Point of View

Pachinko is always narrated from a third-person omniscient perspective. The book regularly enters the consciousness of different characters; it occasionally dives into a character’s point of view only once or twice throughout the entire novel.

Additionally, the novel often switches between one point of view to another – or jumps between multiple points of view – over the course of a single scene. For example, in scenes between Sunja and Hansu during the courtship, the reader knows how both Hansu and Sunja are perceiving the scene. This omniscience gives the reader more information about intentions and perspectives than the characters know about one another.

Often, though, most sections remain in the point of view of a single character the entire time. In effect, this single point of view indicates that the character does not know how the person with whom she is speaking feels about a...