1
19. R-QKt1 19. Kt-QKt3
20. Kt-QR4 20. B-Q2
21. P-QKt3 21. R-KKt1
exquisitely played.
22. R-KKt1 22. K-QB1
23. B-QKt2 23. Q-KB1
24. K-QB1 24 B-K1
it is difficult to imagine a more deplorable situation than poor white’s at this point.
25. B-QB3 25. Kt-KR1
26. P-QKt4 26. B-Q1
the ingenuity of despair.
27. Q-KR6 27. …
immediate stage of tought:
-void-
second stage of thought:
being is time and time is finite… for human beings, time comes to an end with our death. therefore, if we want to understand what it means to be an authentic human being, then it is essential that we constantly project our lives onto the horizon of our death. “being-towards-death”. if our being is finite, then an authentic human life can only be found by confronting finitude and trying to make a meaning out of the fact of our death. heidegger subscribes to the ancient maxim that “to philosophise is to learn how to die”. mortality is that in relation to which we shape and fashion our selfhood.
black now has an irresistible game.
27. … 27. Kt-QR1
28. Q-KB6 28. Kt-KKt3
29. B-K5 29. B-K2
high praise is due for white for the pertinacity with which he struggles to lose a piece.
30. Kt-QB5 30. …
immediate stage of thought:
at this point, mr. endon, wthout as much as “j’adoube,” turned his King and queen’s rook upside-down, in which position they remained for the rest of the game.
30. … 30. K-Q1 (m)
a coup de repos long overdue.
31. Kt-KR1 (n) 31. B-Q2
32. K-QKt2!! 32. R-KR1
33. K-QKt3 33. B-QB1
second stage of thought:
… anxiety does not mean ceaselessly fretting or fitfully worrying about something or other. on the contrary, heidegger says that anxiety is a rare and subtle mood and in one place he even compares it a feeling of calm or peace. it is in anxiety that the free, authentic self first comes into existence. but probably, to understand what heidegger means by anxiety, one have to distinguish it from another mood he examines: fear. his claim is that fear is always fear of something threatening, some particular thing in the world. let’s say that i am fearful of spiders. fear has an object and when that object is removed, i am no longer fearful. I see a spider in the bath and i am suddenly frightened. my non-spider fearing friend removes the offending arachnid, i am no longer fearful.
if fear is fearful of something particular and determinate, then anxiety is anxious about nothing in particular and is indeterminate. if fear is directed towards some distinct thing in the world, spiders or whatever, then anxiety is anxious about being-in-the-world as such. anxiety is experienced in the face of something completely indefinite. it is “nothing and nowhere”.
i feel anxious…
mr. endon not crying “check!,” not otherwise giving the slightest indication that he was alive to having attacked the king of his opponent, or rather vis-à-vis, murphy was absolved, in accordance with law 18, from attending to it. but this would have been to admit that the salute was adventitious.
34. K-QR4 34. Q-K1
35. K-R5 35. Kt-QKt3
36. B-KB4 36. Kt-Q2
37. Q-QB3 37. R-QR1
immediate stage of thought:
no words can express the torment of mind that goaded white to this abject offensive. 38. Kt-QR6 38. B-KB1 39. K-QKt5 39. Kt-K2 40. K-KR5 40. Kt-QKt1 41. Q-QB6 41. Kt-KKt1
second stage of thought:
for a time i reviewed the various occupations of men in this life, trying to choose out the best; and without wishing to say anything of the employment of others, i thought that I could not do better than continue in the one in which i found myself engaged, that is to say, in occupying my whole life in cultivating my reason, and in advancing as much as possible the knowledge of the truth in accordance with the method which i had prescribed myself. i had tasted so much satisfaction since beginning to use this method, that i did not believe that anything sweeter or more innocent could be found in this life; every day i discovered by its means something new which seemed to me sufficiently important, and not at all familiar to other men. the joy which i had so filled my soul that all else seemed of no account.
immediate stage of thought:
the termination of this solitaire is beautifully played by mr. endon.
42. K-QKt5 42. K-K2 (q)
further solicitation would be frivolous and vexatious, and murphy, with fool’s mate in his soul, retires.
43. K-R5 43. Q-Q1 (r)
and white surrenders…
second stage of thought:
-void-
immediate stage of thought:
-void-
second stage of thought:
at night I think of my piano and it’s ocean grave… and sometimes of myself floating above it. down there, everything is so still and silent that it lulls me to sleep. It is a weird lullaby, and so it it. It is mine.
“there is a silence where hath been no sound. there is a silence where no sound may be in the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea.”
