The Master Of Go

One of the main reasons I couldn't fully enjoy Yasunari Kawabata's 1954 novel The Master Of Go is that I don't know the rules or how to  play the game. I realize that the game is a sort of metaphor for Japanese society as Kawabata pits an ailing master, Shusai, against a younger upstart, Otake, which represent the cultural zeitgeist that was taking place when the real events from which this novel is based on occurred in 1938 during the height of the second world war. "I said that as challenger in this Master's last game he was fighting in single combat, and he was also fighting a larger battle. He was being carried on the currents of history." There are slight references to this fact when the narrator the newspaper reporter, Uragami, mentions the popularity of Go during times of war. The invasion or colonization of China can seen to be referenced in the character of Wu: "It was Japan that nurtured, protected, and ministered to a genius that would have lain dormant in China." There is a passage where the narrator plays an American in Go and reflects: "The Oriental game has gone beyond game and test of strength and become a way of art." He surmised that there was no tradition of Go in America. Ultimately, I found this novel lacking the aspects of the other Kawabata novels that revealed the mysteries of the hearts of people facing profound emotional conflicts among families and lovers.