The Master of Go

About

In 1938, an aging Go master plays his final match against a younger, more modern opponent. The game lasts six months and is covered by the press like a national event — which, in a sense, it is: the old master represents a tradition of intuitive play, while his challenger brings a colder, more analytical approach that will define the game's future. Kawabata, himself a Go enthusiast, chronicles the match with the precision of a sports journalist and the melancholy of an elegist. The novel is a meditation on the passing of one era into another, told through the most cerebral of games — where every stone placed on the board carries the weight of cultural change. A book about a game that is really about everything a game can stand for — beauty, strategy, and the dignity of losing well.