This translation of the original 1972 Dutch edition was a long time coming, and one would have thought that its sales would have risen tremendously if they had done an English translation right after that famous match. Why they finally decided to do so thirty years after the fact is anyone’s guess, but what interested me were blurbs from the advertising campaign: “The acclaimed classic about the 1972 Fischer-Spassky World Championship Match.” This appeared on the front cover. On the back cover, we see “FISCHER WORLD CHAMPION! will allow the reader to relive one of the great moments in chess history.”

Well, I WANTED to relive that incredible match, so I was more than happy when New In Chess sent me a review copy. I certainly had every reason to be upbeat about the book’s possibilities: Euwe (who was FIDE President at that time) would surely have some rare insight into the proceedings, Timman is well known as a wonderful analyst, and NIC puts out such great products as “New In Chess Magazine” (the finest chess magazine of all time), the “New In Chess Yearbooks” (I have all 63 of this quarterly publication and look forward to each and every one), “The King” by Donner (a great read), just to name a few.

Unfortunately, once the hype was over and the actual reading began, I was very disappointed. Yes, Timman’s analysis was excellent, as it always is. However, I’ve already seen these games analyzed, so thirty year old notes (unless they come as some sort of revelation) didn’t hold any great interest to me. What made this book a failure is the fact that I was NOT able to relive this legendary match! There was no round by round buildup, nothing to make us feel the tension, no hint of the pressures both players were feeling, no interviews, no insider details about what both players did before and after each game -- nada, zip, a blank slate.

And what about Euwe’s nineteen-page rendition of his part in preventing this event from doing an ugly, anti-climactic crash and burn? Though this was the only non-analytical prose in the book, Euwe’s writing style is so dry that few readers will be inclined to mug their way through so many pages of pure tedium.

So, by telling a story that everyone knows, in a pedestrian way that invokes no interest, by a publisher that refused to add anything new or energetic, we get a book that nobody will want to read. True, the pictures are excellent -- especially the shot of Fischer dancing at the party after the prize-giving ceremony. These pictures spoke to me. I wish somebody or something else in the book had done the same thing.