In a 2006 documentary about Bobby Fischer, Gudmundur Thorarinsson, former President of the Icelandic Chess Federation, evokes Fischer with a quote from Shakespeare:"I could be bound in a nutshell," declares Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, "and count myself king of infinite space."
Few people have been more self-defined than the late American chess genius, who insisted on finding his own way in most everything, especially chess.
Working at his craft in modest apartments or single rooms, his concept of chess soared beyond the usual narrow confines. It was so advanced for his time that it sometimes seemed born of another universe.
Perhaps it was all about DNA. Fischer's biological father, Paul Nemenyi, a physicist who seemed to have unusual powers of visualization, was also a person of his own self-creation.
An animal-rights activist who would not wear wool, Nemenyi appeared publicly with pajamas protruding from under his clothing. He also carried soap in his pockets and washed his hands after touching door knobs.
Curiously, father and son looked remarkably alike. Migrating to the U.S. from Germany in the '30s after his dismissal from a university position because of his Jewishness, Fischer's father was not able to recoup his career. It is not known whether Bobby and Paul ever met.
It is ironic that the Holocaust victim fathered a son who was both an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier.
written by SHELBY LYMAN
via: Susan Polgar Chess Daily News