by Twenty five thousand people in Trafalgar Square finally made a century old literary device make sense to me properly
Standing at the edge of ChessFest this month, watching thousands of strangers bent quietly over boards, I finally understood something about early twentieth century fiction that had genuinely puzzled me for years, why so many Edwardian novelists reached for chess and card games as a device for showing characters revealing themselves without actually saying anything directly.
What The Actual Scene Taught Me
Watching real strangers play, the specific tells, the hesitation before a risky move, the small satisfied exhale after a good one, gave me a considerably clearer sense of exactly what those novelists were trying to capture on the page, a whole silent emotional vocabulary playing out entirely through gesture and pause rather than dialogue.
A Specific Novel I Kept Thinking Of
There is a particular, much loved scene from this period involving a drawing room card game that critics have spent considerable energy analysing for its buried tension, and standing in that square I finally, properly appreciated exactly how much genuine observation of real gameplay must have gone into writing it convincingly.
My Own Attempt At Playing
I sat down at one of the beginner tables myself, entirely in the spirit of research, and lost quite badly, though I did notice myself, mid game, unconsciously performing exactly the kind of small tells I had just spent the afternoon admiring in literary form, proof the device works because it is simply true.
A Small Confession About My Note Taking
I filled an entire page of my notebook with observed gestures and expressions, entirely for future reference, a habit my friends find slightly unsettling when I do it at parties and apparently equally unsettling when I do it at a chess tournament.
Further Reading
For more of my literary observations applied to ordinary London life, I have written previously at my author page.
Closing Thought
A century old literary device, fully explained by an afternoon in Trafalgar Square. More close reading of real life at my author page on The London Prat.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
