Manny's Reviews > La Joueuse de go

If you're familiar with Kawabata's The Master of Go, it's impossible to read Shan Sa's book without thinking about it on every page. Kawabata, in subtle, elliptical prose, describes a real Go match which he covered as a young reporter working for a Japanese newspaper. He reorganized his match reports as a novel, where the symbolic aspects of the game gradually come to the fore; the Master represents the old Japan, his brash young challenger the new Western culture that was destroying its soul. The game itself is central to the story. Kawabata, himself a strong amateur player, understands all the nuances, and does a magnificent job of conveying them to the reader: both the moves themselves, and their deeper meaning. It is a unique work of art.

If I hadn't read Kawabata, I'm guessing that I would have liked this book more. Unfortunately, it's all too clear that Shan Sa has adapted the formula without really understanding it. The book, set in the Manchuria of the 30s, is again organized around a Go game, this time between a young Japanese officer and a 16 year old Chinese girl. I am happy to concede the author's technical skill in some respects. Writing in a language not her own, she does a good job of crafting poetic touches which combine the characters of French and Oriental literature; the illusion that one is reading Chinese or Japanese is sometimes quite strong. The tragic storyline has some force.

The problem is that Sa, unlike Kawabata, knows nothing about Go; alas, this isn't optional, and the constant errors are after a while quite exasperating. Maybe she thought that a Western audience wouldn't notice, but if so she's underestimating us. For the morbidly curious, this page gives all the details.

Oh well. As several people have suggested, it'll probably make a decent movie one day.