GR translation: he alternates long lethargic backing and filling with bursts of idiot razzle-dazzle

[Mike Jing]

Oh I see.  I missed that completely.  Thanks a lot, Jochen and Mark.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 11:52 PM, Mark Wright <washoepete at gmail.com> wrote:

> I always thought of "backing and filling" as a player making a move or two
> and then immediately undoing them, not so much because he's recognized
> error as because he has no idea of where he was a few moments ago. The
> moves of a player so green as to have no conception of the shape of
> rational play
>
>
> On Sunday, February 8, 2015, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> If one has played chess earnestly---and if one has been obsessed--see
>> Nabokov's The Defense and real life--- as many have been---this bit is
>> HILARIOUS.
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 2:33 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > V576.3-12   Pökler is living in the basement of the town hall. He has
>> some
>> > coffee heating on a driftwood fire in the stove.
>> >        "Do you play chess?"
>> >        Frieda kibitzes. Slothrop, who tends to play more by superstition
>> > than strategy, is obsessed with protecting his knights, Springer and
>> > Springer--willing to lose anything else, thinking no more than a move
>> or two
>> > ahead if that, he alternates long lethargic backing and filling with
>> bursts
>> > of idiot razzle-dazzle that have Pökler frowning, but not with worry.
>> About
>> > the time Slothrop loses his queen, "Sa-a-a-y, waitaminute, did you say
>> > Pökler?"
>> >
>> > What is "backing"?  Does it have any specific meaning in chess?
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
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