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Explanation and Analysis:
Pachinko does justice to the complexity of its characters’ stories through its distinctive narration and diction. Its narrator slips in and out of each character’s consciousness, articulating their thoughts at select moments. The novel shifts so seamlessly from one perspective to the other that, at points, they almost seem to blend. Characters sometimes trade perspectives within a single scene. During Sunja’s first encounter with Kyunghee, Pachinko’s narration roams from her thoughts about Kyunghee’s “wispy schoolgirl frame” to her sister-in-law’s impression of Sunja’s “ordinary, flat face and thin eyes.” When Pastor Yoo counsels the brother and sister pair at his church, the novel drifts from the sister’s desire to stay in the pastor’s good graces to the brother’s interest in cutting school. In Pachinko’s immersive narration, the edges of one character and another blur.
The novel gives a rich and varied linguistic treatment, too. Pachinko mingles Korean and Japanese language phrases—“yobo,” “sho ga nai” and “honto desu”—calling attention to the many cultural influences that inform the Korean diaspora. The two languages blend within the novel in much the same way its people do.
Above all, Pachinko navigates history. It moves between the grand narrative of history to the deeply personal lives of its characters. Wars rage and revolutions unfold. On the sidelines, people fall in love, pray, and grieve. “This thing called the Depression was found everywhere in the world,” the lodgers tell Yangjin over meals. But the weeds still have to be “pulled from the vegetable garden,” the rope sandals “woven,” the thieves “kept away” from the chickens. In a novel that is both about individuals and broader cultures, the everyday coexists with the cosmic.
