A new tour de force from the bestselling author of Free Food for Millionaires, for readers of A Fine Balance and Cutting for Stone. Profoundly moving and gracefully told, 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. Betrayed by her wealthy lover, Sunja finds unexpected salvation when a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and bring her to Japan to start a new ...
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A new tour de force from the bestselling author of Free Food for Millionaires, for readers of A Fine Balance and Cutting for Stone. Profoundly moving and gracefully told, 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. Betrayed by her wealthy lover, Sunja finds unexpected salvation when a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and bring her to Japan to start a new life. So begins a sweeping saga of exceptional people in exile from a homeland they never knew and caught in the indifferent arc of history. In Japan, Sunja's family members endure harsh discrimination, catastrophes, and poverty, yet they also encounter great joy as they pursue their passions and rise to meet the challenges this new home presents. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, they are bound together by deep roots as their family faces enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.
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Add this copy of Pachinko to cart. $5.53, good condition, Sold by Once Upon A Time Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Tontitown, AR, UNITED STATES, published 2017 by HEAD OF ZEUS.
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This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear. This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear.
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Edition:
Grand Central
Paperback
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Publisher:
Grand Central
Published:
Grand Central
Alibris ID:
17813059807
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The American novelist Min Jin Lee's "Pachinko" (2017) is a lengthy family saga of a Korean family extending from the years 1910 through 1989. The early part of the story (1910 -- 1933) is set in a small, poor fishing village in Korea while most of the rest of the book is set in Japan.
The novel tries to be both broad and particular. The broad theme explores the relationship between the Koreans and Japan. Japan had made Korea a colony in the early part of the 20th century. Lee's book shows how the Japanese have always tended to look down on the Koreans and to treat them patronizingly and to deny them social, economic, and legal opportunity. This was the case when Japan took control of Korea, and it continued, and apparently still continues, with respect to the many Koreans who lived in Japan. Most Americans, including myself, probably know little about Korean and Japanese history. To fill this gap in understanding, this book is highly worthwhile. It shows some history from the responses of Koreans to the situation in which they see themselves. The book covers the colonial relationship, the years leading up to WW II and the War itself, culminating in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Korean War, and the rebuilding of Japan in the following years.
The book is also a family saga with a large cast of characters. In common with many historians and novelists, Lee tried to focus on ordinary individuals rather than on leaders and on affairs of state. She covers the struggling early history of the family in Korea and then its fortunes in Japan. In the long family saga and the depiction of the many characters, the novel is less convincing than in its overall depiction of Koreans and Japan. The book includes some highly effective scenes and characterizations as well as some that work less well. The most effective parts of the book are the earliest as the author sets the stage and introduces her characters. The scenes set in Korea are highly convincing as are most of the scenes in Japan through the end of WW II. The book deteriorates markedly in its latter sections. The book tends to introduce and to discuss important characters late in the story and these characters and their issues are much less interesting that the characters and situations introduced early in the novel. As an example, the title of the book is derived from a Japanese game of chance played on a pinball machine. Koreans, denied legitimate employment opportunities in Japan, tended to gravitate to operating Pachincko parlors. Several people in this story do so. The game of Pachincko is not introduced until about the mid-way point in the novel and has little to do with what came before. The book's late focus on the game and on some less than distinguished latter characters is anti-climactic to the earlier part of the novel. Some of the sexual focus of the latter part of the book also seems distracting and unrelated to the family saga or to the story of Koreans and Japan.
The writing style of the book is largely effective but mixed. I found the work flowed well, but the author has a tendency to be didactic and to interject some awkwardly long and preaching discussions into the voices of her characters. The author focuses more on women than on men and on the strengths of many of the women as they work outside for many years in the markets and try to be a support to their families. The book does not deprecate men or male sexuality. Many of the male characters receive sympathetic portrayals.
In an interview given for the paperback edition of "Pachinko" the author describes her subjects as "history, war, economics, class, sex, gender, and religion". She describes her themes as "forgiveness, loss, desire, aspiration, failure, duty, and faith." Her descriptions are accurate. She has much to say about all of these matters, but her discussions often get muddled and lost in this overly-long and less than focused novel.
The religious themes of the book are strong with a favorable portrayal of Christianity in Japan during a time when it was largely unwelcome. I was surprised that the book didn't give a fuller treatment of Buddhism which has many adherents in both Korea and Japan. A main theme of the story alludes to the Biblical prophet Hosea who marries a prostitute. The Bible story and the related story of some of the main characters are well told and integrated.
The love of literature and of learning also form important, well-told parts of this saga. The length and content of the book parallel some of the long British Victorian novels. One of the book's major characters is a lover of literature with aspirations to become a professor. The book draws parallels between the aspirations of this character and Victorian writers including Dickens and George Elliot. These scenes were effectively done, as were the religious scenes. They tended to get lost in the long flow of the novel and in its more rambling, less effective themes and moments.
Many of the reader reviews of this novel capture and assess in varied ways its strengths and weaknesses. For the most part, I enjoyed this novel for its portrayal of a history that I hadn't known much about before and that rewards reflection. I also enjoyed much of the story and many of the characters, especially in the earlier part of the book. The virtues of this book were strong enough to make the book worthwhile even though it was over-long, diffuse, and deteriorated in its later sections.
