I know who Godot was

This week, I can exclusively reveal the identity of the mysteriously eponymous Godot in Samuel Beckett’s surreal masterpiece, Waiting for Godot. But first, a couple of necessary digressions.

The Soviet chess grandmaster Eddie (Eduard Yefimovich) Gufeld, bon vivant, prolific writer, and once memorably described by Nigel Short as “spherical”, enjoyed regaling audiences at chess tournaments with some of the entertaining skulduggery which was rife throughout the Soviet chess imperium. Largely governed by the Red Czar of USSR chess Michail Botvinik, there was vast scope for extraordinary shenanigans at the lower strata of this giant chess superstructure, the most powerful and well-endowed state engine for the promotion of chess that the world has ever seen, or is likely to see again.

On one occasion Gufeld told me about the candidate master (let us call him “Ivan”) who had ambitions to be declared a master. Under the heavily stratified Soviet system, each promotion earned a higher salary, more privileges, better living accommodation, extending to a car, access to the notorious Beriozka shops (open for the elite only), and ultimately the right to foreign travel, foreign tournaments and, holy of holies, foreign currency. Promotion from candidate master to full master was, therefore, an important early step on the ladder of the Soviet chess cursus honorum. 

The last round of the tournament had arrived, and our intrepid hero, needing just a draw (representing half a point) to complete his qualification for the master title, was facing an actual master. After playing a few moves, Ivan felt that he had a satisfactory position and quite reasonably offered to agree a draw. His opponent (let us call him “Vassily”) was well aware that Ivan desperately needed the all important draw, and therefore responded, that he would be happy to agree a draw, but only on the condition that Ivan paid him 100 roubles.

Ivan was outraged. His position was perfectly sound and he saw no reason to shell out such an extortionate sum, in order to obtain the draw he needed. Ivan, therefore, turned down the offer. Unfortunately, after a few more moves, Ivan’s position began to deteriorate and he came to the conclusion that he had been over hasty in rejecting Vassily’s offer. “Ok”, he said, “100 roubles is all right. So let’s agree a draw.” He was in for a rude surprise.

“My friend,” replied Vassily, “I am afraid that the situation has changed. A draw will now cost you 150 roubles.” Ivan was horrified. If 100 roubles was extortion, then 150 roubles was daylight robbery. Ivan resolved to turn down the proposal and fight on. Sadly, Ivan’s position became steadily worse, and it became clear that he was now actually losing. Mindful of the new apartment, Beriozka privileges and perhaps ultimately travel abroad which beckoned him, Ivan caved in. He agreed to Vassily’s revised offer of 150 roubles.

“My friend”, retorted Vassily, “I am afraid that the situation has changed again. A draw will now cost you 200 roubles.” Such a sum was way beyond Ivan’s means, so he had no choice but to soldier on and hope for Vassily to commit a blunder on his otherwise inevitable path to victory.

When the game was adjourned after move forty, Vassily was clearly winning. The game was to be resumed next day, but during the adjournment period, the arbiter rang Vassily. “Good news”, relayed the arbiter, “you don’t need to come to the tournament tomorrow to resume the game. Your opponent has resigned the game.”

“What?!”, screeched Vassily back down the phone line. “Are we living in a jungle?! We’ll soon see about that!” he fulminated. The game duly did resume next day, no more was said about Ivan’s attempted resignation, after a few perfunctory moves the game was agreed a draw and Ivan did receive his master title. I believe they compromised on 175 roubles.

A second Gufeld anecdote involved Gufeld himself, as I mentioned, a prolific writer, as well as a very fine player, who numbered World Champions Smyslov, Tal and Spassky among his victims. During the course of another Soviet internal event, in the days well before the automatic recording of game moves on the Internet, Gufeld received an urgent call from a panic-stricken chess journalist covering an important competition. “Eduard Yefimovich,“ wailed the writer who was responsible for writing up the official coverage, “Disaster! I have to publish the tournament leader’s game — with explanatory comments — from today’s round in tomorrow’s Sovietsky Sport, but we have mislaid the moves of the game and the players cannot be contacted. What can I do? Can you help in this dire emergency? The editor will kill me if I don’t get the copy submitted in good time.”

“Do you at least know who won?” Gufeld shot back.

“Yes, that we know”, replied the journalist. “Viktor Davidovich beat Vladimir Petrovich, but that’s all we know.”

“No problem,” said Gufeld, who promptly proceeded to dictate down the phone line a series of impressive sounding, if meaningless, platitudes, purporting to describe the game, which at least ended with the right person winning. All that without having seen any of the moves of the game itself.

Just in time for the first edition of Sovietsky Sport to be published next day, the moves were located, they were fitted up with Gufeld’s commentary and eager Soviet chess enthusiasts were able to enjoy a fine game, furnished with grandmaster explanations, courtesy of Gufeld, with the fans’ diurnal breakfast of blinis, caviar and smoked sturgeon, washed down with the steaming delights of the samovar.

Which brings me to Samuel Beckett and his novel, Murphy (1938). The eponymous Murphy, who works as a male nurse in a lunatic asylum, agrees to play chess against an inmate, Mr. Endon. Beckett evidently knew a lot about chess and reproduced the entire score of an invented game, with his own notes, in the body of the novel. Here is an excerpt from the novel Murphy and is how Beckett introduces the game:

“Murphy resumed his round, gratified in no small measure. Mr Endon had recognised the feel of his friend’s eye upon him and made his preparations accordingly. Friend’s eye? Say rather, Murphy’s eye. Mr Endon had felt Murphy’s upon him. Mr Endon would have been less than Mr Endon if he had known what it was to have a friend; and Murphy more than Murphy if he had not hoped against his better judgement that his feeling for Mr Endon was in some small way reciprocated. Whereas the sad truth was, that while Mr Endon for Murphy was no less than bliss, Murphy for Mr Endon was no more than chess. Murphy’s eye? Say rather, the chessy eye. Mr Endon had vibrated to the chessy eye upon him and made his preparations accordingly.”

The link to the game, diagrams and Beckett’s comments, can be found here.

The game is, in fact, unrecognisable as a conventional clash of chess arms. In Beckettland, there seems to be an unwritten rule that no piece is ever captured, the Knights on both sides execute surreal retreating and advancing dances, while the commentary is a parody of the type of explanation which a hack might produce who sees the moves, but understands nothing of the meaning behind them. It is Gufeld avant la lettre, except that Gufeld, at least, got the result right. Here the annotater emphatically declares White’s case to be hopeless, when, at the point of abdication, White (Murphy) can force immediate checkmate by playing Qxc7. If chess could be refracted through the chaotic eyes of a Dadaist, then this would be it.

As for Beckett’s most famous creation, the invisibly tardy Godot, I have it on the highest authority (degree of separation from myself to Beckett: two) that the joke is constructed on the name of a French entrant in cycling competitions during the 1930’s, who always came in last, and last by a very large margin. “Why are you still here?” the umpires would be asked. “Waiting for Godot,” flashed back the answer.

So, Godot, a symbol, God, a metaphysical construction, or a very bad French cyclist? The interpretation is up to you.

Here is another link to a game which does make sense, a brilliant check mating attack from an earlier round in the recent online chess Olympiad, where India and Russia were declared joint gold medallists from the final, after no decisive games at all, when an Internet electrical outage put an end to play. Two winners and not a single decisive game. Beckett would have loved it.