This is a very quiet book, in a good way. The aging Go master plays his retirement match against a young challenger. There is intentionally no suspense as to the outcome. We know early on that the Master narrowly loses. To Western eyes, this novel is a strange hybrid of truth and fiction, as it is based on Kawabata's actual reporting of a real match. The names and a few details are changed, but the match is the match as it actually happened, and we can follow it through the Go diagrams throughout the book. I gather from outside reading that this truth-fiction hybridization is a common genre in Japan.
Other points of interest:
1. The relationship between the Master and the challenger, called Otaké here. There is tension about the rules of the final match, which takes place over six months with what seem like absurdly long time constraints. The players take upwards of three hours to make a single move. The game adjourns for weeks at a time as the players deal with health issues (the Master is dying). The immense strain of the match leads each player to threaten to forfeit as schedule changes are demanded by the other. Yet, completely unlike a high-stakes modern chess match, the players chat with each other over the board, and are friendly and social in the off hours. This aspect is subtly (probably much too subtly for a foreigner to fully grasp) inhabiting the Japanese culture of honor, hospitality, and the exalted position of elders. There is certainly some commentary on the changing of the culture, with Kawabata appearing to mourn the loss of the traditional to the ways of modernism.
2. Barely commented on but overshadowing all is the fact that this all takes place at the beginning of World War II, and Kawabata wrote the novel in the early 1950s. So he and we know that while Otaké's modern ways are taking over from the elderly Master, the ordered, mannered worlds of both are about to be overrun by unimaginable catastrophe.
3. Go is presented as an almost impossibly demanding game, which takes an enormous physical toll on the players (it essentially kills the Master). For relaxation in the down times, they frequently play other games (billiards, mah-jong, and shogi) with each other. The Master in particular seems to know of no other way to spend his time than the mental challenges of game play. Yet Go is kept separate. Neither the Master nor Otaké is ever seen playing a casual game of Go. We do see a casual game on a train, between the author/reporter and an American. The American is terrible, but worse than that to Kawabata's eyes is his attitude. He plays quickly and carelessly and does not mind that he loses. This entirely violates the Japanese view of how the game is to be played. At the end of the book, after the final title match, the Master is said to be going somewhat senile. At that point he begins to play casually with his students. He makes elementary errors and all are sad to see it. It is clear that Kawabata is commenting somehow on top-level Go's place in Japanese culture, but again it probably takes more cultural familiarity than I have to fully appreciate the message.
4. A key point in the match is the use of sealed moves at adjournment. This is an entirely noncontroversial element of modern chess. If an unfinished match is breaking for the day, the player who makes the last move would be at a substantial disadvantage, as the other player would have hours and hours of uncharged time to plot his next move. So instead, the final move of the day is sealed in an envelope, unseen by anyone else. It is opened and executed at the start of the next session. Any advantage is neutralized. I gather that Japanese Go up until the 1920s or 1930s was rather biased in favor of the higher level player, who could call adjournments more or less at will. With moves not being sealed at that time, he was thus at a substantial unfair advantage. The Master's retirement match by contrast uses sealed moves. A key plot point occurs in the middle of the game, when combat is at its fiercest. Otaké seals a move, and when it is opened, the Master and many of the observers feel that it is somehow an unfair move. It is described as ruining what to that point had been a fine, artful match. After this move, the Master is peeved at the slight and makes a hasty reply move that turns out to be the fateful mistake which loses the match. This again is where I fail to comprehend the culture being described. In Go, you can play your stone on any open point, with a few simple exceptions (the stone can't be committing suicide, and it can't result in a board that exactly repeats a previous board). Otaké's move does neither of these things, it is just surprising, as it is far away from the immediate combat zone. But that in itself is not all that unusual; the essence of Go is balance. Safety vs. influence, the local fight vs. the global picture, etc. Why was the sealed move viewed as bad form? One possibility is that it is a move that forces a given response. In that respect it does not function as a true sealed move should, because in knowing what the Master's response would be, Otaké has created a situation which gives him the full adjournment advantage. To modern analytical eyes, this would be a perfectly fair tactic. But perhaps unwritten rules about the way the game is supposed to be played dominate here.
On the other hand, the Master's actual reply does not appear to be forced. In fact it is considered something of a surprising blunder rather than a rote reply. Or is that the point, that the Master is annoyed and consciously refuses to play the best move because Otaké has had the full adjournment to think about his response to it? Or is there some entire other norm that Otaké's move has violated?
