"Flandry spread his hands. 'Who knows? We play the game move by move, and never see far ahead - the game of empire, of life, whatever you want to call it - and what the score will be when all the pieces at last go back into the box, who knows?'"
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT p. 453.
"'It is not fair! It is not sporting! It is not playing the game! Admit all that and pass from it. This is not a game - it is not le sport.'"
-Agatha Christie, Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (Glasgow, 1980), Chapter EIGHT, p. 59.
And for Kipling's contribution to "the Great Game," we can consult Wikipedia:
Historians consider the end of the Great Game to be 10 September 1895 signing of the Pamir Boundary Commission protocols,[7] when the border between Afghanistan and the Russian empire was defined.[8][9][10][11]:p14 The 1901 novel Kim by Rudyard Kipling made the term popular and introduced the new implication of great power rivalry. It became even more popular after the 1979 advent of the Soviet–Afghan War.[12]
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I sometimes write down the moves of the chess games I play with my ancient but formidable chess computer. And I certainly don't what the scores will be before the game ends. Most times, I lose, but to my surprise I defeated my chess computer four times in a row when it played the Caro-Kann defense against me (White) as Black (1 e4 c6,2 d4 d5, 3e5, that last being the Advance variation of the Caro-Kann).
Whatever the diplomats tried to with the 1895 signing of the Pamir Boundary Commission protocols, the Great Game did NOT stop. You can bet intrigues and skulduggery continued to go on between all parties even after that! Spies, border raids, assassinations, etc., continued, albeit at a PROBABLY lower intensity. And that has continued to our time.
And the Peking regime in China has shown it has every intention of carrying on the Great Game in its rivalry with nations like the US and India.
Sean
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