“You couldn’t confuse him with anyone you’d ever seen.”

Dick Cavett has a not-to-be-missed opinion piece in The New York Times about Bobby Fischer. It’s too good to excerpt – but to me, it has all of the elements I love about good opinion writing. Cavett shares his experiences interviewing Bobby Fischer, at the height of his fame, on his show. It’s lovely memoir-writing. I love his observations. But it also asks deep questions: what is it to be a genius? What is it LIKE for these people? And then comes stunning passages such as this:

Our mental health advisers, shrinks and friends advise us to avoid guilt at all costs. But they don’t tell you how. There seems to be an unlimited number of guilts available to us. When someone we know – or are related to – comes apart and deteriorates physically and mentally and commits suicide, don’t most of us think, “Maybe I’d have been the one who could have made the difference; done or said this or that and saved the poor soul?” How much of such thinking is charitable and how much egotistical? For a time I was pained by that thought that I might have been Bobby’s salvation. But then we comfort ourselves, concluding that of course it would have been too late. And then, alas, comes, But would it have been?

It’s magnificent writing. And what I love the most – is how Cavett struggles with how to end the piece. He puts the struggle into his writing. Yes, yes, yes. It is this kind of thing that I want to do … it is this kind of written expression that my heart most yearns for, and responds to. Thanks for showing me how it’s done, Mr. Cavett.

Fascinating clip from Fischer on Cavett’s show is also included in the piece. Not to be missed. It’s amazing to see how it’s a real conversation – something that is very absent today in late-night talk shows – where it’s all about people plugging projects and that’s pretty much it. But Cavett, Carson – and actually David Letterman on occasion – are great conversationalists. Watch how it flows. How beautiful it is, sometimes, to just sit back and watch other people talk.