Pachinko By Min Jin Lee is one of fiction books for readers who seek a paradox, the familiar in the foreign, new realities that only this one particular author can give us. The gifted Korean-born Min Jin Lee really nailed this time by making the kind of novel which will open your eyes and fill them with tears.
Pachinko, for those not in the know, is one of the national obsessions of Japan, a dizzying cross between pinball and a slot machine, where in small metal balls drop randomly and amid a maze of brass pins. The urge to play can quickly become an addiction, and of course the game is a perfect metaphor for the ricochet whims of fate. Owning pachinko parlors becomes a way for the clan depicted in the novel to climb out of poverty - but destiny cannot be manipulated so easily.
Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan.
So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.
First Generation: Yangjin and Hoonie
Lee knows how to draw a reader in! Hoonie’s introduction is a short nine pages, but sets the novel’s tone. Pachinko begins with Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910 when Hoonie is working in his family’s boardinghouse. His family is comparatively well-off, but poor and struggling. From the get, there’s something a little miraculous about Lee’s main characters in their extreme work ethic, patience, and tenacity. Hoonie marries Yangjin and they have a daughter. Thirteen years later (or two swift paragraphs), Hoonie dies and Yangjin is left alone to raise Sunja and run the boardinghouse.
Second Generation: Sunja
Sunja’s story underpins the entire book. The narrative swings back around to her experience even after the focus has moved to her grandchildren. My biggest gripe with the book is that no one else is quite as interesting as Sunja and her immediate circle. Looking back, though, I’m torn between seeing her as an interesting character or as one I just wanted to know more about. Her sections were the most engaging because she was the character with the most going on, who remained the most tight-lipped about her thoughts and feelings.
Sunja’s life is difficult and shaped by her sense of guilt and shame that her husband (Isak) married her with the knowledge that she was already pregnant by another man. Isak was in ill health and wanted to give her child a name for all that she and her mother had done for him. He’s the picture of virtue, perhaps annoyingly so. Even more annoying: When the time skips begin in earnest, Isak is the first character to be shortchanged. The rest of the book refers back to their marriage, but for all its importance to the plot and character development, it only exists in snatches.
Once time starts skipping, it doesn’t stop. There are long-awaited confrontations and conversations that are built up, then skipped over. Some information (all the key stuff) is told in retrospect, but heart and emotion is tough to convey via summary. At times, I felt like I knew these people through an annual holiday card or mass email, but even that gives the pacing too much credit—some characters are offstage for more than a decade. When they resurface, they’re fundamentally different people whose actions are hard to understand because they were also enigmatic as children and teens.
Third Generation: Noa and Mozasu
Noa and Mozasu are brothers and—for as much as their differences are harped upon—they end up being quite similar. They both possess their mother’s work ethic and are singularly (almost mechanically) proficient at their chosen professions. Both move up the ranks quickly and uncontested because they’re so much more honest and dedicated than any of their peers. In Lee’s defense, it’s hard to flesh out a character when he can meet and propose to his wife inside a single chapter, get married offstage, reappear a few years later for the birth of his kid, then, in the next chapter (and some years later), learn that his wife has tragically died. This death is sad in the sense that it would be a sad thing if it happened—it’s sad because the idea is sad, not because the reader had any attachment or investment in the character. When contrasted with more developed characters/scenes, this moment was especially flat. Lee is a very talented writer, but the growing cast size begins to negatively affect the quality of her storytelling in this section.
This book is totally worth to read as i mentioned before that this book was for readers who look for a paradox. The ending was so sad and not like any other books that i had been read. SO GUYSS I really recommend this book for becoming your book collections.
Rating in the scale of 5:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
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