Game as a tool for transgression in the novel La Joueuse De Go by Shan Sa

The article considers the novel La Joueuse De Go [The Girl Who Played Go] by Shan Sa and its poetics of game as a tool for transgression, providing the depolarization of binary oppositions and leading to the establishment of an existential dialogue with the consciousness of the other in particular. Analyzing the narrative structure of Shan Sa’s text, as well as referring to the philosophical and aesthetic interpretation of the key image of the game of Go, the author comes to the conclusion that the concept of game is presented in La Joueuse De Go via the organization of the narration and a specific symbolic image. Shan Sa’s novel has a binary structure: it is constructed by interchanging confessional fragments and voices of protagonists; this structure imitates a game of Go, in which two players play with stones of different colors. The confessional fragments, written on behalf of the hero and the heroine, are connected by common motifs, this feature allows perceiving the heroes as doubles. Connections between fragments of the text show the convergence of oppositions, demonstrate the possibility of transgression. While researching, the author also considers various discourses which can be seen in the confessional voices of the main characters of the novel. This allows discovering nuances in the problematization of transgression in the novel. The analysis helps identify the historical and political opposition between Japan and China in a state of war, this makes it possible to associate the transgressive experience with the betrayal and rejection of established ideological models. The characters express opposite cultures and types of thinking; their images represent the opposition between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, hierarchy and chaos. In addition, the novel assumes the possibility of interpretation through the prism of gender studies: in this perspective, the pair of contrasting characters can be associated with the opposition of the feminine principle of Yin and the masculine principle of Yang, solar and lunar codes; the characters’ rapprochement is accompanied by the convergence of the Sun and the Moon in the motif organization of the text. The game of Go is a key symbolic image in the novel, it literalizes the idea of the need of going beyond the bounds of binarity to establish productive communication with the other. The game of Go is shown as a specific language which provides the authenticity of existential dialogue; in the novel it is opposed to imperfect natural languages, which keep consciousness within the framework of nationality and culture. Thus, by deconstructing various codes, the author shows that consciousness is not completely limited to the languages that define it; authentic communication can take place only outside the sign systems. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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