My recent obsession thanks to Hikaru No Go (a great anime that reminds me of the Bobby Fisher movie) has been learning to play the Japanese game of Go. I am finally doing alright and rank at about 27 Kyu (American and improving pretty quickly from what I have been told) for what it’s worth and can typically follow other games pretty well.
Anyway, I picked up this book and started reading it. The translation is a bit rough in places but it is very captivating. I am about half way through it now and will likely finish it tonight when I get home. Has anyone else read it out there? I know that it is fiction but fiction based on a lot of fact. How much of the story is true? It seems that Kawabata mainly changed the names of the characters and some of the dates but the rest falls into line. It is very interesting that the Kifu (written records of the games) are posted in the books. I know I will be running through them when I get farther along as it really helps to see what they are talking about and get into the minds of the characters.
Anyway, even with the minor translation problem, the book is a fascinating read. It seems to all be written in an “instant” with scenes hopping back and forth along a timeline giving later chapters of earlier scenes that much more importance. It wasn’t a hard to follow juxtaposition that other authors who attempt to do similar things (Alexei Sherman for example) do.
One last thing, there seems to be a longer version of the book also available but hard to find. However, according to the introduction, the shorter version is the one that Kawabata preferred. Anyone read the longer one? What were the main differences between that one and the short one?
dorkus, I’ll check with my hubby to see if he’s read it. He, too, has been bitten by the Go bug, as it were. He’s amassed several books on the subject, one of which seems to be translated from German and written in the 1930s or so!
I wonder if the anime you mentioned is the one he watched. If I recall correctly, it was an anime that sparked his interest. I played a game with him and it wasn’t half bad.
I think I have that same book (the german one) and it is pretty interesting. The game that it plays out is pretty nice too. Maybe we can get together and play some 13 by 13 sometime. It would be nice to play with someone else that knows what he is doing. I am sure that he will wipe me off the board but it is a place to start learning. 
If you’re reading the translation by Edward Seidensticker, throw it away and find another translation, even if you have to read it in another language. Virtually all Kawabata works available in English were translated by him, and he is incredibly an atrocious translator. He often changes the tone of Kawabata’s writing, and abridges without telling the reader.
He also panders to American stereotypes of Japan as a special, exotic land. Compare the excellent translation of Snow Country into Esperanto by Konisi Gaku, which treats the work like the universal metaphysical masterpiece Kawabata intended, with the English translation by Seidensticker, in which it is transformed into an “exotic love story”.
Seidensticker’s translation of Kawabata have about as much fidelity to the source material as that wacky Swedish translator’s rendering of Tolkien.
<shudders>
UnuMondo
Arg, that is the translation I have. I was a little miffed that move 108 wasn’t numbered on the kifu (I pretty much know where it is) but I figured that was a print problem. It hasn’t seemed too bad so far. Do you know who else would have translated this book? Amazon.com only has this one.