Les lettres romandes du mardi - Nicolas Jutzet
Le Regard Libre and its readers discovered Elisa Shua Dusapin through her first book Winter in Sokcho. A meeting reported in our twenty-ninth edition (July 2017). In the meantime, the book has become a real success, making its author a promise now eagerly awaited. Recently, Elisa Shua Dusapin was even guest at the Elysée Palace,invited to the Elysée Palace by French President Emmanuel Macron, in the presence of his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-In. What a long way we've come!
Japan, Korea, a call to travel
Elisa Shua Dusapin's second novel, Pachinko Marbles, takes up the main elements of his first book. Japan replaces South Korea as the setting for the story. As the pages turn, we discover the same light-hearted writing style that makes it easy to slip into the skin of the heroine, Claire, a young woman on vacation with her maternal grandparents. A visiting European. We find ourselves dreaming, feeling Japan under our feet, the particular smells of crab cooked in all sorts of sauces and the taste of the royal milk tea.
The novel focuses on the world of the Pachinko,a cross between a pinball and a slot machine, the tactilo Japanese. Having fled unified Korea during the war, the protagonist's grandparents run a gambling establishment, centered on the famous Pachinko, in the capital. They benefit from a tax advantage reserved for foreigners; they don't pay exorbitant taxes on their business, which is still frowned upon by the locals, but widely practiced.
Pachinko takes its name from the noise made by the marbles in the machine. They clatter against the glass, rattle in the plastic casings, rattle in the studs, chirp in the steel and then make a final impact in the basket.
The story follows a number of threads, from the break-up of Korea and the subsequent forced exile of some of its inhabitants, to Claire's complicated parentage and the budding relationship with the surly daughter of a French teacher, Mrs. Ogawa, Mieko. Hired to help her progress in the language of Molière, Claire spends long days trying to understand the enigmatic Japanese girl. Ahead of her peers, she never ceases to amaze. Perhaps the absence of her missing father. He was a successful engineer, notably of the world-famous Shinkansen, the high-speed train with the sharp snout that is the pride of the country. Claire's grandparents don't really fit into their new country, but they work hard. Relentlessly. They had to flee Korea, but seem never to have left completely and never to have arrived in Japan.
They don't mix with the community of Koreans from Japan, the Zainichis, deported under the Japanese occupation or exiled like them to escape the Korean War.
After long years of exile and a grueling working life, Claire wants to take her grandparents back to their native land, now split in two. They agree, with no great show of impatience. A steely phlegm. This is the common thread running through the story. She'll have to fight. Against herself, against those around her.
I love the fog. It prevents me from seeing far. It blocks the horizon. It gives the impression that we have time, that we have the right to see nothing. To see nothing coming.
Elisa Shua Dusapin
Pachinko Marbles
Edition Zoé
2018
144 pages
Photo credit: © Pixabay
To find out more:
«Culture au point»: Elisa Shua Dusapin: «Writing a second novel wasn't easy».»
«Versus lire: Pachinko Balls by Elisa Shua Dusapin
French 
German 
English