“Lost in Translation” was the name of the 2003 film that depicted the experience of feeling lonely and linguistically isolated in a foreign land. Like the movie, Elisa Shua Dusapin’s novel “The Pachinko Parlour” is set in Tokyo. Claire, aged 30, has arrived in the city from Switzerland to visit her grandparents and accompany them on a trip back to their home country of Korea. But Claire’s time with them is an oppressive experience. She speaks Japanese and knows the culture, but her grandparents insist on talking Korean, a language that she has forgotten in Switzerland. Claire’s interaction with them is painfully laboured – reduced to simple words, gestures, and facial contortions.
Playing games like the Swiss version of Monopoly helps to bridge the gap. Claire’s grandmother, in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, is a Playmobil fan. Her grandfather runs a small Pachinko parlour that has seen better days. Claire divides her time between her grandparents and tutoring a ten-year-old girl, Mieko, in French. At least she and Mieko are gradually able to bond and overcome their cultural differences.
“The Pachinko Parlour” is both a jarring and a beautifully tranquil book, its emotional rawness reflected in the book title. Pachinko is a lonely arcade game played by the masses in Japan, who sit in tightly packed rows, oblivious to those on the slot machines next to them. Players launch their pinballs hoping for a moment of fulfilment that remains elusive. There are no cash prizes to win – only underwhelming teddy bears and chewing gum packets.
Using sparse prose, author Elisa Shua Dusapin infuses the novel with the subtle melancholy of the Pashinko parlour. The summer is hot and humid, the city loud and hectic. The twinkling, pulsing Pashinko amusement arcades feel as contrived as a Disneyland parade. By no means is Claire unhappy – boyfriend Mathieu awaits her in Switzerland. But she feels strangely listless, stuck in limbo between different languages and generations both familiar and unfamiliar. It gradually dawns on her that her grandparents are reluctant to return to a Korea from which they have become estranged. All that the elderly couple have left is their Korean mother tongue in a foreign country. As Claire boards the ferry to make the crossing to Korea, her grandparents are unable to walk up the gangplank with her.
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