pachinko book review

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(as of Jan 01, 2025 21:58:15 UTC - Details)

In this New York Times bestseller, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan–the inspiration for the television series on Apple TV+.

 In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger. When she discovers she is pregnant–and that her lover is married–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.

Profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. 

*Includes reading group guide*

NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017 * A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017 * JULY PICK FOR THE PBS NEWSHOUR-NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB NOW READ THIS * FINALIST FOR THE 2018DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE* WINNER OF THE MEDICI BOOK CLUB PRIZE

 Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER

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ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1455563927
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition (November 14, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 512 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781455563920
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1455563920
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.38 x 1.5 x 8 inches
Reviewer: Rhodawriter59
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A story of haunting beauty and memorable characters.
Review: I originally watched some episodes of the Pachinko dramatization on Apple TV. Because of the excellent acting and engaging script, I became quickly engrossed in the production. After learning the story would be released in 4 seasons, I was dismayed knowing I would be at the edge of my seat for the next four years yearning to know what happens to these characters. Wishing to spare myself this misery, I looked up the book, Pachinko, upon which the drama was based, bought my copy from Amazon Kindle and read it cover to cover in two days. Being a slow reader and being that Pachinko is not a light read, I got through that book very fast simply because almost from the first page, I could not put it down.Generally, I’m not a fan of family sagas, but I have recently begun watching Korean dramas with subtitles. While enjoying the dramas, I have become interested in Korean history and culture, so reading this book, written by Korean American author, Min Jin Lee, was an opportunity to acquaint myself with Korean culture from the lens of someone raised in a Korean household, but who also has lived and been educated in the United States.I was grateful that, unlike the movie, the story in this book runs along in a sequential timeline with very little time-shifting. Lee presents this story in a universal, omnipresent point of view, so one gets the story from multiple viewpoints, not only from major characters, but from some minor ones as well. The writing is so skillfully executed, the narrative runs seamlessly along. The writing is also immersive with just enough description to set the scenes. Through this evocative writing, I could feel the closeness of life in Sunja’s childhood boarding house while appreciating the freedom and beauty of the black rocks by the seashore where Sunja and her companions washed clothes and where she spent time with her lover, Koh Hansu. A week after finishing this book I can still close my eyes and feel the poverty of Osaka where Sunju and her family eked out a living, all crowded in a small, rickety dwelling, held down and oppressed for being Koreans by their Japanese overlords.The strongest part of the story were the characters, all thoughtfully written and fleshed out. Sunja was a plain, uneducated peasant girl whose great intelligence, wisdom, loyalty, faith and well-honed instincts helped lay the foundations for her family’s survival during rough times and later for their great prosperity despite the prejudice they were forced to endure. Her two loves, Koh Hansu and Isak, different as two men could be, protected her and her family in their own way. Her son, Noa, witnessed the hardships of the World War II in his younger years, but because of his great intelligence and because of the secret presence of his wealthy, natural father, he was spared many of the dangers and deprivations other Korean children faced. Growing up and being educated alongside Japanese children, he came to be greatly conflicted between his Japanese education and his Korean heritage. His younger brother, Mozasu, lacked the patience for education, yet he was diligent and street-smart and made a success of his life running and eventually owning pachinko parlors. Koh Hansu was probably the most tragic of the characters Lee highlights. He is a gifted Korean, born into poverty who found success by selling his soul to his Japanese overlords. He has married into a wealthy Japanese family, even been adopted by his father-in-law, yet he has little respect for his Japanese family. He loved the Korean peasant girl, Sunja, but she refused to become his mistress and went on to pursue her own life. Though Sunja is only one among many lovers, he remains haunted by her throughout his life. She gave birth to his only son, but she also touched his heart in a way no other human being could. Though Koh is a much feared and corrupt Yakuza in later years, he still goes out of his way to show kindness to Sunja and her family. Also of interest are the couple Yeseb and his beautiful wife, Kyunghee. Yeseb struggles with a feeling of inferiority towards his younger brother, Isak, who he believes is too idealistic and fragile for this word. He is a protective older brother hemmed in by traditional, paternalistic ideals that prove costly in the foreign world of Imperial Japan where his family is forced to exist under difficult and almost impossible conditions. He works multiple jobs and still isn’t able to make enough to support his family, yet he refuses to let his wife work outside the home. Later he becomes disabled and is forced to become dependent upon others, including his wife, for care. The most beautiful thing about this extended family is these individuals have their share of conflict, resentments, and misunderstandings, but throughout their lives, they are completely devoted to each other. When trouble threatens from the outside or when one family member is in need, each one of them comes through for the other.The book starts in Korea during the early part of the twentieth century during the Japanese occupation. In Korea, Sunja and her family, as well as other Koreans, are regarded with suspicion by their Japanese overlords. Not only do the Japanese exploit them and take the best land and sea can produce, but they regard and treat the native Koreans as innately inferior. The attitudes don’t change after World War II during occupied Japan or even as late as the 1980’s when the book ends. Koreans living in Japan or even born there are still regarded legally and socially as foreigners. Returning to Korea, as many of these individuals desired to do after the war, was problematic as well, and even downright deadly. Families and individuals from the north of Korea, had to return to a part of Korea run by the Communists. There were individuals in the book who returned and were never heard from again. The south of Korea was run by a dictator most of the time and beset by chaos and corruption, as well as the Korean war. Sunja and her family were trapped in Japan by these circumstances, but Japan, first Osaka and then Yokohama, became their home. Here they were able to start and run businesses and earn a living. Being Koreans, they might never be fully accepted in their community, but here they found a life. They weren’t shunned by all Japanese. Lee introduces her readers to Japanese individuals touched by this family, but all of them have one thing in common: because of circumstances or past actions or mistakes, they have been marginalized by their Japanese countrymen. There is Mozasu’s girlfriend, Etsuko, who was divorced by her husband because of infidelity. In her disgrace she had to leave her community in Hokkaido and move to another town. Mozasu’s first employer had an autistic son and was also marginalized. Noa’s first serious girlfriend, Akiko, who doesn't fit in with her Japanese peers, is a precocious Japanese girl from a wealthy family, who is fascinated by Noa’s Korean heritage. When Akiko, through her ignorance and thoughtlessness, interferes and unwittingly forces an explosive family issue, Noa freezes her totally out of his life.I never heard the name Pachinko until I watched some of the drama on my streaming service. As the book explains, it is a popular game in Japan that is a cross between pinball and slot machines. Winners appear to win by chance and thereby have hope for a good outcome, but the owners set the machines and allow some wins so that other less fortunate people will be drawn in. Winners are those who happen to play during the time of day the pins are loose and ready to yield the winnings. I suppose life can be looked upon as a game of Pachinko. Pachinko was one of the few avenues where Korean individuals could make their fortunes in post-war Japan. It was not considered respectable enough for good Japanese people to be a part of, even though the Japanese loved to play it. Both of Sunja’s sons end up making a living running Pachinko.This book presented a window into, what are to me, two foreign cultures, Korean and Japanese. Sunja’s extended family is made up of aristocrats from the north of Korea as well as peasants from the south. Sunja’s youth was grounded in Confucian, old world Korean ideals, but as time passed, she and her family were introduced to Christianity, the values of Imperial Japan, post-war commercialism, and globalization. The values of her Korean childhood such as loyalty, morality, revereance for family and work ethic remained in Sunja and were passed on to subsequent generations of her family. What stood out to me was the great influence of Christianity and how its message of forgiveness and loving grace impacted this family and tempered the harsher aspects of their traditional Korean ideals. Unlike many modern authors dealing with Christian characters, Lee presented the clergy in a balanced and realistic way, neither lionizing them nor demeaning them.All of Lee’s characters were carefully nuanced and believable. Individuals like Sunja, Isak, Noa, Solomon, and Hansu came alive to me and continue to haunt me nearly a week since I finished the book. I was truly sad to come to the end of book. It was a beautiful read, one of the best books I’ve read in the past three or four years. I highly recommend it!

Reviewer: Gloria Rudolph
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great book on relationships between Korea and Japan
Review: This was a excellent book. A real page turner. The origin of the story centered around the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. This book tells the story of how ordinary Korean people survived during this period and longer. The book follows a poor family during the occupation, WWII, the Cold War, and the Korean War. It touches on some of the religions followed by the Korean people in Korea and in Japan.It is easy to get caught up in the characters. There was a lot of fluff in the book. The author expanded on characters that would have not been of interest to any reader and certainly not to me.Pachinko is about a family saga set in Korea and Japan from 1910 to 1980. Sunja, daughter of Hoonie and Yangjin, is a teenaged girl living with her mother, who runs a boarding house in a fishing village in Gohyang, Korea. Hoonie is the crippled son of a poor fisherman, and Yangjin is the daughter of a poor farmer, so they are used to struggling to survive. When Sonja’s loving father, Hoonie, dies of tuberculosis when she was 13 years old, she and her mother continue to work hard to keep the boarding house above water.Sunja has worked hard all of her life. She is now in charge of shopping for the boardinghouse after her father dies. It’s what her mother does, too. Koh Hansu, a wealthy man who has a wife and 3 children in Osaka, notices 16 year-old Sunja on her shopping errands. He is attracted to her and follows her to see where she goes. One day, he sees that three Japanese boys are mocking her for being Korean. The boys surround Sunja and then start to assault her. Koh Hansu saves her from the boys and gains Sunja’s trust. Koh Hansu continues to pursue her. She does not know that he is already married and falls hard for him. He professes to love her and gives her a gold pocket watch. She wants to be his wife, and expects him to propose marriage. When she gets pregnant and he then tells her that he is already married, he offers to provide for her, but she rejects his offer as dishonorable. Koh Hansu, I believe, really loved Sunja. He says he’ll support her, but she wants nothing more to do with him.For weeks, Sonja and her mother have taken care of a kind Japanese boarder and pastor, Baek Isak, who has been ill with tuberculosis. To save Sunja’s reputation and give her child a good name, he offers to marry Sunja and take her to Osaka where his family lives. Sunja and Baek Isak move in with his brother Yoseb and his wife Kyunghee. Yoseb has contempt for the pregnant Sunja, but having no children of her own, Kyunghee welcomes Sunja and is excited about the baby. Kyunghee was so lovely and she loved Sunja. Her husband Yoseb was difficult. Baek Isak and Sonja also have a son together by the name of Noa.After Baek Isak dies, Sunja gets a job in a restaurant, since she now has no other income. Kim, the man whom she considered her boss, is really employed by Koh Hansu (Noa’s father), who owns the restaurant and got her the job.In 1940, Japan invades China and then soon joins the Axis powers with Germany and Italy. Food becomes scarce in Osaka. The restaurant closes because there is very little food to buy at the market. I believe that Koh Hansu was a decent person who learned how to survive and became rich with the help of his Japanese father-in-law. He did what he had to do to survive in my opinion. He could have been a bit nicer and moral, but that was not who he was.On the last night at the restaurant, Koh Hansu appears and urges Sonja and her friend Kyunghee to leave Osaka and go to a safe place he knows, the Tamaguci farm in the country. He tells them that the Americans are going to bomb Osaka. Kyunghee cannot convince her husband Yoseb to go since he has been offered a job as a foreman in a steel factory in Nagasaki. The women take Sonja’s two boys with them and reach safety. The Americans bomb Nagasaki. Yoseb survives the bombing but never recovers his health. Surprisingly, I think the household wanted him to die sooner.Sunja and Hansu’s son, Noa was a studious child who was so much like his stepfather, Isak, who Noa believed to be his real father. Mozasu, Isak’s biological son, struggles with the stigma of, being half Korean and is not very studious, had a harder time in school. Noa did so well in school, his father Koh Hansu wanted to pay for his education at an elite school in Tokyo. Noa, thought Hansu was just his benefactor at the time.In Japan, Pachinko parlors were often associated with Koreans. In the book, Sonja and Baek Isak’s son, Mozasu, worked in a pachinko parlor for Goro-san as a guard and then became the general manager of Paradaisu Seven. He ended up a multi-millionaire and owner of multiple pachinko parlors. I had never heard of pachinko, and after reading the book, still could not figure out what the fascination was.In the 1950s, Mosazu, Sonja and Baek Isak’s son, is hired as a guard at a pachinko parlor. Mosazu works hard in order to pay Yoseb’s medical bills, food, and rent. He also wants to help his half-brother, Noa, go to Waseda University to major in English literature. Without asking permission, Koh Hansu steps in and pays Noa’s tuition, room and board. Noa is doing well, but when his girlfriend, Aikido comes uninvited to lunch with his father and tells Noa that his father is a mobster, he confronts his mother, drops out of school and disappears.After World War II, Korea is split up by the Americans, Russians and Chinese. Even the Japanese take over some areas. The Koreans still suffer from the foreign powers’ takeover of their country.As Koreans in Japan, they are considered visitors even when they were born there. There were jobs they could never have; it was illegal to rent to them. The Koreans lived in ghettos that did not have the same services as Japanese neighborhoods. The Koreans were looked down upon in the Japanese public schools and most jobs were not available to them regardless of their training or education. Koreans were considered dirty and undesirable to Japanese citizens.When a Korean boy turned fourteen, he had to register, be fingerprinted and interviewed, and he had to ask for permission to remain in Japan, even though he was born there and has never been to Korea. This process will be repeated every three years. And this was in the 1970s, not the 1870s. Getting Japanese citizenship was extremely difficult. But Sunja’s family does get ahead, attaining a comfortable living. There were a quite a few sexual interactions in the book by unmarried couples that were surprising. The book even explored a homosexual who was friends with Mosazu. I could not figure out whether or not Mosazu knew that he was a homosexual. I know that Koh Hansu knew. Hansu could deploy private detectives everywhere with his money.

Reviewer: alysa6
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Amazing epic family saga
Review: This was made into a movie/series for a reason - it's a truly amazing multi-generational story. Not only are the characters really well-developed but I also learned a ton about history between Korea and Japan. This is long, but totally worth a read.

Reviewer: MARCELA ACLE
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: La saga de una familia coreana inmersa en el contexto de un Japón en plena guerra y postguerra. Sin duda el tema de la identidad de los migrantes de diferentes generaciones es central en este libro.

Reviewer: Bruna Mello
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Livro fantátisco. Aprendi várias coisas sobre a cultura coreana/japanesa, as quais não fazia ideia. A história em si é muito bonita, ao estilo de Cem anos de solidão, do Gabriel Garcia Marques, porém é focada na trajetória das mulheres da família a qual acompanhamos a vida ao longo do século 20. Vale muito a pena ler para conhecer um pouco dessa parte da história do mundo a qual não aprendemos com muito foco.

Reviewer: _sabsch_
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Pachinko was a very lucky read. I randomly bought it and didn't think much of it.As soon as I read the first line I couldn't put it down anymore. It's been many years that I read a 500 page book so quickly (full time job, children, household...). I took every single second possible to keep reading.This is so carefully thought out. A beautifully written saga that follows a family over 5 generations in the war times of Korea and Japan. I never really thought about the war over there (being Austrian we are very caught up in our own dark history) - this book opened my eyes so much - the characters are so deep and the author is most obviously very smart and careful in writing this incredible book!This is an absolute 10/10 and more!

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Pachinko is book that is hard to keep down. The story moves at a good pace and keeps you wanting to know more. Despite the number of characters, it is easy to remember them distinctly. It ticks all the boxes for a good fictional book.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Beautifully written and crossed the three generations of Korean family in Japan. A side of history I didn’t know. Loved the TV series too - both draw on different elements of the story