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Culture clash, survival and hope in 'pachinko'.

Jean Zimmerman

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In fiction we seek a paradox, the familiar in the foreign, new realities that only this one particular author can give us. Pachinko , the sophomore novel by the gifted Korean-born Min Jin Lee, is the kind of book that can open your eyes and fill them with tears at the same time.

Pachinko, for those not in the know, is one of the national obsessions of Japan, a dizzying cross between pinball and a slot machine, wherein small metal balls drop randomly amid a maze of brass pins. There's a comic feel of Rube Goldberg to the device, but the final effect is oddly mesmerizing. 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.

We are in Buddenbrooks territory here, tracing a family dynasty over a sprawl of seven decades, and comparing the brilliantly drawn Pachinko to Thomas Mann's classic first novel is not hyperbole. Lee bangs and buffets and pinballs her characters through life, love and sorrow, somehow making her vast, ambitious narrative seem intimate.

"History has failed us, but no matter," she writes in the book's Tolstoyan opening sentence, hinting at the mix of tragic stoicism that is to come. During the second decade of the 20th century, as Korea falls under Japanese annexation, a young cleft-palated fisherman named Hoonie marries a local girl, Yangjin, "fifteen and mild and tender as a newborn calf." The couple has a daughter, Sunja, who grows to childhood as the cosseted pet of their rooming house by the sea in Yeong-do, a tiny islet near the Korean port city of Busan.

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As a shy, vulnerable adolescent, Sunja is the prey of a formidable middle-aged gangster named Koh Hansu. With features that make him look "somewhat Japanese," and elegant Western-style fashions such as "white patent leather shoes," Hansu embeds himself deeply into the remainder of Sunja's life. He's a Godfather, but also something of a fairy godmother. Most importantly, he provides a financial buffer when the family relocates to Osaka, Japan.

Lee deftly sketches a half-familiar, half-foreign but oftentimes harsh new world of a Korean immigrant in imperialist Japan. Sunja gives birth out of wedlock to Hansu's son, her shame erased at the last minute by marriage to a patrician, good-hearted pastor. The entwined destinies of the gangster's bastard and a second child, the son of a preacher man, become an engine that drives the story forward.

Amid the nightmare of war, the people of Osaka deal with privations. "City children were sent alone to the country by train to buy an egg or a potato in exchange for a grandmother's kimono." Sunja and her beloved sister-in-law Kyunghee have set themselves up in business making the flavorful national specialty of Korea, kimchi. Pickled cabbage serves as mode of survival, rising to symbolic importance alongside the pachinko game itself, organic and homey where the other is mechanical and sterile.

The cultures, Korean and Japanese, clash. Sunja's son, Mozasu, who owns pachinko parlors, will level with his best friend over fried oysters and shishito peppers, in a passage that lies at the heart of these characters' dilemmas: "In Seoul, people like me get called Japanese bastard, and in Japan, I'm just another dirty Korean no matter how much money I make, or how nice I am."

Lee is at her best describing complex behaviors and emotions with unadorned, down-to-earth language. "Isak knew how to talk with people, to ask questions, and to hear the concerns in a person's voice; and she seemed to understand how to survive, and this was something he did not always know how to do." There are horrors in Pachinko — a lengthy prison term is marked by gruesome torture — but the core message remains ultimately one of survival and hope.

"Pachinko was a foolish game," Lee writes, "but life was not." The reader could be forgiven for thinking that the reverse might also be true. This is honest writing, fiction that looks squarely at what is, both terrible and wonderful and occasionally as bracing as a jar of Sunja's best kimchi.

Jean Zimmerman's latest novel, Savage Girl, is out now in paperback. She posts daily at Blog Cabin .

By Min Jin Lee

‘Pachinko’ by Min Jin Lee is a historical fiction that utilizes a unique plot narrative that resonates with all people in terms of family bond, struggle for survival, and the will to reclaim one’s identity in a strange world.

Article written by Victor Onuorah

Degree in Journalism from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Epic and compelling, ‘ Pachinko ’ by Min Jin Lee takes the reader by hand for a mixed ride filled with joy and family bond, pains and sorrow, denial and discrimination accustomed to being in a land far away from, and outside, one’s area of protection.

A Sweeping Tale of Four Generations of a Korean Family

Min Jin Lee’s masterpiece ‘ Pachinko’ follows the story of a poor Korean family down to its fourth generation in what is a mixed ride of love, loss, and struggle to find oneself in a stranger’s land.

Sunja becomes the all-important central character connecting all four generations of a Korean family. She is the beautiful daughter of Hoonie, a man born disabled, who, unlike her three senior siblings, survives and grows into a strong woman and later the matriarch of the Baek family.

She has a tough start to life as Hoonie her father passes away when she turns 13, and by 17 mistakenly becomes pregnant for Koh Hansu, the handsome and rich fish dealer who’s also a dangerous gang member of the ‘Yakuza’. Hansu rejects to marry her making her life a disgrace and a living hell.

Sunja rises through the disappointment to raise her children Noa and Mozasu until they become responsible people in a (foreign) Japanese society that treats non-natives with biases and discrimination. Min Jin Lee uses her experience as an immigrant to tell such a relatable and emotional story in ‘ Pachinko.’

A portrayal of True Family Values, Love, and Survival

For the most part, Min Jin Lee’s ‘ Pachinko ’ is a novel that beautifully exhibits a tremendous amount of true family love, loss, and the gumption for survival that it portrays in a four generational tale of a Korean family.

The reader sees These epic combinations come to play from the start of ‘ Pachinko ’ with Hoonie’s aging parents who are forced to shower their only son, Hoonie – born with disabilities, with love and affection, survival values, and ethics – just the right quantities that he needs to take care of himself is a cruel world for when they are no longer there to protect and provide for him.

Hoonie, despite his disabilities (as he was born with two disorders in cleft palate and clubbed foot), does well to transfer these survivalist values, love, and affection to his miracle child, Sunja – who also transmits the same to her children and grandchildren.

An Emotionally Aggravating Loss to Generational Characters

When it comes to deaths and losses one finds the reader’s emotion is being aggravated on several accounts – thanks to the many instances of emotional deaths of characters each page is made to grapple with.

From Hoonie’s two brothers dying from illness to his aging parents passing away three years after he marries Hoonie himself. Sunja’s three senior siblings down to Baek Isak, Hana, and Yumi die a poetic death so that her son lives, and then there is Noa’s painfully unexpected suicide hitting us just right when he was larger than life and had more reasons to live for.

An Insight Into The History of ‘ Zainichi ’ Koreans

At best, ‘ Pachinko ’ is one of the few books that give the readership a short, yet complete insight into the history of the start of the ‘ Zainichi ’ race that still exists today in Japan.

‘ Zainichi ’, as a Japanese word, roughly translates to mean a new foreigner, and is designated by Japan to non-citizens to remind them that they will never become one of them. They are then met with systemic discrimination, ostracization, and dehumanization.

The reader learns from the book ‘ Pachinko ’ that the history of ‘ Zainichi ’ is traced back to around 1910 when Korea was annexed by Japan.

How much of a good read is Min Jin Lee’s ‘ Pachinko ’?

Min Jin Lee’s ‘ Pachinko ’ is without a doubt a good read and this has been proven by the number of high-profile reviews it’s gotten from top publications and personalities, such as Barack Obama.

How successful was ‘ Pachinko ’ post-publication?

Upon its release, ‘ Pachinko ’ immediately caught the eyes of the literary committee because of its historically insightful storytelling of Asian ethnicity. The book also was runner-up for the 2017’s National Book Award.

Is ‘ Pachinko ’ based on a true historical account?

Min Jin Lee included research for the final draft of ‘ Pachinko ’ by interviewing real-life Koreans who lived in Japan to get their experience and thoughts, however, this doesn’t make the book a true-life account and so is still considered a fiction.

Pachinko Review

Book Title: Pachinko

Book Description: Min Jin Lee's 'Pachinko' is an epic tale of a Korean family's endurance through colonialism, earthquakes, and WWII.

Book Author: Min Jin Lee

Book Edition: First Edition

Book Format: Hardcover

Publisher - Organization: Grand Central Publishing

Date published: February 7, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4555-6393-7

Number Of Pages: 504

'Pachinko' Review: A Multigenerational Epic on the Racial Feud between Korea and Japan.

‘ Pachinko ‘ by Min Jin Lee is a sweeping four-generational epic based on the survival struggles of a poor Korean family in the midst of social and economic hardship brought upon by colonialism, earthquake, and World War II. The thrills of the story are neverending as it is a joy to the reader. It’s revealing and proves itself an abridged version of an interesting, yet untold history shared by Korea and Japan. With ‘ Pachinko ‘, there are so many life lessons to learn, and some of them are about value for family, others are on survival strategies and approaches to fitting into a strange, far away land outside of the home. The reader doesn’t have to understand the Korean language or be Asian to harvest from the wealth of interesting historical information portrayed in the book by Min Jin Lee.

• An abridged history of the racial feud between Korea and Japan 
• Teaches vital life lessons on survival strategies and family values 
• Easily readable, as stories flow into each other with seamless transitions
• Story is slightly one-sided, leaving out the Japanese accounts
• Too many less significant characters 
• Enormous inclusion of ethnic prejudices and ostracization

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About Victor Onuorah

Victor is as much a prolific writer as he is an avid reader. With a degree in Journalism, he goes around scouring literary storehouses and archives; picking up, dusting the dirt off, and leaving clean even the most crooked pieces of literature all with the skill of analysis.

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Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2017

National Book Award Finalist

by Min Jin Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 7, 2017

An old-fashioned epic whose simple, captivating storytelling delivers both wisdom and truth.

An absorbing saga of 20th-century Korean experience, seen through the fate of four generations.

Lee ( Free Food for Millionaires , 2007) built her debut novel around families of Korean-Americans living in New York. In her second novel, she traces the Korean diaspora back to the time of Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910. “History has failed us,” she writes in the opening line of the current epic, “but no matter.” She begins her tale in a village in Busan with an aging fisherman and his wife whose son is born with a cleft palate and a twisted foot. Nonetheless, he is matched with a fine wife, and the two of them run the boardinghouse he inherits from his parents. After many losses, the couple cherishes their smart, hardworking daughter, Sunja. When Sunja gets pregnant after a dalliance with a persistent, wealthy married man, one of their boarders—a sickly but handsome and deeply kind pastor—offers to marry her and take her away with him to Japan. There, she meets his brother and sister-in-law, a woman lovely in face and spirit, full of entrepreneurial ambition that she and Sunja will realize together as they support the family with kimchi and candy operations through war and hard times. Sunja’s first son becomes a brilliant scholar; her second ends up making a fortune running parlors for pachinko, a pinball-like game played for money. Meanwhile, her first son’s real father, the married rich guy, is never far from the scene, a source of both invaluable help and heartbreaking woe. As the destinies of Sunja’s children and grandchildren unfold, love, luck, and talent combine with cruelty and random misfortune in a deeply compelling story, with the troubles of ethnic Koreans living in Japan never far from view.

Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4555-6393-7

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016

LITERARY FICTION

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THINGS FALL APART

by Chinua Achebe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 23, 1958

This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.

Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.

Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger .

Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958

ISBN: 0385474547

Page Count: 207

Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky

Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958

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by Chinua Achebe

THE SECRET HISTORY

by Donna Tartt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1992

The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992

ISBN: 1400031702

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

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Reviews of Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

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• First Published:
• Feb 7, 2017, 496 pages
• Nov 2017, 512 pages

• Historical Fiction
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About This Book

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Book Summary

A new tour de force from the bestselling author of Free Food for Millionaires , for readers of The Kite Runner and Cutting for Stone .

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.

Yeongdo, Busan, Korea History has failed us, but no matter. At the turn of the century, an aging fisherman and his wife decided to take in lodgers for extra money. Both were born and raised in the fishing village of Yeongdo—a five-mile-wide islet beside the port city of Busan. In their long marriage, the wife gave birth to three sons, but only Hoonie, the eldest and the weakest one, survived. Hoonie was born with a cleft palate and a twisted foot; he was, however, endowed with hefty shoulders, a squat build, and a golden complexion. Even as a young man, he retained the mild, thoughtful temperament he'd had as a child. When Hoonie covered his misshapen mouth with his hands, something he did out of habit meeting strangers, he resembled his nice-looking father, both having the same large, smiling eyes. Inky eyebrows graced his broad forehead, perpetually tanned from outdoor work. Like his parents, Hoonie was not a nimble talker, and some made the mistake of ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• " History has failed us, but no matter ." How does the opening line reflect the rest of the book—and do you agree?
• In a way, Sunja's relationship with Isak progresses in reverse, as her pregnancy by another man brings them together and prompts Isak to propose marriage. How does Lee redefine intimacy and love with these two characters?
• "Their eldest brother, Samoel, had been the brave one, the one who would've confronted the officers with audacity and grace, but Yoseb knew he was no hero.…Yoseb didn't see the point of anyone dying for his country or for some greater ideal. He understood survival and family." What kinds of bravery are shown by different characters, and what motivates this bravery?
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Media Reviews

Reader reviews, bookbrowse review.

Although some of the central events of the novel, like World War II and the atomic bomb drop at Nagasaki, are familiar territory for fiction, Lee prioritizes out-of-the-ordinary perspectives: her Korean characters are first the colonized, and then the outsiders trying to thrive in a foreign country despite segregation and persecution. I recommend Pachinko to readers of family sagas and anyone who wants to learn more about the Korean experience... continued

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(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster ).

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Beyond the Book

"If you are a rich Korean, there's a pachinko parlor in your background somewhere," Min Jin Lee writes in her novel Pachinko . Several of her Korean characters end up working in pachinko parlors, despite their differing levels of education and their previous experience. Pachinko is essentially an upright pinball machine. Gamblers pay to borrow a set of small steel balls that are loaded into the contraption. Pressing a spring-loaded handle launches them onto a metal track lined with brass pins and several cups. The aim is to bounce the balls off the pins and get them to land in the cups before they fall down the hole at the bottom. A ball landing in a cup triggers a payout, in the form of extra balls dropping into the tray at the ...

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By Min Jin Lee

Book review, full book summary and synopsis for Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, a story of a Korean family in Japan across generations.

With the backdrop of the Japanese occupation of Korea, Pachinko follows the lives of a family living in Korea that re-establishes itself in Japan. The narrative progresses through the years and the events of WWII, and we see the family's struggles and the sacrifices made in the name of survival. Even as the story near modern day, its characters are never quite free of their history and the events of the past.

Pachinko is a story of a family told across generations, whose lives are shaped by the events and attitudes of the world around them. It's a moving and intimate story that deals in universal themes and struggles.

(The Full Plot Summary is also available, below)

Full Plot Summary

Book I introduces an old fisherman and his wife who turn their small home in Yeongdo, Korea into a boarding house. Their only surviving son, Hoonie, is a cripple who marries a nice but impoverished girl, Yangjin. The young couple has a daughter, Sunja. Hoonie dies of tuberculosis when Sunja is 13. Afterwards, Yangjin keeps running the boarding house by herself for income. When Sunja is 16, she meets a fish salesman, Koh Hansu, who seduces her, and Sunja gets pregnant. Hansu is married with children and cannot marry her. He offers to take care of Sunja financially, but she wants nothing to do with him.

Meanwhile, a religious man comes to stay at the boarding house, Baek Isak, who has tuberculosis, and they nurse him back to health. When he is better, he asks Sunja to marry him after hearing about her unfortunate situation. Sunja and Isak move to Osaka, Japan, to live with Isak's brother and sister-in-law, Yoseb and Kyunghee. Isak becomes the assistant pastor at a church. One day, some debt collectors come demanding payment on a debt that Yoseb incurred when paying for the costs for Isak and Sunja to come to Osaka. Sunja sells a watch Hansu had given her to pay off the debt. Right after, her baby, Noa, is born.

In Book II , young Noa now how has a baby brother, Mozasu. However, Isak gets arrested for religious activities. Afterwards, Sunja starts selling kimchi to help make ends meet. Soon, Kim Changho, a restaurateur, offers to employ both Sunja and Kyunghee to make kimchi for his restaurants, for a generous salary. They accept. When Noa is 8, Isak is finally released from prison, weak and sick, but he dies soon after.

One day, Hansu shows up saying that Osaka will soon be bombed by the Americans and that Sunja needs to leave. He's been keeping tabs on her, and Kim works for him which is why they were offered the kimchi job. He brings the family to a farm where they will be safe, though Yoseb goes to Nagasaki for a new job. Hansu brings Yangjin to the farm as well. Yoseb is badly injured when Nagasaki is bombed.

After the war, the family moves back to Osaka and rebuilds their house larger with the money the farmer gave them. Kim also stays with them and continues to work for Hansu, who now is a gangster running a "protection" racket. As Noa grows up, he is studious and well behaved, while Mozasu doesn't like school and gets into trouble. Mozasu befriends a Japanese outcast, Haruki, whose mother is a seamstress. To keep him out of trouble, a neighbor who owns a pachinko parlor, Goro, hires Mozasu to work for him. Meanwhile, Noa gets into the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo.

Against Yoseb's advice (he knows Hansu is a bad man), Sunja asks Hansu for the money for Noa's tuition, which Hansu readily pays in addition to room, board and an allowance. Noa meets a pretty girl at school, Akiko, and they date for a long time. (Meanwhile, Mozasu marries Yumi, a girl who works for Haruki's mother.) When Noa breaks up with Akiko, she angrily tells Noa it's obvious Hansu is his real father and that Hansu is clearly a Yakuza gangster which is how he affords all these things. Noa confronts Sunja, and is furious when she confirms it even though he wasn't a gangster when they met. Noa quits school and leaves to start a new life, not wanting to be found.

In Book III , Noa now works as an accountant at a pachinko parlor in Nagano, and everyone he knows thinks he's Japanese. He gets married and has kids. When Hansu finally tracks him down, Sunja goes to see him and Noa kills himself. Meanwhile, Haruki marries one of his mother's assistants, Ayume, although he is gay. One day, she sees him engaged in a sex act with a young man, but never says anything.

Mozasu owns his own pachinko parlor now and has a son, Solomon, but Yumi soon dies in a car accident. Hansu shows up at the funeral, but he still hasn't located Noa yet. Solomon is a cheerful boy who attends an expensive international school. Mozasu dates a woman who was previously divorced and has three kids. Her daughter, Hana, gets pregnant and stays with her mother for a while. Hana is 17, but she seduces 14-year-old Solomon and convinces him to give her money. She then runs away, leaving Solomon heartbroken. (She ends up becoming a sex worker and dying of AIDs.)

Solomon goes off to Columbia University and works at a bank in Japan afterwards. His Korean American girlfriend comes with him, but is unhappy there. When there's a complication at work, Solomon is fired. His girlfriend wants to move back, but Solomon realizes he is Japanese even if Japan sees Koreans as foreigners. Solomon decides to stay and join his father in the pachinko business, even if it is un-prestigious compared to banking. The book ends with Sunja visiting Isak's grave and learning that Noa visited the grave all the time, even while he was living in Nagano. Sunja buries a photo of Noa in the dirt at the gravesite.

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Book Review

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee has been on my reading list and sitting on my bookself, looking lovely and forlorn, for some time.

With the wildfires, lightning storms and heat wave in Northern California, I decided to head to the coast for a spell and found some time to read it while chilling out in Monterey and listened to some of it via audiobook in the car while doing a little sightseeing. After reading it, I wish I had done so earlier, since it’s as good as the reviews say.

Pachinko is an understated but powerful story that is grounded in its historical context. The book starts with the Japanese invasion of Korea, and it highlights the difficulty of the lives of peasants and the discrimination Koreans faced at the hands of the Japanese during their occupation of Korea. As it proceeds, the effects and after-effects of WWII are reflected in the everyday lives of this Korean family living in Japan.

In Pachinko, the characters grapple with difficult decisions where there are often no good options, where the best option puts their integrity at risk or where any of the available options put their values to the test. Theirs is a family struggling to survive, comprised of individuals who are struggling to survive and whose lives are the result of many small decisions that are made according to the exigencies of the situation. And generations later, their children are still the product of those decisions that were made many years ago.

The meaning behind the title of the book is an apt, though perhaps not very subtle, metaphor. Min Jin Lee compares life to a game of pachinko, an gambling game where the player drops a ball down rows of pins to see where it ends up, which determines the payout. There’s a little choice in how you maneuver and semblance of personal agency involved, but mostly it’s a lot of luck and you never really know how the pins have been adjusted or tweaked to know how things will play out. At one point, Mozasu, one of the characters, tells his friend that “life’s going to keep pushing you around, but you have to keep playing.”

I don’t know that I entirely agree with that was a view on life, but it’s hard to argue that there’s not at least a pachinko-esque aspect to many parts of life.

One of the strongest aspects of Pachinko is how deeply rooted it is to the historical context of that time. Many will recognize how the treatment of Koreans by the Japanese is reminiscent of the treatment of racial minorities by Western countries. Even the Koreans born in Japan are treated like criminals and risk deportation. The book also highlights the precarious position of women during those years. It also examines the high price that must be paid and the sacrifices that are made by parents to improve the lives of their children.

Throughout Pachinko, there are so many parallels to Western history that can be seen, it makes me wonder why there isn’t a greater push to teach this type of history in schools.

Even as the racial slurs against Koreans decrease, the policies in place have kept the Koreans poor and that poverty is thrown around as an insult against them, not unlike the treatment of black people in America. The Koreans that do manage to become wealthy do so through less respected venues like running pachinko parlors, and then are marginalized socially because of their association with those trades. It’s not unlike the treatment of Jewish people who entered finance due to their exclusion from other profitable trades, which morphed over time to a stereotype about their people.

Some Criticisms

As much as I really enjoyed the book, I think there’s a few storylines that seemed incomplete or not really explored. Haruki being gay, for example, I think wasn’t given proper attention other than having his wife spot him performing a sex act, which seems like not a very complete or fair reflection of Haruki’s sexuality what it’s consequences.

I also wasn’t entirely satisfied with the ending of the book. It sort of just ends, but I suppose it’s the journey that counts in this case. I wasn’t looking for everything to be tied up neatly with a bow, but the ending felt like Lee sort of just decided she was done writing and stopped instead of concluding anything.

I also think that there was a weird sexuality to it in terms of the things that Lee chose to sexualize, which was almost elusively young women and the gay man in the book. I think those choices are questionable. I didn’t really understand what purpose it was supposed to serve or why we needed to know the shape and size of every woman’s breasts in this book. It bothers me because Asian women are already over-sexualized in media so adding to it, in a not particularly constructive way, seems counterproductive.

Audiobook Review and Apple TV+ Adaptation

Some quick notes. The audiobook is quite good. I definitely recommend it, the woman narrating does a great job. Also, there’s an adaptation of it coming soon to Apple TV+. For all the details, see Everything We Know about the Pachinko Apple TV+ Series .

Read it or Skip it?

Pachinko is a powerful book that interwines the story about the fate of a family against the backdrop of history in a way that is informative and engrossing. The Japanese invasion of Korea and the treatment of Koreans in Japan is also an often neglected history outside of Asia and is well-worth exploring and discussing, due to the important lessons it holds.

Beyond that, it’s just a good book that’s solidly written and that tells a compelling narrative. It’s easily one of the best books I’ve read this year so far, and I would recommend it any book clubs for sure, even if it’s not a new release. I’m really hopeful that the upcoming Apple TV+ adaptation will encourage more people to read this book, because it’s one that deserves to be read.

See Pachinko on Amazon.

Book Excerpt

Read the first pages of Pachinko

Movie / TV Show Adaptation

See Everything We Know About the 'Pachinko' Adaptation

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It is one of my next reads. Wonderful review! 😍

Loved your review. I read it very recently and thought the same. Perhaps you’d be interested in reading my review

I love d story and it serve as a good lesson to all people who read this book.

The Biggest Differences Between the 'Pachinko' Book and Apple TV+ Series

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Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Min Jin Lee's novel Pachinko which might spoil the TV series.

The Big Picture

• Pachinko changes the chronology and narrative structure from the book to focus on multiple generations of Sunja's family.
• Solomon's character gains more significance in the TV series by making impactful choices that shape his fate.
• Sunja's fate, interactions with Kyunghee, and Hana's motivations differ in the Apple TV+ adaptation compared to the book.

With Season 2 now streaming on Apple TV+ , Pachinko brings to life its rich source material in vibrant colors that capture the many shades of the experiences of Korean immigrants in Japan. Based on the epic historical fiction novel of the same name by Min Jin Lee , Pachinko follows the journey of four generations of a Korean family in the transitioning and turbulent 20th century Japan and Korea. Centered around the main character Sunja ( Youn Yuh-jung / Minha Kim ) and her family, the Apple TV+ series retains much of the source material and the events captured therein while also making major changes to meet the demands emerging from the change in format. Thankfully, the biggest differences between showrunner Soo Hugh ’s ( The Terror ) vision and Lee’s elaborate historical saga only help elevate the stakes and impact of this decades-spanning multilingual drama.

Based on the New York Times bestseller, this sweeping saga chronicles the hopes and dreams of a Korean immigrant family across four generations as they leave their homeland in an indomitable quest to survive and thrive.

The Apple TV+ Series Follows a Different Chronology and Structure

When it comes to the chronology of events and the narrative structure , Apple TV+’s Pachinko puts forth its biggest creative change as compared to the source material. Lee’s novel unfolds in the form of an epic saga with events taking place chronologically from 1910 to 1989. However, the series moves along dual timelines. Sunja’s childhood and adult years are directly placed parallel to the journey of Sunja’s grandson, Solomon Baek ( Jin Ha ), who is an ambitious executive in a top American firm. While Solomon does not make an appearance until very late in the book, the TV series uses Solomon’s identity struggle in an American and Japanese setting to draw parallels with Sunja’s and her family’s journey in Japanese-occupied Korea.

The change in chronology allows the Apple TV+ series to keep shifting focus between multiple generations of Sunja’s family . As a result, the other characters, such as Sunja’s son, Mozasu ( Soji Arai ), Solomon, Mozasu’s girlfriend Etsuko ( Kaho Minami ), and Etsuko’s daughter Hana ( Mari Yamamoto ), are given greater significance in exploring the primary themes of the show. Solomon’s conflicting feelings about his father’s pachinko business and Hana’s strained relationship with her mother become crucial in highlighting the differences in viewpoints of the two generations. The non-linear timeline further serves the purpose of showing how the experiences of each generation frame their perspectives on life.

Solomon Gets Promoted in the Apple TV+ Series

Apart from becoming more pivotal in the series, the TV version of Solomon also achieves greater agency in making choices that impact his fate more significantly. In Episode 1 of Season 1, an ambition-driven Solomon seeks the opportunity from his higher-ups to travel to Tokyo to close an important deal involving a piece of land owned by a Korean lady refusing to sell it. In the book, however, the deal falls into the hands of Solomon after a close professional relationship develops between Solomon and his boss, Kazu. In the series, Solomon goes to great lengths to convince the lady, even employing his grandmother to appeal to the lady’s Korean sensibilities.

However, in the book, Solomon follows an easier path by turning to his father’s former boss, Goro, who also happens to be a yakuza. Contrary to the series, Solomon is fired from his job when the lady suspiciously dies a few days later after her deal with Goro. In the series, Solomon’s exit from Shiffley’s, the company he was working for, is a consequence of his own actions. Just before the signing, Solomon asks the lady not to sign after realizing the true reason behind the lady’s unwillingness to sell the land. Notably, it would also be a bit difficult for the TV series to justify Solomon asking for help from his father, given the TV character is much more driven than the book character.

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Sunja and Kyunghee Share Different Fates in the Book

Although Sunja’s story is far from the end of the series, she meets a different fate compared to the book. By the end of Season 1, Sunja returns to Korea for the first time after leaving for Osaka. Sunja’s interaction with the Korean landlady and her sister-in-law Kyunghee’s ( Felice Choi / Jung Eun-chae ) death become turning points in Sunja’s character arc in Season 1. Before this, Sunja never thought she could return, as she later confesses to her son Solomon. On her first visit to Korea in decades, she visits her father’s grave and reunites with her old friend Bokhee ( Kim Young-ok ).

In Lee’s book version of the story, Sunja never returns to Korea after setting foot in Osaka, Japan . Accordingly, the servant girl Bokhee, who worked at Sunja’s mother Yangin’s ( Jeong In-ji ) boarding house in Yeongbo, never makes an appearance in the book after Sunja’s departure from the small fishing village. It’s only implied that Bokhee and her sister Donghee ( Kim Bo-min ) may have become the victims of the brutality of Japanese soldiers. Also, Sunja never meets her mother in the series after coming to Tokyo. She only comes to know later that her mother died from drowning. In the book, Sunja’s mother Yangjin is brought to Japan by Hansu ( Lee Minho ) during World War II and Yangjin lives under Sunja and Kyunghee’s care until her death in 1979.

Sunja’s sister-in-law gets an unfortunate ending in the Apple TV+ version. At the beginning of the series, Sunja is seen caring for her ailing sister-in-law Kyunghee, with whom she had shared a very deep bond. In the absence of Sunja's husband, Baek Isak ( Steve Sang-Hyun Noh ), it was Kyunghee’s presence that extended the moral strength to Sunja to sustain herself and her family. In the book, Kyunghee is still alive by the end of the story .

Hansu’s Characterization Is Different in the Book

Pachinko makes some important changes to a few characters from the book, affecting how the characters are eventually perceived. In the book, Koh Hansu’s character comes out significantly different when compared to Lee Min-ho’s television counterpart. In the book, Hansu persistently pursues Sunja despite the girl’s initial hesitation about interacting with a powerful businessman who’s a complete stranger to her. Later, the sexual interaction between Hansu and Sunja does not feel fully consensual. In the series, Hansu and Sunja’s romance feels more organic. The show only allows Hansu’s controlling and power-hungry side to emerge once Sunja decides that she doesn’t want to limit herself to just being his mistress for the rest of her life.

Also, the series provides Hansu with a backstory before he meets Sunja. In Episode 7 of Season 1, the series delves into Hansu’s youth when he suffered through the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 and lost his father Koh Jong-yul ( Jung Woong-in ). In the immediate aftermath, the Kantō Massacre ensued and an estimated 6,000 Koreans were massacred , as suggested in the episode’s end. The inclusion of a backstory allows the audience to see him as more than just an antagonist.

Despite this inclusion, the series continues to maintain the moral grayness surrounding the character. This is especially noticeable in his interaction with Isak, the pastor who offers to marry a pregnant Sunja. In the book, Hansu and Isak never meet , but the series creates this interaction to highlight how different the two men are. In the context of buying a new suit for Isak’s marriage to Sunja, Hansu persuades Isak not to marry Sunja, comparing her to a "used" and worn-out suit that Isak wants mended.

Hana’s Motivations Differ Drastically in the Book

Although Etsuko’s daughter Hana meets a similar fate in the book, multiple changes are made to Hana’s storyline in the series. In Lee’s book, Hana runs away from her house before Solomon travels to the United States for his studies. In the series, it’s only after Solomon gets in trouble for theft after being motivated by Hana to steal chocolate from a shop that Solomon is sent to the United States to pursue a different life. Therefore Hana’s decision to run away seems partially motivated by Solomon’s sudden exit from her life.

But, in the book, the incident at the chocolate shop is only mentioned in passing, and it is Hana who steals from the shop. Hana’s bitterness stemmed directly from her relationship with her mother. In the book, Hana became witness to the divorce of her parents — a direct consequence of Etsuko’s many affairs during her marriage. The internal conflict with Hana made her resent everyone around her, including herself. As a result, the book version of the character opts out of Solomon’s life despite the boy’s intention to one day marry Hana.

'Pachinko' the TV Show Makes Many Additions and Omissions to the Book

The TV show has omitted some storylines from the book while adding a few original ones. For instance, the series does not dwell much on Sunja’s father, Hoonie’s (Lee Dae-ho) childhood , and his subsequent marriage to Yangjin, whereas the first few chapters of the book focus on the unfortunate circumstance that Sunja’s parents are in. Also, the entire plotline in the first episode surrounding a Korean fisherman being prosecuted by Japanese soldiers for his treasonous comments against the Japanese is an invention of the series. The entire sequence exposes young Sunja to the political climate of the early 20th-century Japanese-occupied Korea, in line with the inherent conflict reflected more prominently in the series.

Another omission from the source material is Solomon’s girlfriend Phoebe, a Korean-American who Solomon meets during his time in the United States. In the book, Phoebe follows Solomon to Japan , but her utter dislike for the Japanese is a defining trait of the character. In fact, Phoebe and Solomon’s different perspectives on the conflict between Koreans and Japanese become a major reason for their separation in the book. Solomon realizes that Phoebe can never get accustomed to life in Japan, and he refuses to marry her. An independent and driven woman, Phoebe chooses to return to her home in the U.S. In the show, we meet Anna Sawai 's Naomi instead. She is Solomon’s co-worker at Shiffley’s in the Tokyo office. Much like Phoebe and Solomon, Naomi shares a complicated relationship with her heritage, and she offers Solomon a certain level of friendship in the otherwise alienating space in their predominantly Japanese workspace.

With Season 2 now streaming every Friday on Apple TV+, there's still a lot more story to tell. Sunja’s journey after Isak’s death was left unexplored in Season 1. A major character, Sunja’s firstborn child Noa ( Kim Kang-hoon ), did not make an appearance in Season 1 but is set to play a larger role in Season 2, as evidenced by the Season 2 premiere episode. More familiar book characters can be expected to make an appearance in Season 2 of Pachinko . Thankfully, Lee’s source material has decades worth of Sunja’s family history to explore in the sophomore season.

New episodes of Pachinko Season 2 are available to stream every Friday on Apple TV+ in the U.S.

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Pachinko : A Librarian’s Perspective Review

Pachinko is a saga about four generations of a Korean family, most of whom grow up and live in Japan. The story begins in 1910 and goes into the early-1980s. This was an interesting story, and I was never really bored with it. It was, however, far longer than needed to tell the story.

AWARDS AND KUDOS

• Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nominee for Fiction (2018)
• National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (2017)
• Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2017)
• Reading Women Award for Fiction (2017)
• Litsy Award for Historical Fiction (2017)
• RUSA CODES Reading List Nominee for Historical Fiction (2018)
• Dublin Literary Award Nominee (2019)

In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant–and that her lover is married–she refuses to be bought.

Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son’s powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.

THE SHORT VERSION

Quite interesting, but also quite long!

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT PACHINKO

This book took me FIVE weeks to read! That maybe should be in the “didn’t like” section, but I actually really enjoyed the story. Though the first 2/3 was much more interesting than the last third, Pachinko kept my attention from start to finish. It took five weeks to finish simply because it was SO LONG, and well…life. I’m also a pretty slow reader, and I also like reading multiple books at the same time.

Despite the length (just shy of 500 pages), I liked the characters and their stories. We know most about Sunja and her sons, Noa and Mozasu, but there are lots and lots of minor characters. Most of the story is set in Japan, where Koreans are discriminated against and heavily stereotyped. At around 20%, the main character moves from Busan, Korea to Osaka, Japan. The rest of the book is set in Japan.

I loved learning more about Korea and Japan in the 20th Century. Asian history has become one of my favorite topics to learn about in the past few years because we did almost nothing with it in school. We had so many years of American history and even British history in school, but very little about Asia or Africa or South America. My favorite adult reads these days tend to be set outside the US.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE ABOUT PACHINKO

It’s overlong. This is a great story, but it would have been even better if it lost about 100 pages of narrative. Pachinko is divided into three sections, and I felt like the last section was the most rambling. We get all these new characters introduced in the last third, and the focus comes off the original characters. The new characters have some relation to the main characters, but many of them are brand-new in the last third of the book.

That said, I did like the stories of the new characters, particularly the stories of Ayame and Hana. I think these characters show an important side of Japan that we don’t get to see through the main characters.

I also found myself annoyed at the “Mary Sue”-ness of Sunja’s character. She is just so darn perfect and hard-working and always tries her best to do the right thing. The uncorruptable Sunja. That’s nice for a real person in real life, but for the main character of a very long story, it limits her growth. Flawed characters are just so much more interesting. Give me a story from Hana’s point of view!

As the story led up to 1945, I anxiously anticipated reading about the bombing of Nagasaki from a Japanese perspective, especially considering one major character was in Nagasaki when the bomb dropped. What a let-down! The book barely included anything about this major event in Japanese history. The character in Nagasaki wasn’t even harmed by the bomb but was instead injured by something else. Disappointing.

This book has a huge cast of characters, nearly all of whom are Korean. There are some minor Japanese characters. One minor character is Korean American. Two male characters have disabilities from birth. One male character is closeted gay and married to a woman.

ARTWORK/ILLUSTRATIONS

There are no illustrations in the body of the book. I’ve seen two covers for Pachinko . I like the one with the Korean woman’s silhouette. The cover with the glass stones pictured at the top of this review has nothing to do with the story.

Korean history, Japanese history, 20th Century, discrimination, estranged fathers, World War II, long-suffering mothers, parenthood, poverty, war, teen pregnancy, gambling, police brutality, cruel and excessive punishment (imprisonment and death in prison), gender roles, Christianity, organized crime, family secrets, suicide

LIBRARIANS WILL WANT TO KNOW

Would adults like this book? YES! Despite my complaints, it’s still very good.

Would I buy this for my high school library? MAYBE. I had this in my high school library in China. It was a Panda Award Book for the 2018-2019 school year. Our school had lots of Korean and Japanese students and teachers, but Pachinko wasn’t checked out very much. I do remember a Korean senior student at our school raving about it, which is what made me read it now. It is labeled as Adult in Titlewave, which for some high school libraries, may make it ineligible as a library purchase for students.

Would I buy this for my middle school library? NO. I can’t imagine middle schoolers having the historical background or patience to read this book. It’s an adult book anyway, so it would not qualify for purchase in my library unless it were for the adult books shelf for staff.

Would I buy this for my elementary school library? NO. Definitely not an elementary book unless you are buying it for an adult books shelf.

MATURE CONTENT

Language : Does include profanity, including the F-bomb, but it is not gratuitous.

Sexuality : This is an adult book. It includes multiple instances of sexual intercourse; gay sex (M-M and F-F); prostitution; teen sexual relationship with older, married man (she does not know he is married). None of it is graphic, and it is necessary to the story.

Violence : police brutality, housing discrimination, job discrimination, bullying, organized crime

Drugs/Alcohol : some mentions of sake and drunkenness

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Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)

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By Min Jin Lee

Formats and Prices

• Hardcover (Large Print)
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• Trade Paperback $19.99 $25.99 CAD
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• Hardcover $30.00 $39.00 CAD
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This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around November 14, 2017. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

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Description

• Asian American
• One of Buzzfeed's "32 Most Exciting Books Coming In 2017" Included in The Millions' "Most Anticipated: The Great 2017 Book Preview" One of Elle 's "25 Most Anticipated Books by Women for 2017" BBC: "Ten Books to Read in 2017" One of BookRiot's "Most Anticipated Books of 2017" One of Nylon's "50 Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017" One of Entertainment Weekly's Best New Books One of BookBub's 22 Most Anticipated Book Club Reads of 2017
• "Stunning... Despite the compelling sweep of time and history, it is the characters and their tumultuous lives that propel the narrative... A compassionate, clear gaze at the chaotic landscape of life itself. In this haunting epic tale, no one story seems too minor to be briefly illuminated. Lee suggests that behind the facades of wildly different people lie countless private desires, hopes and miseries, if we have the patience and compassion to look and listen." The New York Times Book Review
• "In 1930s Korea, an earnest young woman, abandoned by the lover who has gotten her pregnant, enters into a marriage of convenience that will take her to a new life in Japan. Thus begins Lee's luminous new novel PACHINKO--a powerful meditation on what immigrants sacrifice to achieve a home in the world. PACHINKO confirms Lee's place among our finest novelists." Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her
• "A deep, broad, addictive history of a Korean family in Japan enduring and prospering through the 20th century." David Mitchell, Guardian, New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks
• "Astounding. The sweep of Dickens and Tolstoy applied to a 20th century Korean family in Japan. Min Jin Lee's PACHINKO tackles all the stuff most good novels do - family, love, cabbage - but it also asks questions that have never been more timely. What does it mean to be part of a nation? And what can one do to escape its tight, painful, familiar bonds?" Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Little Failure and Super Sad True Love Story
• "Both for those who love Korea, as well as for those who know no more than Hyundai, Samsung and kimchi , this extraordinary book will prove a revelation of joy and heartbreak. I could not stop turning the pages, and wished this most poignant of sagas would never end. Min Jin Lee displays a tenderness and wisdom ideally matched to an unforgettable tale that she relates just perfectly." Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and Korea: A Walk through the Land of Miracles
• "PACHINKO is elegant and soulful, both intimate and sweeping. This story of several generations of one Korean family in Japan is the story of every family whose parents sacrificed for their children, every family whose children were unable to recognize the cost, but it's also the story of a specific cultural struggle in a riveting time and place. Min Jin Lee has written a big, beautiful book filled with characters I rooted for and cared about and remembered after I'd read the final page." Kate Christensen, Pen/Faulkner-winning author of The Great Man and Blue Plate Special
• "An exquisite, haunting epic...'moments of shimmering beauty and some glory, too,' illuminate the narrative...Lee's profound novel...is shaped by impeccable research, meticulous plotting, and empathic perception." Booklist (starred review)
• "PACHINKO by Min Jin Lee is a great book, a passionate story, a novel of magisterial sweep. It's also fiendishly readable-the real-deal. An instant classic, a quick page-turner, and probably the best book of the year." Darin Strauss, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Half a Life: A Memoir
• "The breadth and depth of challenges come through clearly, without sensationalization. The sporadic victories are oases of sweetness, without being saccharine. Lee makes it impossible not to develop tender feelings towards her characters--all of them, even the most morally compromised. Their multifaceted engagements with identity, family, vocation, racism, and class are guaranteed to provide your most affecting sobfest of the year." BookRiot, "Most Anticipated Books of 2017"
• "An absorbing saga of 20th-century Korean experience... the destinies of Sunja's children and grandchildren unfold, love, luck, and talent combine with cruelty and random misfortune in a deeply compelling story, with the trouble of ethnic Koreans living in Japan never far from view. An old-fashioned epic whose simple, captivating storytelling delivers both wisdom and truth." Kirkus (Starred Review)
• "A sprawling and immersive historical work... Reckoning with one determined, wounded family's place in history, Lee's novel is an exquisite meditation on the generational nature of truly forging a home." Publishers Weekly
• "If proof were needed that one family's story can be the story of the whole world, then PACHINKO offers that proof. Min Jin Lee's novel is gripping from start to finish, crossing cultures and generations with breathtaking power. PACHINKO is a stunning achievement, full of heart, full of grace, full of truth." Erica Wagner, author of Ariel's Gift and Seizure
• "A beautifully crafted story of love, loss, determination, luck, and perseverance...Lee's skillful development of her characters and story lines will draw readers into the work. Those who enjoy historical fiction with strong characterizations will not be disappointed as they ride along on the emotional journeys offered in the author's latest page-turner." Library Journal (starred review)
• "Brilliant, subtle...gripping...What drives this novel is the magisterial force of Lee's characterization...As heartbreaking as it is compelling, PACHINKO is a timely meditation on all that matters to humanity in an age of mass migration and uncertainty." South China Morning Post Magazine
• "Everything I want in a family saga novel, a deep dive immersion into a complete world full of rich and complex lives to follow as they tumble towards fate and fortune...PACHINKO will break your heart in all the right ways." Vela Magazine
• "Gorgeous." Nylon.com, "50 Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017"
• "Expansive, elegant and utterly absorbing...Combining the detail of a documentary with the empathy of the best fiction, it's a sheer delight." The Daily Mail
• "Deftly brings its large ensemble of characters alive." The Financial Times
• "A social novel in the Dickensian vein...frequently heartbreaking." USA Today
• "Spanning nearly 100 years and moving from Korea at the start of the 20th century to pre- and postwar Osaka and, finally, Tokyo and Yokohama, the novel reads like a long, intimate hymn to the struggles of people in a foreign land...Much of the novel's authority is derived from its weight of research, which brings to life everything from the fishing village on the coast of the East Sea in early 20th-century Korea to the sights and smells of the shabby Korean township of Ikaino in Osaka - the intimate, humanising details of a people striving to carve out a place for themselves in the world. Vivid and immersive, Pachinko is a rich tribute to a people that history seems intent on erasing." The Guardian (UK)
• "Min Jin Lee has produced a beautifully realized saga of an immigrant family in a largely hostile land, trying to establish its own way of belonging." The Times Literary Supplement
• "Lee's sweeping four-generation saga of a Korean family is an extraordinary epic, both sturdily constructed and beautiful." The San Francisco Chronicle
• " Pachinko is a rich, well-crafted book as well as a page turner. Its greatest strength in this regard lies in Lee's ability to shift suddenly between perspectives. We never linger too long with a single character, constantly refreshing our point of view, giving the narrative dimension and depth. Add to that her eye and the prose that captures setting so well, and it would not be surprising to see Pachinko on a great many summer reading lists." Asian Review of Books
• "A sweeping, multigenerational saga about one Korean family making its way in Japan. The immigrant issues resonate; the story captivates." People
• "A culturally rich, psychologically astute family saga." The Washington Post
• "[An] addictive family saga packed with forbidden love, the search for belonging, and triumph against the odds." Esquire, "Top 10 Best Books of 2017 (So Far)"
• "An intimate yet expansive immigrant story." The Michigan Daily
• "The seminal English literary work of the Korean immigrant story in Japan...Lee's sentences and the novel's plotting feel seamless, so much so, that one wonders why we make such a fuss about writing at all. Her style is literary without calling attention to its lyricism." Ploughshares
• "Effortlessly carries the reader through generations, outlining its changing historical context without sacrificing the juicy details...Life is dynamic: in Pachinko , it carries on, rich and wondrous." The Winnipeg Free Press
• "The beautiful, overwhelming tone of the novel - and the one that will stay with you at the end - is one of hope, courage, and survival against all the odds." The Iklkely Gazette UK
• "An exquisite, haunting epic." The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center & Bloom Magazine
• "As an examination of immigration over generations, in its depth and empathy, Pachinko is peerless." The Japan Times
• "Lee shines in highlighting the complexities of being an immigrant and striving for a better life when resigned to a second-class status. In particular, she explores the mechanisms of internalized oppression and the fraught position of being a "well-behaved" member of a maligned group. When history has failed, and the game is rigged, what's left? Throughout Pachinko , it's acts of kindness and love. The slow accumulation of those moments create a home to return to again and again, even in the worst of times." Paste Magazine
• "This is honest writing, fiction that looks squarely at what is, both terrible and wonderful and occasionally as bracing as a jar of Sunja's best kimchi." NPR Book Review
• "Lee is a master plotter, but the larger issues of class, religion, outsider history and culture she addresses in Pachinko make this a tour de force you'll think about long after you finish reading." National Book Review
• " Pachinko gives us a moving and detailed portrait about what it's like to sit at the nexus of two cultures, and what it means to forge a home in a place that doesn't always welcome you." Fusion
• "If you want a book that challenges and expands your perspective, turn to Pachinko ...in Lee's deft hands, the pages pass as effortlessly as time." BookPage
• "A big novel to lose yourself in or to find yourself anew-a saga of Koreans living in Japan, rejected by the country they call home, unable to return to Korea as wars and strife tear the region apart. The result is like a secret history of both countries burst open in one novel. I hope you love it like I did." Alexander Chee, author of Queen of the Night and Edinburgh writing for the Book of the Month Club
• "Sweeping and powerful" The Toronto Star
• "[An] immersive novel." BBC.com's "10 Books to Read in 2017
• "This family saga about a Korean family living in Japan sticks with you long after you've finished the 496th. I didn't want it to end." Reading Women
• "A sprawling, beautiful novel." PBS

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Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

• Publication Date: November 14, 2017
• Genres: Fiction , Historical Fiction
• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• ISBN-10: 1455563927
• ISBN-13: 9781455563920
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Book Review: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

“She could not see his humanity, and Noa realized that this was what he wanted most of all: to be seen as human.” Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

Title: Pachinko Author: Min Jin Lee Genres: Historical Fiction, Literary Length: 18 hrs, 26 mins Published: February 7th, 2017

My Rating: ★★★ Read: 4/1/2024 – 4/10/2024

This book hadn’t been on my radar but I have seen it around over the past few years. I picked it up when it was selected as a group read. I’m glad I got to go into it with an open mind. I came away with mixed emotions. 

Beginning in the early 1900s, we meet Sunja and her family living in Korea. She meets Hansu and envisions a future with him, especially once she discovers she’s pregnant. Unbeknownst to her, he has a wife and children in Japan. Refusing to see him again, she accepts the offer of marriage from Isak, an ailing minister. Together they set off for Japan to live with Isak’s brother and his wife with Isak adopting Noa and raising him as his own. Parts two and three follow the lineage of Sunja’s family through to the 1980s. 

As I was reading the book’s first part, I anticipated this being a five-star read. I was completely absorbed in the plot, characters, setting, history, writing… all of it. Part two started to lose me a little bit, especially reaching the second half of it. Part three was an absolute headache. I no longer had a grasp on the characters or the many plot lines the story now involved. 

So many of the monumental moments of the book, particularly in the second half, start, occur, and end in the span of one to three paragraphs — if that. Because of this, there’s no chance to build a bond with a number of the characters or their situations. After a slower build in the beginning, all of a sudden switching to fast pacing and sporadic time jumps was dizzying. I cannot recall most of this second of the book as my reading was interrupted to go back and see if I missed something, only to realize a major plot point was dropped in a singular sentence with little to no explanation around it. 

I’m definitely walking away feeling disappointed after so much enjoyment in the beginning, but I’m glad I went along for the ride. 

Likes & Dislikes:

What I liked:

• The generational story.
• Beautiful writing.
• It showed an interesting and complex time in history.

What I didn’t like:

• The second half of the book was incredibly hectic and difficult to follow.
• There were conflicting themes throughout the book.

Afterthoughts:

This is the group read with The Global Book Nook for April.

Where to buy the book:

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A Swiss-Korean French Tutor Grapples With the Boundaries of Language

The National Book Award-winning author and translator of “Winter in Sokcho” return with another quietly powerful tale of dislocation.

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THE PACHINKO PARLOR, by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins

“The Pachinko Parlor,” the French writer Elisa Shua Dusapin’s second novel, begins in a whirl. Its narrator, Claire, a Swiss-Korean woman who’s spending a summer in Tokyo with her grandparents, steps off a train and into a “tide of people rushing by.” Urban detail eddies around her: smoking salarymen, a construction site, “plasma screens flashing toothpaste ads.” Nothing in this brief scene is unusual, yet Claire is plainly overwhelmed. In just a few sentences, using nothing but visual description, Dusapin plunges her readers into both the novel’s setting and Claire’s jangled state.

Dusapin isn’t new to writing about the dislocation of life in a country that is neither strange nor familiar. In “Winter in Sokcho,” for which she and the translator Aneesa Abbas Higgins won a 2021 National Book Award, a French Korean woman finds herself on a dreamy, slow-moving adventure at the border between North and South Korea. In “The Pachinko Parlor,” which Higgins also translated, Dusapin explores the blurrier borders of language. Despite its tumultuous opening, the novel is a slow, meditative portrait of one woman finding herself, as well as a moving reflection on language’s capacity to divide us from others — and ourselves.

Claire’s primary language is French; but she’s also proficient if not fluent in Japanese. While in Tokyo, she tutors 10-year-old Mieko in French; they bond quickly, and Mieko begs to visit the pachinko parlor owned and run by Claire’s Korean immigrant grandparents. But when Mieko’s mother learns about the parlor — which to her symbolizes the Korean heritage from which Claire feels relatively disconnected — she turns nasty. “You’ll never really be able to speak Japanese, will you?” she sneers to Claire, who is rendered “speechless” by the comment.

Such prejudice has, in a nearly literal sense, made her grandparents speechless too. Although they’ve lived in Japan for over 50 years, since the Korean War, they have no community there. Neither one will utter a word of Japanese at home, as if doing so would ruin the sanctuary of their apartment. This refusal lies at the novel’s emotional core. Claire speaks very little Korean; she and her grandparents rely on “simple English, with a few basic words in Korean and an array of gestures and exaggerated facial expressions.” In the novel’s first half, she often avoids her grandparents, hiding from the challenge of communication and from her guilt over losing the language they hold dear. But she slowly starts trying harder to connect with them, and with her Korean identity. These efforts can be heart-rending, suffused with frustration and a tenderness that shines through the book like faint sunlight.

“The Pachinko Parlor” gets its power from emotion, not events. Its plot is minimal: Claire takes Mieko on outings, roams Tokyo and arranges to take her grandparents to Korea. Meanwhile, while Dusapin’s prose is spare, it is not minimal at all. Her descriptions are lovely and moody, often bouncing obliquely off Claire’s inner state. As summer ends, Dusapin writes that “the days are beginning to draw in” — a quietly surprising phrase that runs counter to Claire’s expanding awareness of her Korean heritage. Of course, much of the pleasure of reading “The Pachinko Parlor” in English comes from Higgins’s delicate translation. It’s a formidable challenge to translate a novel that deals so centrally with language, and Higgins manages to call the reader’s attention to both the beauty of Dusapin’s writing and the linguistic and cultural switching that demands so much of Claire’s energy.

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‘Pachinko’ Moves Beyond the Book in a Stirring, Gorgeous Season 2: TV Review

By Alison Herman

Alison Herman

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In adapting Min Jin Lee’s bestselling novel, the first season of the Apple TV+ drama “ Pachinko ” made a series of editorial decisions that gave the show its own distinct identity. Most significantly, showrunner Soo Hugh and her writers split the story into two timelines, juxtaposing generations of the Baek family — so-called Zainichi Koreans who emigrated to Japan prior to World War II — separated by half a century. “Pachinko” also presented its dialogue almost entirely in Japanese and Korean, with color-coded subtitles both distinguishing the two languages and showing how the younger Baeks interspersed them as a form of assimilation.

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This arc proves a showcase for Kim, who evolves Sunja from the naive teenager we first met in a fishing village to a world-weary woman inured to the harsh realities of life. Along with subtle yet effective work by the hair and makeup teams, Kim ages Sunja by years at a time — by the end of the season, we’ve been with her for nearly two decades — through simply modulating her performance. This season, Sunja’s sons Noa (Kang Hoon Kim) and Mozasu (Eunseong Kwon) are old enough to have personalities and plotlines of their own, expanding the series’ already sprawling ensemble. Noa is quiet, studious and deeply concerned with doing right by his family; Mozasu is loud, boisterous and openly defiant of the anti-Korean prejudice he encounters in school.

“Pachinko” also makes use of TV’s expanded canvas to build Koh Hansu (Lee Minho), a Korean fish broker turned macher in the Japanese underworld who’s also Noa’s biological father, into a co-lead. Lee, a major star in Korea, has the matinee idol looks to make Koh a compelling romantic presence, even as he goes further down a violent, ethically compromised path. (The period-accurate tailoring courtesy of costume designer Kyung-hwa Chae doesn’t hurt, either.) With his ill-gotten gains, Koh maintains a peripheral presence in Sunja’s life as a patron whose help she accepts only reluctantly, as when she and Yoseb’s wife Kyunghee (Jung Eun-Chae) take shelter from air raids at his farm in the countryside. Koh is not a sympathetic figure, but Lee makes use of the extra screen time to help the viewer understand the choices he’s made to survive, and his defensiveness in the face of others’ judgment.

The modern timeline, which centers on Sunja’s grandson Solomon (Jin Ha), proves more difficult to extend. The flashbacks can skip gracefully forward in time like a stone skipping on a lake; Solomon’s story line stays rooted in the immediate aftermath of his departure from fictional bank Shiffley’s in the wake of a botched land deal. (An older Korean woman’s refusal to sell her home brought up the American-educated Solomon’s latent angst about his birth country.) The ‘80s scenes therefore feel less dense, though they do offer Anna Sawai a worthy follow-up to “Shõgun” as Solomon’s ex-colleague Naomi, with whom he strikes up an affair.

This season of “Pachinko” builds to many crescendoes, each more tearful than the last. Yet, from devastating deaths to star-crossed loves to harrowing cataclysms, the show never feels like it’s resorting to cheap sentiment. “Pachinko” is, tangibly, a labor of love, from the intimate family dynamics it depicts to the massive collective effort required to bring a dual period piece to life. Season 2 honors what came before it while striking out on its own, just as Sunja would want for her own successors.

The first episode of “Pachinko” Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV+, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Fridays.

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Second season of ‘Pachinko’ explores challenges for ethnic Koreans in Japan

“Pachinko” showrunner Soo Hugh says working on the Apple TV+ series about life in Osaka during World War II was “really sobering.” (Aug. 23)

This image released by Apple TV+ shows Yuh-Jung Youn in a scene from “Pachinko.” (Apple TV+ via AP)

Michael Ellenberg, from left, Theresa Kang, Soo Hugh, and Lindsey Springer participate in the Apple TV+ drama series “Pachinko” season two cast photo call at The Whitby Hotel on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in New York. (Photo by CJ Rivera/Invision/AP)

Lee Min-ho, from left, Minha Kim, and Jin Ha participate in the Apple TV+ drama series “Pachinko” season two cast photo call at The Whitby Hotel on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in New York. (Photo by CJ Rivera/Invision/AP)

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The second season of “Pachinko,” opening Friday, delicately captures the plight of ethnic Koreans brought to Japan during colonial rule and their descendants, exploring themes of home and identity through several generations.

The award-winning series, based on the New York Times bestselling novel, returns to Apple TV+ with eight episodes that follow four generations of an immigrant Korean family living in Japan since before World War II. The star-studded cast includes Oscar-winning actor Youn Yuh-jung and Korean actor Lee Minho.

Many ethnic Koreans were brought to Japan, often forcibly, to work in mines and factories during the country’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of Korea. They were treated as second-class citizens and faced discrimination, which the series portrays.

Youn, who plays the older version of protagonist Sunja, said she was largely unfamiliar with the situation of ethnic Koreans in Japan — known as Zainichi Koreans — before she spoke with actor Soji Arai, who plays Mozasu, the son of her character. Arai was born into an ethnic Korean family in Japan.

“It broke my heart and I cried inside because I felt so bad after hearing about their stories,” Youn told The Associated Press.

The second season continues Sunja’s story as she struggles to feed her sons Noa and Mozasu during the war.

In the series, ethnic Koreans face discrimination generation after generation. In one episode, a Japanese worker at a wartime Nagasaki factory refers to his Korean colleagues as “roaches” that “keep multiplying.”

Decades later, Sunja’s grandson Solomon nearly explodes at a Japanese store clerk whom he thinks is showing discrimination over his grandmother’s Korean heritage. He senses that discrimination will follow him even after attaining academic and professional credentials.

The series is in Japanese, Korean and English with subtitles and is based on Korean-American author Min Jin Lee’s novel, titled after a Japanese game played in arcades where ethnic Koreans often worked in jobs typically shunned by Japanese.

Youn said she portrayed Sunja as “intimidated, scared and feeling small,” believing discrimination is her fault due to endless exposure to it. Youn added that she has felt similarly in her own life, having an “inferiority complex” over her struggles with the English language.

Around half a million ethnic Koreans sill live in Japan. Although many have become naturalized Japanese citizens, about half a million have not and are officially considered foreigners.

Executive producer and showrunner Soo Hugh said she was “nervous” about how the show would be received among Zainichi Koreans, but that she was happy to learn that it had resonated “really emotionally.”

“This is their story,” she told the AP, adding that she had to unlearn previous history education to understand “from the point of view of the people on the ground,” including those in Nagasaki.

When Youn was asked if she was concerned about playing a role in a series touching on sensitive parts of East Asian history, Youn said no. “We are talking about the past,” she said. “I am not a politician, so it doesn’t matter to me.”

Hugh said the series gradually transitions from the family’s day-to-day survival to answering big questions about their shifting identities: “What does it mean to live a good life ... knowing that Japan is now my home?”

These are familiar questions to Hugh, who is Korean American.

“So many Korean immigrants come to America and think, ’We’ll make a better life, but I’m not going to die in America because Korea is my home. ... You know, a year goes by, then a year, another year, and then another year,” Hugh said.

“It must feel really sad to know that you’re not going to die where you want to die. And that’s, I think, something so many of our characters confront in this show,” she said.

Youn said that people will always carry their identity with them despite circumstances. “I see many people who try their best to erase (their Korean identity),” she said. “I really don’t like that. There is no need to do that.”

“Pachinko” season two is available on Apple TV+ platforms.

I Walked Down the Aisle With the Man Who Panned My Book on Goodreads

When the best man at my friend’s wedding gave my novel a one-star review, I wasn’t sure I could forgive him. It was harder, ultimately, to forgive myself.

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Sooner or later, we all come across our critics. Maybe it happens via a stinging romantic rejection, or a meeting about our “disappointing performance” in the job we worked so hard to get. In my case, I came face-to-face—literally—with my biggest critic while walking down the aisle with him. He was the best man at my friend’s wedding; I was the maid of honor. And he’d given my debut novel a one-star review on Goodreads.

With my first book, I blithely took the plunge. Most of my readers were friends and family anyway, so I spent far too much time gorging myself on their Goodreads praise. As a rabid people-pleaser who hated the idea of anyone disliking me, it was intoxicating to believe that maybe, just maybe, I’d done the impossible and created a piece of art that was universally loved.

Until a one-star rating popped up. My stomach dropped. I reminded myself that it was bound to happen sooner or later. Then I immediately clicked on the account to see who had decided to tell the internet that my life’s work was trash. I knew that name, didn’t I? Yes, he was a friend of my close friend’s fiancé. And not just any friend, either. He was going to be the best man at their upcoming wedding. And his maid of honor counterpart? That would be me.

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I was indignant—and worried. Maybe the book was bad, and my friends had been sugarcoating their responses. But I was also confused. Did this man not realize how uncomfortable this would make the wedding? As the big day approached, I spent a lot of time questioning how best to handle the situation. Should I reach out to him to clear the air? Ignore him completely? Demand that he tell me exactly why he hated the book so that I could tell him why he was wrong?

At first, I tried rising above. Perhaps he’d be so taken by my friendliness and charm that he’d rethink his opinion of the book, even go back and change his one-star to a five-star! As we lined up for the ceremony, I locked my face into a smile, making semi-awkward small talk. I figured he knew that I knew about the rating, but neither of us mentioned it. We simply made our way down the aisle, arm-in-arm, to watch the beautiful ceremony.

But by the time the reception rolled around, politeness didn’t feel adequate. So I got petty. Both of us were due to deliver toasts to the crowded ballroom, and mine would be better ! This man might have hated my book, but I’d make it impossible for him to hate my speech. I tried to remind myself that the toast was about celebrating my friend and her husband, not about making their best man regret his life’s choices. Still, I couldn’t help feeling a surge of triumph when, at the end of my speech, the crowd rang with laughter and applause.

Finally, I got drunk. (This seemed, at the time, an appropriate response to Goodreads slander.) As the wedding guests grooved to a dance floor standard, with the encouragement of a couple other bridesmaids, I shimmied up to the best man and slurred-shouted, “So, what would you rate my toast ?” (I thought this was very clever.) I don’t think he heard me clearly amidst the guests’ Whitney Houston scream-singing, because he turned to me, confused. “What?” he yelled back. I wasn’t brave enough to repeat myself, so I danced away, Homer Simpson-ing back into the crowd.

We saw each other one final time, at the end of the night. He gave me a friendly wave and told me to reach out if I was ever passing through his city, as if totally unbothered by the feud between us. Or perhaps I’d invented the feud altogether.

Ultimately, my friend got the backstory from him: He’d bought the book as a show of support, and it hadn’t been his thing. He liked to keep track of his reading for himself, so he’d marked it with a one-star review without thinking about the fact that the review would appear publicly. As soon as he realized, he took it upon himself to delete the rating.

Even if he hadn’t, readers have a right to rate books however they wish. It’s part of the bargain that an author makes in exchange for getting their book published. Authors get to control so much when we’re in the writing process. We make up entire worlds where the characters do exactly what we want. We edit and futz with sentences until they shine. Then, if we’re lucky, we release our story into the real world, and suddenly it doesn’t belong to us anymore. It’s not for us anymore. And therefore we can’t expect to—nor should we desire to—control audience’s responses.

If I was going to keep writing, something that brought me so much joy and fulfillment, I had to forgive that best man. But more importantly, I had to forgive myself. I didn’t write a perfect book, and then, when someone forced me to face that fact, I overreacted by getting petty and annoyed. That was okay. That was human.

Acknowledging my own inadequacies ultimately allowed me to be more empathetic toward my characters, my readers, and myself. So my first novel hadn’t blown every single reader away. That meant there was room for me to grow. I would never write a perfect book, but I could use this man’s criticism to write a better one, pushing myself to dig deeper when I tried again—even while knowing that, still , some people wouldn’t love it.

Now, I’m grateful for that one-star rating. It was an early, impossible-to-ignore lesson that it’s not my job as an author to make every one of my readers happy, nor is it my job to monitor and police their responses—however natural the urge to defend myself might be. If there’s a person out there who’s managed to please everyone they’ve ever known—including their haters!—I’d like to meet them. To shake their hand, sure, and maybe study them for science. But also to tell them: If you’re willing to be hated a little, you might grow to love yourself more.

One-Star Romance by Laura Hankin

And it turns out that this man gave me so much more than a one-star review. He also gave me the idea for my latest novel, One-Star Romance , a romantic comedy about a maid of honor, the best man who gives her book a one-star review, and what happens when they’re forced back together each time their married best friends celebrate another life milestone. I took risks in the writing of this one, letting my characters make mistakes, trying to honestly capture that disorienting period in your twenties and thirties when, suddenly, everyone starts moving at different speeds and it’s easy to feel like you can’t keep up—that you’re doing something wrong. I knew the feeling well.

In real life, unlike in my book, the best man and I did not fall in love. Instead, I married someone who’s only ever rated my novels five stars. Occasionally, my husband goes on my Goodreads page and tells me snippets of nice things that people are saying. And sure, for One-Star Romance , I might have written down, “Someone apparently called it a masterpiece!!” on my Notes app, and maybe I look at that Note whenever I get anxious about publication. Because it turns out that, while risk-taking might get easier, it never gets easy .

Still, I’m so proud of this book. It’s better than my writing before; I’m better than I was before. I like to think that even my old best-man nemesis might begrudgingly rate this book more than one star. But since I no longer check my own Goodreads, I’ll never know.

Laura Hankin is the author of One-Star Romance , Happy & You Know It , A Special Place for Women , and The Daydreams . Her musical comedy has been featured in publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post , and she is developing projects for film and TV. She lives in Washington DC, where she once fell off a treadmill twice in one day.

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