It's doorstep time again. My mammoth book on Segoe is now available on Amazon - though for some countries it can take a few days for the details to appear on the local Amazon pages. The title is
Eminence Grise - the Life and Times of Segoe Kensaku. The ISBN is 9798856518459.
I'll start with the blurb:
Quote:
Callimachus, an Alexandrian Librarian under Ptolemy II, preferred shorter forms of poetry and expressed his disdain for long epic poems with the Greek phrase 'mega biblion, mega kakon' - big book, big bad. But Homer proved him wrong. This book hopes to prove Segoe Kensaku also deserves an epic.
A case can be made for saying that Segoe was the most significant player ever in professional go. For a time, he was probably the strongest player in the world. He nurtured three dominant geniuses from the three main go-playing countries, Japan, China and Korea. He was pivotal in founding and then running the Nihon Ki-in. He kept the Honinbo tournament running during the war despite being a victim of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. After the war, his links with politicians enabled go to grow again and reach new heights. In retirement, he laid the foundations for expanding go worldwide, with personal visits and books. All this was done under the burden of an eye disease which, at the end of a long and eventful life, was probably the main factor in his dramatic suicide -- he could no longer play go.
Just to describe his own, richly textured, life would take many words. But to understand it needs even more. After all, his long life spanned the three eras of Meiji, Taisho and Showa, in a culture we in the West are not really familiar with, given the rather different times and land he lived in. As it happens, 2024 will see the 100th anniversary of the Nihon Ki-in. Considering Segoe's central role in founding, running and playing in go's principal organisation, a mega book about him seems especially appropriate.
A few things are worth adding. First, be warned. The book is 466 pages long. Apart from a profusion of images, it is solid text. There are no games. However, as the text describes 100 years of the main activities in go, the games which feature at each point are highlighted in the text, and the corresponding games can all be found in the GoGoD database, so you can play your way through the story.
Second, the book is about the "life and
times" of Segoe. While the main focus is obviously on him and his role in all the big events, I do wander off to explain those times he lived in, so that you can understand why he acted as he did. The result is that very much will be new to you. The proofreader (who is a 4-dan with several decades experience of the go world) said 80% to 90% of the content was new to him (the index alone is over 20 pages). This ranges from how the live-in pupil system worked to how politicians used go players for PR, from the atom-bomb game to playing go in prison, from how go in China and Korea differed in real practice to how Segoe and other pros were startled at how Japanese go was transmogrified in Hawaii, the USA and Europe (not always to their approval!).
A further point is that 2024 is the 100th anniversary of the Nihon Ki-in. Segoe was central to the founding and running of this organisation. Twice, really, because he had to start all over again after the war. And in both cases, apart from finding resources and money, he had to deal with stroppy go players - jealousy, wayward pupils, rebellions, court cases. This book is also a salute to that centenary.
Eminence Grise is about the size of a typical computer manual of today - but about half the price.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
John Fairbairn
