"The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart" by Chesil

The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart (Apr. 5, 2022) by Chesil.

   Takami Nieda, translator.

*This is a standalone novel.*

What do you do if the sky is falling? Ginny Park (a.k.a. Pak Jinhee) wonders this after reading a crumpled slip of paper in Stephanie’s writing. Stephanie is not a relative. She’s her host mother and an award-winning children’s book author. Ginny’s path has been uneasy. Growing up as a Zainichi Korean (ethnic Koreans residing in Japan) in Tokyo littered her path with its own kind of discrimination (“And so, an invisible thirty-eighth parallel line was drawn in Japan, too.”), but she also experiences discrimination at the Korean school in Japan. She isn’t fluent in Korean, but Japanese. She’s eventually expelled from that school and then expelled from a Catholic high school in Hawaii. Now she’s in Oregon with Stephanie. Ginny continues to feel like she should be on-the-run and is again about to face expulsion if she doesn’t apply herself academically. She has been traumatized and has tried exacting her own revolution, but needs to find acceptance and forgiveness of herself as part of her autonomy.

            This slim novel with a long title packs a punch. As with any story, it’s not going to fit with every reader, despite Ginny/Jinhee being a complex character who’s thoughtful and rebellious, sorrowful yet angry. The novel is comprised of short chapters, but it traverses deep and sensitive subjects like discrimination, racism, diaspora and the struggle to feel like one belongs somewhere, anywhere. Ginny brims with passion and determination, but isn’t without doubt and questions and perhaps some depression. Its length doesn’t signify that it’s a fluff read; it is thought-provoking, and if it isn’t to some readers, it should be. For me, her experiences in Japan as Zainichi are far different than any discrimination I’ve experienced because of my race (mine’s been any-type-of-Asian in mostly Caucasian settings), though her line, “…and as an Asian, I was constantly being harassed by both” resonated much stronger than I’d like. I don’t know how much is total fiction and how much is fiction that’s based on the author’s life, but it’s a powerful little novel. Identity is complex, and it doesn’t take 500 pages to showcase that. Sometimes it only takes 158.

            P.S. I wish I read Japanese fluently, as I imagine it must’ve been striking to read in its original language. Nieda’s translation is impactful and rendered so eloquently that it’s graceful.

            P.P.S. The original title, romanized, is Jini no pazuru, which translates as Jini’s Puzzle. I’m incredibly curious how it went from that to “The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart” when translated to English!

            P.P.P.S. Sorairo wa kokoro moyou = The color of the sky is the shape of the heart.