Pachinko (by Min Jin Lee)

(Amazon UK link)

I had not heard of the author Min Jin Lee. I most likely would not have found her epic novel ‘Pachinko’, had it not been the book chosen for April for our local reading group. I downloaded it for my Kindle, inexpensively, and started reading it at the end of March. 

I wasn’t in the country for April’s group, but like to keep up with what they are reading even if I can’t join the discussion. However this meant that I wasn’t motivated to complete it in time for the group; that was just as well, as I was very busy elsewhere. And it was quite heavy-going in places.

I finally managed to finish the book, after nearly three weeks. At times I was tempted to give up, but I only abandon books I really dislike, and this one was in many respects an excellent, thought-provoking read. 

‘Pachinko’ features several generations of a family from Korea. The storyline begins over 100 years ago and ends in the late 1980s. It goes rather rapidly through time, and that was part of what I found hard-going: I felt as if I were just getting to know a character when the chapter ended and the focus moved on to the next generation. 

Gradually a main protagonist emerges. Sunja is the sole surviving baby of a young couple introduced in the first section. We first meet her properly when she’s about fourteen, working hard in her mother’s hostel. Her father died when she was young, so she hasn’t been able to have much schooling. But she loves her mother, and gets along well with the paid assistants in the kitchens. 

Then one day, walking back from the market, she is harassed and nearly assaulted by some young men. She’s rescued by an older man called Hansu. He appears charming and polite, and as he’s old enough to be her father she is happy to go for walks with him and chat. However the book’s narration is omniscient in style, so we already know that Hansu has been observing Sunja for a while, and has designs on her virtue.

Sure enough, he grooms her gently and persuades her to do things which she has never done before. She had never thought men would be interested in her, as she’s not conventionally attractive. As she’s so innocent, she’s sure that Hansu will eventually ask to marry her…

Sunja remains an important character in the rest of the novel; we see her rescued again, bearing two sons, and eventually becoming a grandmother. It’s hard to say much more without giving spoilers - suffice it to say she’s a good mother, on the whole, but inevitably makes mistakes. And there are problems with lack of money, with extreme racism and classism, and also of Christians refusing to renounce their faith in Japan. 

I couldn’t keep track of all the characters, some of whom seemed to have quite similar names, but the main ones mostly stand out. The writer makes the context clear so it didn’t always matter if I confused two fairly minor characters. And the writing is compelling in places, even though I couldn’t relate well to anyone due to the many different viewpoints that were included. I can see why the book was written that way, but it makes it less appealing to those of us who prefer character-based novels. 

What I disliked most was the amount of intimate detail given in quite a few sexual encounters of varying types, and the excessive amount of ‘strong’ language used. I was able to skip over the raunchy sections, on the whole, but some of them started without any real hint that they were going to be explicit. Some of them seemed irrelevant to the story, so I’m not sure why they were there.

Evidently a great deal of research went into this book. At the end there are some interesting questions for book groups, and also quite a lengthy interview with the author, which help to give some background to the book. While it’s a work of fiction, it’s based on the stories of many real people from Korea and Japan, and highlights some of the difficulties experienced while working and living in another culture.

I knew almost nothing about Korean history, and the book did inspire me to take a brief foray into Wikipedia - I may read more about the Japanese invasion when I’m back home. I knew vaguely about a war in Korea, in part due to the TV series MASH which I occasionally saw as a young adult.  But books like this help to bring history to life, and for that reason I’m glad I read it.  

If you’re interested in this period of history and like saga novels of this style, or if you’re intrigued to know more, then ‘Pachinko’ is probably worth reading once. The title refers to a kind of mechanical arcade game which is used for gambling in Japan.

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