The Pachinko Parlour
Ratings9
Average rating3.4
15
Ratings9
Average rating3.4
From the author of Winter in Sokcho, which won the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The days are beginning to draw in. The sky is dark by seven in the evening. I lie on the floor and gaze out of the window. Women’s calves, men’s shoes, heels trodden down by the weight of bodies borne for too long. It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring twelve-year-old Mieko in an apartment in an abandoned hotel and lying on the floor at her grandparents: daydreaming, playing Tetris, and listening to the sounds from the street above. The heat rises; the days slip by. The plan is for Claire to visit Korea with her grandparents. They fled the civil war there over fifty years ago, along with thousands of others, and haven’t been back since. When they first arrived in Japan, they opened Shiny, a pachinko parlour. Shiny is still open, drawing people in with its bright, flashing lights and promises of good fortune. And as Mieko and Claire gradually bond, their tender relationship growing, Mieko’s determination to visit the pachinko parlour builds. The Pachinko Parlour is a nuanced and beguiling exploration of identity and otherness, unspoken histories, and the loneliness you can feel within a family. Crisp and enigmatic, Shua Dusapin’s writing glows with intelligence.
Reviews with the most likes.
Nothing happens in this novel.
But it's such a pregnant silence, fraught with history, shame, impostor syndrome, uncertainty and ultimately a broken relationship with the self, it becomes a hazy echo-chamber of a book, in which readers can actually feels on their own skin the hot and humid, disorientating Japanese summer, occasionally interrupted by the soft plinging and dinging of a pachinko machine.
4.5 stars.
The Pachinko Parlor by Elisa Shua Dusapin is a slice-of-life novel that follows a women and her friendship with the young girl she's tutoring her to help her with her French. There isnt much to say, since its very character-based and “bland”. I'm not using “bland” as derogatory, but more like it's very plain. But, the writing is beautiful, and really fits this genre of literature. You should check this one out if you like general/literary fiction!
actual rating: 3.75
