The Girl Who Played Go

well it goes over quickly, but not painlessly. she spares you no descriptions. she lays all her pieces out on the table and the it ain't a pretty picture. this is back when Japan invades Manchuria. a japanese soldier acting as spy, goes down to a local Go playing park and plays against a young manchurian girl. supposedly through the playing of GO the come to know each other, though they never speak. the descriptions of Japanese treatment of the manchurians and the rebellion are heartbreaking and painful. this is not a happy story. but a powerful and original one.

It is a new kind of story for me. Not exactly like Romeo & Juliet or SamPho EngTay, the degree of love between the Japanese soldier and the Chinese girl had reached beyond physical barrier even before the inevitable circumstances took over. There were only minor, polite contact between them, and yet, they knew each other's soul. It is amazing how by playing go, you'll get to know your opposite's nature which oneself doesn't always do. So is in the war. The setting of Japanese invasion into China in 1930's is frequently compared to the strategies played in go. Although I know nothing about go, I think I could take in the messages conveyed well. This is not a book of how to play go. This is the book of the soul of the players and the soul of people. Mind you that this is not a simple falling in love kind of a story, it is more complicated. The girl and the soldier each had their own (many) lovers with the Japanese soldier acting like other soldiers at that time by visiting prostitutes. Each has their own faults and weakness. Their mutual love of go had nourished further attachment along the way, unnoticed by each. The words are beautifully composed, added with some ancient poetry from China and Japan. I must say the anonymous element between the soul lovers gives a dreamy, mysterious touch to the story without sacrificing the characters around them. With selective dialogs, Ms. Sa has managed to give us a well crafted tale about love, life and death. Highly recommended.

A good friend recommended this book highly, so, at the first opportunity, I sat down to read it. A young girl in a small Manchurian town plays Go with a stranger. We don't know her name. The man she is playing with calls her "the Chinese girl." He, in turn, is known to her as "the Stranger." Day after day they meet, without words, to play the ancient game, as the world around them descends into chaos. Later we learn that he is a Japanese officer, in disguise, spying for the Emperor. The Japanese have overrun Manchuria--this is in the 1930s--and are preparing for the conquest of China. The social order is crumbling. The girl has a doomed affair with a young man who is fighting in the Chinese resistance. She tries to attend school and keep up appearances, but the only thing that really matters to her is the game of Go, continued from day to day, with the enigmatic Stranger. The two players form a strange, wordless relationship, exploring each other's minds through the intricacies of the game. Things go from bad to worse. Indolent occupation turns into brutal warfare. The story moves relentlessly toward a ghastly, horrifying ending. You will have to read the book to find out what happens. Author Shan Sa writes in short chapters, in a spare, lucid style. Still, it takes a while to figure out what is happening, because she leaves much unsaid. The chapters are narrated in the first person, alternately by the young girl and the Japanese officer. We never learn their names, yet we are immersed in their feelings. Sometimes I had to put the book down, to take a break from its searing intensity. It took me a while to really appreciate this book, but I can recommend it highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

I picked up the book from the library after reading a winning review about it in People magazine. I was not disappointed. It was not predictable. It was refreshing. It was sad. I am probably going to buy this many times over, and give it as gifts to my friends.

A very original story of two people drawn together through a game of Go, set in the 1930's Manchuria. One is a young rebellious Chinese girl, the other is a contemplative officer in the Japanese occupation army. Set against a volatile environment ripe for war is the peaceful, if intense, game of Go. The game is played by placing stones on the intersections of the boards, the objective is to beseige the opponent's stones. As the violence between partisans and Japanese army escalate and the threat of large-scale warfare becoming ever more real, their game seems to become more and more abstract, and takes on greater significance. Can such cherished ritual of civilization survive the rising chaos and savagery all around it? The story is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of the two characters. The writing is delicate and dream-like, at times it seems to float off the page. Yet some of the things described in the book, such as war atrocities, are as brutal and raw as they can get. Unlike the previous reviewer, I felt the ending was very fitting and effective. It was the logical final step in the two characters' convergent stories, and as inescapable as the very last possible move in a game of Go.