12 ★ FTWeekend 2 November/3 November 2019Magnus Carlsen is in action
this week, as the No1, on
home ground in Oslo, has
reached yet another global
title on Thursday, Friday
and Saturday afternoons.
Its format is Fischer
Random, the variable
arrangement of pieces on
the back row, which has
gained interest due to
the many draws in
classical chess.
This inaugural official FR
world championship began
with online qualifiers.Carlsen had a bye to the
semi-final where he
defeated his old rival
Fabiano Caruana 12.5-7.5
and now meets another
American, Wesley So, in the
final. They play best of 12
games at varying time rates
with the slower games
counting for more.
The final is on
chess.com/tv and twitch,
tv/chess and viewers will be
able to watch Carlsen close
up. There are 960 possible
starting positions, butalready theory is taking
shape; Carlsen says that the
worst positions for him to
play are with the queens
on a1 and a8, but he hasstill scored wins by flowing
attacks.
England’s silver medallists
at the world teams in March
are also in action again, this
time for the European title
at Batumi, Georgia.
2339
Ex-world champion Vishy
Anand (White, to move)
had a seemingly simple
win here by 1 Rc2+ followed
by b6, Rc7 and b7. Instead
White chose the cautious
1 Kg2. Why?
Solution, back page12345678A B C D E F G HDiversions
POLYMATH ,046 SET BY AARDVARK 1
CHESS EONARD BARDENL
Polymath 1,046 Set by Aardvark CROSSWORD 6,314 SET BY GOLIATH^1
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1 English Footballer of the
Year in 1958 and 1961 (5,12)
10 ype of two-humped camel T
native to central Asia (8)
11 European nonpasserine
insect-feeding bird related
to the swift (8)
12 Shrub or tree, also called
Egyptian privet, a source of
henna (10)
13 Christine, actress who
played The Girl in the 1968
film If .... (6)
14 Greek god, son of Zeus and
Leto, twin brother of Artemis
(6)
16 ody of water between B
Australia and Indonesian
New Guinea (7,3)
18 In falconry, a short strap
round the leg of a hawk (4)
20 Musical accompaniment
above the main melody (7)
22 Dry, thin, membranous
covering of certain fruits and
seeds (4)
23 Fictitious English school
created by the cartoonist
Ronald Searle (2,8)
25 Buddhist, Hindu and Jainist
doctrine of non-violence (6)
27 Worldwide collection of
online newsgroups (6)
29 The first five books of the
Hebrew Bible (10)
31 Bundle of fibrous tissue
joining bones or cartilages
(8)
32 Large southern hemisphere
constellation (8)
33 Cotswold village traversed
by the river Windrush
(7-2-3-5)DOWN
2 Family of high-quality violin
makers from Cremona, Italy
(5)
3 An alloy of nickel and
titanium (7)
4 Heavyweight boxer, born
1934, nicknamed the
Blackpool Rock (5,6)
5 Superclass of jawless,
eel-shaped fish, including
lampreys (7)
6 Breed of athletic pony native
to Galway, Ireland (9)
7 Donald, born 1948, lead
vocalist of the rock band
Steely Dan (5)
8 A therapist who manipulates
the skeleton and muscles (9)
9 In rhetoric, the repetition or
resumption with the same
words (11)
15 In music, as fast as possible
(11)
17 Deep blue pigment, originally
made from lapis-lazuli (11)
19 Former ferry port on Loch
Ryan, Dumfries and Galloway
(9)
21 Type of boot traditionally
worn by Alpine mountaineers
(9)
24 The southern, and usually
rightwing, states of the US
(7)
26 Japanese art of
flower arrangement (7)
28 Exercise system combining
elements of aerobics and
kick-boxing (3,2)
30 End compartment of a
railway carriage with seats
on one side only (5)The first correct entry drawn
on Wednesday November 13
wins a copy of The Chambers
Dictionary. Entries should be
addressed to Polymath No
1,046, Weekend FT, 1 Friday
Street London EC4M 9BT.
Solution and winner’s name on
November 16.
The 13th edition (2014) retains the much-loved features of The Cham-
bers Dictionary, including the unique quirky definitions for certain words.
There are more than 1,000 new words and meanings, and there is also a
new Word Lover’s Ramble, showing how English words and definitions
have changed over the history of the dictionary.Crossword 16,314 Set by Goliath
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1 Sleep with crucifix, turning
handle (8)
6 Treasury’s first to follow shift in
economic plan (6)
9, 15 “Cry in Pain” potentially as
number 1 album (6,9)
10 Those who follow a firm and
innovative style (8)
11, 16 See times in flier for some
information (8)
12 Study, as an example, the
essence of cryptic and
primarily old Luxor obelisk’s
golden years (10)
14 Arcane Eurosceptic’s cup
runneth over (8)
16 See 11
18 Type of carriage from Chateau
Bernadotte (4)
19 Occasional hobby of the
French – risqué intransigence
(8)
21 Criminal Y chromosome? (10)
22 See 25
24 DIY as sport? An endless mass
escape (8)
26 My brave leader: an
Englishman abroad (6)
27 Livingstone seen with any
strange African (6)
28 Time in entirety, perhaps (8)DOWN
2 Cartoon hero almost signs for
division (5)
3 Triumvirate’s effective
communication device (4,2,5)
4, 7 When resolutions take effect
in New York, say, we dare to
change (3,5,3)
5 Tobacco, when combined with
fat, may be 9 15 (5,10)
6 Bail out thicko, extremely
drunk (6)
7 See 4
8 Active in Europe’s first
revolutionary green movement
(9)
13 Turning irritable with an
advocate of free will (11)
15 See 9 Across
17 Charming Romeo in a feasible
setting (8)
20 Car overturned since maniac
may be also working for bar (6)
23 A division, briefly proficient (5)
25, 22 Take avoiding action from
county path, reportedly (3,4)Copies of The Meaning of Everything: The
Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon
Winchester, published by Oxford University Press,
will be awarded to the senders of the first three
correct entries opened on Wednesday November- Entries marked Crossword 16,314 on the
envelope, should be sent to Weekend FT, 1 Friday
Street, London EC4M 9BT. Solution on November
WINNERSJotter pad
Crossword 16,302: ennifer Burdon, Paris;J
Kevin Fox, Bournemouth, England; Jeremy Schiff, LondonPolymath 1,044: une Marshall, ScotlandJPart-scores are often
unmemorable sidelines in
social bridge but at Duplicate
Pairs, they require just as
much concentration asa
grand slam.
North’s 2H was a Transfer,
which South completed.
East-West both felt unable to
compete, so West considered
her defence. Hands where a
Transfer has played out will
be “Upside-down” hands —
meaning that the master
hand, with the long trumps
— is in dummy, and theandreturnedatrump.
DeclarerleadahearttoA♥
andaheartback.East
hoppedupwithK♥ ndleda
herthirdtrump,clearingthe
declarer’shandoftrumps.
Southtriedthediamond
finesse,whichlostand,later,
hopedsomethinggoodwould
happeninclubs,butthe
defencekeptittightandgave
nothingaway.Remembering
toconsidersuchhandsas
upside-downledtothe
defeatof2Sbyatrick,and
provedanexcellentresult.BRIDGEPAUL MENDELSON
dummy hand is, in effect,
played by the declarer. For
this reason, the defencehas
to aim to prevent ruffs indeclarer’s hand, but can
allow the table to trump,as it
contains the trump length.
Againstthesecontracts,it
israrelynecessarytomake
anattackinglead;atrumpis
oftenbest.Here,Southwas
awarethatitwouldbe
desirabletoruffdummy’s
thirdheartinhand.She
duckedtheleadandEastwonA 7 6 5
A 7 3
6 5
9 8 23ESNWQ J 2
8 5
A Q 4 3
A J 6 38 4
J 9 6
10 9 8
4K
K
J
Q10 9
Q 10 4 2
K 7 2
K 10 7 5Dealer: North Game All
North East South West
— — 1NT NB
2H NB 2SBooks
I
ntroduceagunintoyourplot,Julian
Barnes tells us at the outset of this
beguiling hybrid of a book, and “a
sturdy rule of theatre declares” that
it will be used as the action unfolds.
InThe Man in the Red Coat, an artfully
woven non-fiction account of life, love
and art in the France of the Belle
Époque, guns go off with alarming fre-
quency. Fired as a result of duels, feuds
and grudges, they wound or kill a whole
shooting-gallery of authors, journalists,
politicians,seducers—anddoctors.
One slays Gaston Calmette, the editor
to whom Marcel Proust dedicated
Swann’s Way, after a sleazy exposé in Le
Figaro had shamed a minister’s wife.
She was acquitted. Another bullet, fired
by a disgruntled patient, strikes the Dr
Tourette who named the eponymous
syndrome. He lived. In a duel, one more
dispatches a journalist who had
offended a reader — surely “the writer’s
least acceptable professional hazard”.
Today’s below-the-line trolls can
scarcely compete. A final fusillade puts
a sudden end to Barnes’s glittering but
death-shadowednarrative.
With its focus on three exemplary
characters who shone in French culture
between the country’s defeat by Prussia
in 1871 and the advent of the first world
war,Barnes’sbookchallengesthereach-
me-down view of this era as a cham-
pagne-fuelled festival of urbane artistry
and debonair hedonism. Upending the
clichés of an “oh-là-là, cancanFrance”,
with the country imagined as one vast
Toulouse-Lautrec poster, Barnes sur-
veys “an age of neurotic, even hysterical
nationalanxiety”.
Throughout these “hyperventilating
times”, before, during and after the
“long national agony” of the Dreyfus
affair,a“frenetic,rancorous,bitchy”cli-
mate often broke out into acts of private
or public violence. In an epoch
renowned for scintillating style and wit
— Oscar Wilde, so often in Paris, haunts
the story — Barnes never loses sight of
thetearsandbloodbeneaththegilt.
Three figures anchor his account.
Foremost among them is Dr Samuel
Pozzi, a radical free-thinker from a fam-
ily of Italian-descended Protestants,who flourished as a society physician
and pioneer gynaecologist. In 1901, he
was appointed to France’s first-ever
chair in that discipline, and used his
inaugural lecture to counsel kindness,
compassion and respect for women
patients. “A sane man in a demented
age”, the “adroit social tactician” Pozzi
became the friend and confidant of
statesmen, poets and artists. (John
Singer Sargent painted him, “noble,
heroic”inthattitularredcoat.)
He was also a serial adulterer. Pozzi’s
lovers included the period’s supreme
diva, Sarah Bernhardt; his affairs alien-
ated his lonely wife and clever, unhappy
daughter Catherine, who remained
“tormented, angry and unsatisfied”.
Barnes depicts Pozzi from many angles.
Still, he never rushes to judgment but
uses the test-case of this altruistic, high-
principled but selfishly sensual man to
arraign the smug moralism about the
past that reflects the 21st century’s
“coarsening of language and memory”.
Despite his failings, Pozzi survives as “a
kindofhero”forBarnes.
The physician dubbed “Doctor God”
by Bernhardt occupies the central panel
of this triptych of well-connected
friends (who, together, visited Henry
James in London in 1885). On one side
stands Count Robert de Montesquiou.
An aesthete and dandy habitually taken
asthemodelforDesEsseintes,thedeca-
dent aristocrat of JKHuysmans’s 1884
novelÀ Rebours(Against Nature), Mon-
tesquiou was immortalised again by
Proust as the outsize gay eccentric
Baron de Charlus. “Dogged by shadow
versions of himself”, an inveterate role-
player, Montesquiou slips tantalisingly
between reality and fiction. Self-sion in France dates back to his early
novelsMetroland nda Flaubert’s Parrot,
nips back and forth across the Channel.
He shows that Anglo-French exchanges
inculture,inlove,inmedicineandideas
shaped the age beyond the hostile
stereotypes of politics and punditry. As
often, he hops as well across the blurred
lines that conventionally separate bio-
graphy from fiction. He doesn’t make
things up but he does edit, frame and —
above all — knit his patchwork of stories
together with all the suturing skill of Dr
Pozzi, that fast-fingered virtuoso of the
catgutorsilver-wirestitch.
As a life-long Francophile, Barnes
closes with a coda that laments Britain’s
“deluded, masochistic departure from
the European Union”. He salutes “the
obstinate individualism of reality”, and
refuses to treat the past merely as the
present’s “toy and plaything”. Still, this
richly textured portrait of Pozzi and his
friendsdoesholdupamirrortoourown
“hyperventilatingtimes”.‘Dr Pozzi at Home’ by John Singer Sargent (1881) —Bridgeman Art LibraryGuns, champagne and neuroses
Julian Barnes punctures the myths of Belle Époque
France in a blend of fact and fiction. ByBoyd Tonkin
W
hat if the Glorious
Revolutionof1688
had never hap-
pened? What if
William of Orange
had never deposed James II? Con-
siderthecounterfactuals.
Parliament — an ancient vestige
where, as James I once grumbled,
nothing was to be heard “but cries,
shouts, and confusion” — would
have passed in to history. Protest-
antism ould have yielded tow
Catholicism. And absolute monar-
chy—rampantacrossmostoflate-
17thcenturyEurope—wouldhave
been consolidated under a rein-
vigoratedStuartdynasty.
None of this happened, of
course, but it was not for want of
trying. A band of Stuart devotees
called Jacobites continued fighting
for the cause or most of the nextf
century, guided by a single aim: a
Stuart restoration. In popular
memory, the Jacobites are accom-
panied by the wheezing of bag-
pipes, demeaned as “kilted ana-
chronisms” who spent most of the
18th century sulking in the Scot-
tish Highlands. Yet asDesmond
Seward demonstrates, they were a
multi-faceted and multinational
bunch,unitedbyacommonvision
ofanalternativefuture.
The King Over the Water s thei
story of a lost cause that lingered.
It is written from the Jacobite per-
spective, not as apologia, but
through the eyes of the “kings”
who never were: James III, Charles
III, Henry IX — the heirs in exile to
the Stuart dynasty. The Jacobites
looked to an alternative universe
where 1688 had gone the other
way. They did so by glancing
towards pretenders who had
sought refuge in France, Russia,
America, the Vatican. Indeed, thefederal nature of Britain today,
with legislatures in Cardiff, Edin-
burgh, Belfast and London, is not
so unlike the multinational form
of monarchy that the Jacobites
longedtobuild.
Their struggle to reverse 1688
unleashed a century of intrigues
and insurrections. The first
botched comeback came in 1708,
when an invasion flotilla landed in
the wrong Scottish firth and was
chased back to Dunkirk. At Brae-
mar in 1715, the Stuart standard
was hoisted high once more,
before beinglowered again after
the golden orb atop the flagpole
fell off. In 1722, another proposed
rising was cancelled due to cash
flow issues. In 1744, a French inva-
sion fleet hadto turn back due to
choppy waters. The high point
came in 1745. But less than a year
later, Jacobitism hadperished on
thebattlefieldofCulloden.
As Seward illustrates, however,
this pantomime of misadventures
wasreallyaseriesofwhat-ifs.Jaco-
bitism remained a potent eatthr
for almost a century. The Hanove-
rians (who replaced the Stuartsin
1714) were kept in a constant state
of alarm thanks to the endless
rumours of risings. In 1745, Jaco-
bite forces had swept down from
the Highlands as far south as
Derby.Andaslateas1761,DrJohn-
son and James Boswell could still
ruminate wistfully about the
dynasty“driven from the throne,”
while deriding “the shabby fam-
ily”thattheygotinstead.
Seward’s narrative is swift and
cinematic with neatlysketched
character portraits, from William
III (“skeletal, round-shouldered,
eagle-nosed and racked by
asthma”) to Queen Anne (“obese,
purple-faced, rheumy eyed [and]
amartyrtogout”).
The fall of the Stuarts accomp-
anied the making of the political
nation with the Act of Union
between England and Scotland in- It is timely hatt The King Over
the Water hould appear just as thes
break-upofthepoliticalnationhas
become a distinct possibility. And,
unlike Jacobite hopes of a Stuart
Restoration, this possibility is not
confinedtocounterfactuals.
The King
Over the
Water:
A Complete
History of
the Jacobites
by Desmond
Seward
Birlinn £25,
384 pagesAlostroyalcause
A what-if look at the violent struggle of the Jacobites
shows them to be surprisingly diverse. ByRhys JonesThe Man in
the Red Coat
by Julian Barnes
Jonathan Cape
£18.99, 280 pagesdescribedas“thesovereignoftransitory
things”, he feels as vivid yet elusive here
as the pet tortoise whose shell he may —
or may not — have inlaid with gold. On
the triptych’s other side, more pru-
dently homosexual than Montesquiou,
is Prince Edmond de Polignac. More
emollient, he kept his friends, shunned
quarrels, composed music, lost his for-
tune but restored it by happy marriage
to (discreetly lesbian) sewing-machine
heiress Winnaretta Singer — the Prin-
cesse de Polignac whose patronage kick-
startedmanygreatmusicalcareers.
Thearch-ParisianPrinceEdmondlies
buried in the Singer mausoleum in —
Torquay. Barnes, whose literary immer-In an epoch renowned for
style and wit, Barnes never
loses sight of the tears and
blood beneath the gilt
NOVEMBER 2 2019 Section:Weekend Time: 31/10/2019- 17:33 User:andrew.higton Page Name:WKD12, Part,Page,Edition:WKD, 12, 1