Now, Seidensticker makes a big noise in his introduction about the form of the book. It isn't a straight novel, since it deals with real people and events; it isn't journalism, since it is partly fictionalised (although partly edited together from the contemporary newpaper reports). So what is it? There's a bunch of waffle about this strange Japanese form of the "chronicle-novel", but really The Master of Go is exactly the same sort of thing as TomWolfe?'s journalistic works. And like the astronauts in TheRightStuff?, Shusai and Otake are both vividly drawn individuals and archetypes, and characters in a drama that hinges on a key time in the history of their society.
Kawabata paints Shusai as an aristocrat of game-play, last hero of a fading civilization. The Shusai/Minoru? game was played in 1938 CE, just as the Japanese misadventure in Manchuria was in full swing and the country was gearing up for World War II (and two years after the setting of TheGirlWhoPlayedGo). The Master of Go was written around 1950, while Japan was being rebuilt in General MacArthur's image and many of its traditions banished. Kawabata wasn't too happy about that, nor with the westernising influences on the new Japan.
One telling scene takes place on a train, Kawabata, or rather his cypher, Uragami, is returning to the city during one of the long interruptions of the game (Sushai was very ill, and the were several long recesses). An American visitor sees Kawabata's Go board and asks to play, and Kawabata agrees. The American plays (and loses) game after game, treating the game merely as an interesting pass-time, rather than a sacramental, ceremonial, meditative activity. Sad to say, the increasing popularity of Go outside its native region has come at the cost of that very depth of appreciation, and perhaps the contemplative approach to life that Go symbolises for Kawabata has been lost too. -- KeithBraithwaite
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