The book The High Game - The Myth of the Irreversible, edited by Jakub Hlaváček and Miloslav Topinka, follows the previous complete book edition of all four issues of Le Grand Jeu / The High Game in Czech translation (Malvern, 2017). It includes texts by Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, René Daumal and Rolland de Renéville, participants in the High Game group, which were not published in the journal of the same name, texts dedicated to one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century, Josef Šíma, a founding member of the High Game (especially texts by Roger Gilbert-Lecomte and Vera Linhart), essays, memoirs, testimonies and studies on the High Game, its significance, thought and poetic power, by P. Minet, L. Pierre-Quint, A. Pravdová and B. Schmitt, Rolland de Renéville and M. Thivolet, a text by Vera Linhart on the relationship between the High Game and Richard Weiner, letters or extracts from correspondence between R. Gilbert-Lecomte, R. Daumal, M. Henry, R. Weiner, R. Vailland and P. Minet. The publication is accompanied by medallions of members and collaborators of the High Play and photographs by Artür Harfaux.
The included texts illustrate that the High Game, whose basic credo was "Revolt - Revelation", constantly questioned any certainty, constantly upset the boundaries of perception and thought, attempted to fundamentally transform man, like a butterfly breaking through a chrysalis, the attempt to touch the unknown, to become a seer and to transcend poetry, which thus becomes a means to reach the ultimate knowledge, represents one of the greatest spiritual adventures of the twentieth century, still as urgent and inspiring today.
Czech edition