[In the following excerpt, Freese and Moorjani analyze the symbolism of the Go match in Kawabata's The Master of Go, and assert that the story is a movement toward the Master's death.]

Yasunari Kawabata's The Master of Go, written and rewritten from 1938 until 1954, when it first appeared in book form, is not a novel in the strict sense of narrative fiction. The Japanese form of shosetsu is known to be more flexible than the Western form of the novel. In this case it mixes a chronicle, based on sixty-six newspaper installments Kawabata wrote about an actual Go match in 1938 for the Osaka and Tokyo Mainichi, with structural and stylistic elements of fiction.

Kawabata's novel begins with a note on the Master's death: "Shusai, Master of Go, twenty-first in the Honnimbo succession, died in Atami, at the Urokoya Inn, on the morning of January 18, 1940. He was sixty-seven years old by the Oriental count." It is clear from the very outset that the Master's illness is a critical aspect of the novel, and that his death, anticipated in this very beginning, will overshadow the match. Seen from this angle the novel is analytical like most of Kawabata's writings. If the known result is death, each of the 41 chapters, and each of the 237 moves of the game (illustrated in 12 diagrams throughout the novel) leads closer to it. The novel, and, as the real and symbolic heart of it, the game, become more than a report or a chronicle: they are the anamnesis in both its historical and medical/psychiatric meaning, of a development leading to death.

It is quite clear in the novel that this movement toward death transcends the two individuals involved in the match. Their function of representing an older order and a newer trend in Japanese history is far too obvious to necessitate "detection" by skillful literary analysis. Nor does the narrator, focusing again beyond the players to changes in the organization of the game itself, leave us in the dark about his partisanship:

It may be said the Master was plagued in his last match by modern rationalism, to which fussy rules were everything, from which all the grace and elegance of Go as art had disappeared, which quite dispensed with respect for elders and attached no importance to mutual respect as human beings. From the way of Go the beauty of Japan and the Orient had fled. Everything had become science and regulation. The road to advancement in rank, which controlled the life of a player, had become a meticulous point system. One conducted the battle only to win, and there was no margin for remembering the dignity and the fragrance of Go as an art. The modern way was to insist upon doing battle under conditions of abstract justice, even when challenging the Master himself. The fault was not Otaké's. Perhaps what happened was but natural, Go being a contest and show of strength.

The last sentence leads us to consider the narrator's perspective. Kawabata is usually counted among the conservative Japanese writers, and this may explain the elegiac reading given most of his novels. If there is a Nietzschean element in his interpretation of the contest, however, it is certainly not a very active force in Kawabata's thinking. Nevertheless, Otaké is treated throughout the novel as an instrument of history. On one occasion in the novel—and here the context would have to be examined very carefully, since the author/narrator tries to convince Otaké not to forfeit the game—the narrator steps forward as protagonist, showing for the first time great self-assurance: "I spoke boldly. I said that as challenger in this the Master's last game he was fighting in single combat, and he was also fighting a larger battle. He was the representative of a new day. He was being carried on by the currents of history." A little later the narrator continues: "… the retirement match meant the end of an age and the bridge to a new age. There would be vitality in the world of Go. To forfeit the game would be to interrupt the flow of history. The responsibility was a heavy one. Was Otaké really to let personal feelings and circumstances prevail?"

But Kawabata's art accomplishes more than the reflection of social or historical change, the agony of the old and the triumphant rise of the new. Like all conservative authors, he lets us know the price which has to be paid for the challenger's victory. His loving portrait of the Master, his affection for the Master's grace and frailty, his deep understanding of the Master's nature, skill and strength have certainly to do with his acceptance of the Master's social function and with the institution he represents, the title of Master of Go. This title and this institution, with all their hierarchical symbolism can only be compared to the emperor's sovereign and supreme rule, its total and irrational autocracy. In the world of Go the decline of these attributes was anticipated (in 1938) before the Japanese public became aware of it with the Tenno Hirohito's radio-message in 1945. This parallel is of an ultimate character, and needs to be explained.

Of the Master we hear that he showed occasionally "quite astonishing autocratic tendencies," albeit mostly pertaining to entirely trivial matters, it seems. The Master of the old order had the right to determine the time and place, the special circumstances and conditions of a match. In Shusai's case, his long lasting tenure of the title had led to the idea that he was invincible, in fact his title had become that of the "invincible master." It seemed, therefore, justified for him to protect the title as an institution almost remote from his own personal ambitions and feelings. Even after he broke a promise, none of the managers of the match were prepared to act as umpire or hand down an order. This indeed seems like a relic from the past to younger players, to whom the title of "Master" is about to become but a "mark of strength and no more." Whereas the narrator stresses that in former times "the holder of the title, fearful of doing injury to it, seems to have avoided real competition even in practice matches," this is unthinkable in the future, so that Shusai, playing at age sixty-four in a title-match, "would seem in a variety of meanings, to have stood at the boundary between the old and the new. He had at the same time the lofty position of the old master and the material benefits of the new," i.e., he would receive the prize-money from a sponsoring newspaper, the common economic way of financing modern sports.

If these quarrelsome trivialities and dubious privileges cannot possibly explain the grandeur of the old order, where then can we find its real merits and beauty, its legitimacy and truth?

Some of these questions are answered by the manner in which the match proceeds, and how it reflects in a very refined and sometimes esoteric manner, not only broad cultural phenomena of an era of transition but also the psychological structure of characters made possible by the old or the new order. A brief description of how both players are portrayed may serve as a starting point.

In various suggestive ways the contrast between old and new, which happens to be also the contrast between old and young, is expressed by trivialities as well as highly esoteric modes of behavior. The Master, although obviously moribund, is quiet; his manners are dignified throughout the match. He will frequently sink into meditation, show outward signs of indifference, and there are occasions when, in a sudden epiphany, the Master's retreating figure seems to become unreal, moving the narrator and observer to tears: "I was profoundly moved, for reasons I do not myself understand. In that figure walking absently from the game there was still sadness of another world. The Master seemed like a relic left behind by Meiji."

Otaké, the young challenger, is restless both physically and mentally. He drinks enormous amounts of tea, suffers from nervous enuresis, and leaves the board frequently, excusing himself with his condition. He is talkative, tries to joke, turns the Master's stones right side up so that the inner stripeless side of the clamshell shows, and he would, like most younger players, "indulge all manner of odd quirks."

Otaké's fidgeting, however, is not reflected in the game in a direct way, that is, Otaké's style of playing is not erratic but concentrated and powerful. He releases all the tension in his behavior, whereas the Master, following and inheriting venerable traditions, seems to be in total control of his emotions. This cannot be interpreted as an advantage in the match itself, as it might have been when self-control was the equivalent of superiority in various disciplines, including Go. Since the Master is obviously not concerned with winning, his tension does not show. Throughout his more than thirty years as a titleholder, winning has become, one might say, an attribute of the title. The Master was instrumental in assuring the purity of this record, he derived his own strength from it. His victories, it seems, were almost assured. He had only played with the white stones during these years, making his task even more difficult, and yet, during his lifetime "no one among his juniors advanced as far as the Eighth Rank. All through the epoch that was his own he kept the opposition under control…."

The modern, post-Meiji way of Go is characterized by rules and laws laid down by associations to guarantee its democratic organization. And it is in this context that Kawabata deplores the loss of Go as an art: "When a law is made, the cunning that finds loopholes goes to work. One cannot deny that there is a certain slyness among young players, a slyness which, when rules are written to prevent slyness, makes use of these rules themselves." Consequently, Otaké's psychology of winning creates disagreements, since he refuses to give an inch in questions concerning a relocation of living quarters or playing-room, or a delay of a day or two during the match, which lasted after all from June 26 (Tokyo) until December 4 (Ito) of 1938, for a total of 14 sessions. Otaké's manner suggests to the narrator "an inability to understand the courtesies due to an elder, a want of sympathy for a sick man, and a rationalism that somehow missed the point." What Otaké fails to grasp is the situation in which the Master and the game of Go find themselves. Since this match is officially known as the Master's last, it attains the level of a ritual. As in a particular Japanese tradition of suicide, where for reasons often totally unknown to outsiders, a person has chosen the "right" moment to end his life, which in an esthetic sense can also mean the "most beautiful" moment, the match has been composed by the Master as a piece of art going back to its ritual origins. From the challenger's manner and from the general physical condition of the Master, it becomes clear, however, that Otaké is assigned the role not only of playing partner, adversary, and representative of the new era, but also of executor and executioner. Unaware of the historical as well as of the esthetic dimensions of the match, Otaké is unable to conceal or suppress the aggressiveness reflected both in his gestures ("Otaké's way of sitting down and getting up again was as if readying himself for battle") and his playing style, and this attitude, which may have its functional value on the more trivial level of mere historical transition, cannot possibly do justice to the pursuit of beauty and Go as an art that is on the Master's mind. For this we have to take a closer look at the game.

Having the advantage of playing Black, Otaké takes the initiative from the opening and keeps it, so it seems, far into the middle-game. His "impatience" results in early gains. He has developed a wall on the side, and a strong center influence; he has a large upper right corner, a smaller upper left corner, has created potential for the lower left corner, and positioned a "spy" on the lower side. This "spy," move Black 63, is perhaps the most visible sign of Black's unconcern for what would be called esthetically the "flow" of the game. It is played against the spirit of give and take in Go, making a very early and somewhat speculative invasion into the Master's sphere of influence. And here we can see from a little dialogue between the players the two different levels of concern, the esthetic and esoteric of the Master's and Otaké's more trivial consciousness. The Master deliberated for twenty minutes after Black's last move: "Apparently Black 63 struck him as a trifle unorthodox. At the outset of the game, Otaké had been careful to warn the Master that he would frequently ask to be excused; but his departures from the board had been so frequent during the proceeding session that the Master had thought them a little odd. 'Is something wrong?' he asked. 'Kidneys. Nerves, really. When I have to think I have to go,'" is Otaké's answer. The Master's concerned question, however, goes beyond his opponent's physical and nervous condition; it pertains to his sense of collaborating on a work of art.

In following the Master's reactions to several ruthless moves by Otaké, the reader becomes aware that even Otaké's strength has been entered into the Master's artful design. Black's constant aggressiveness has not resulted in an insurmountable lead: "Black had made gains, and yet it seemed that White, casting away the dressings from his wounds, had emerged with greater lightness and freedom of action."

The crisis will arrive and eventually lead to catastrophe with Black 121. With this sealed play, the game loses its character as a piece of art. The move was expected with great excitement as perhaps "the climax of the game," but when it was revealed, nobody seemed at first able to locate it on the board. It was far from where the present action was localized, and a "wave of revulsion" came over the narrator when he finally saw it. One twenty-one was a thoroughly trivial move. A few moves later the Master makes a fatal mistake that loses the game. In this move, White 130, there was "something that spoke less of a will to fight than of angry disdain," as the narrator sees it. At lunch with the narrator the Master says in "a low but intense voice: 'The match is over. Mr. Otaké ruined it with that sealed play. It was like smearing ink over the picture we had painted. The minute I saw it I felt like forfeiting the match.'"

Only now does it become clear to spectators, narrator, and reader that the Master "had put the match together as a work of art," and in this context Kawabata identifies himself with this definition of Go as an art: "That play of black upon white, white upon black, has the intent and takes the forms of creative art. It has in it a flow of the spirit and a harmony as of music. Everything is lost when suddenly a false note is struck, or one party in a duet suddenly launches forth on an eccentric flight of his own. A masterpiece of a game can be ruined by insensitivity to the feelings of an adversary." The trivial, so it seems, has defeated the esoteric beauty of art, has not allowed the old order to die in a beautiful manner and at the "right" moment, has denied it the honor and superiority of designing its own death.

If we could consider this a "message" of Kawabata's novel, we might find ourselves in danger of trivializing it in spite of all the seemingly esoteric details revealed, because—and that is the meaning of the problematized perspective—from the standpoint of the overall narrative strategy of the shosetsu, we cannot speak of a total identification with the Master's feelings about the match. Not only does a realistic principle prevail (since the novel is part chronicle), leaving even the Master and the old order open to criticism despite the narrator's warm veneration, but also an element of esthetic justice is at work integrating historical and social forces into a piece of art reflecting the end of all art, a theme struck first around the turn of the 19th century and hotly debated in the 1960's and 70's….

… By basing his novel, published in 1954, largely on his own 1938 newspaper articles, which chronicled an actual Go match of the same year, Kawabata provides both a 1938 perspective and multiple retrospective points of view.