Pachinko : Min Jin Lee: Books

Pachinko: Min Jin Lee: Books

Pachinko Hardcover – February 7, 2017
by Min Jin Lee  (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars
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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.
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 Min Jin Lee
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Biography
Min Jin Lee's debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires, was one of the "Top 10 Novels of the Year" for The Times (London), NPR's Fresh Air, and USA Today. Her short fiction has been featured on NPR's Selected Shorts. Her writings have appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, The Times (London), Vogue, Travel+Leisure, Wall Street Journal, New York Times Magazine, and Food & Wine. Her essays and literary criticism have been anthologized widely. She served as a columnist for the Chosun Ilbo, the leading paper of South Korea. She lives in New York with her family.
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Editorial Reviews
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, New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks, Cloud Atlas, and Black Swan Green

"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 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, the national bestselling author of Half a Life: A Memoir

"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
About the Author
Min Jin Lee's debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires, was one of the "Top 10 Novels of the Year" for The Times (London), NPR's Fresh Air, and USA Today. Her short fiction has been featured on NPR's Selected Shorts. Her writings have appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, The Times (London), Vogue, Travel+Leisure, Wall Street Journal, New York Times Magazine, and Food & Wine. Her essays and literary criticism have been anthologized widely. She served as a columnist for the Chosun Ilbo, the leading paper of South Korea. She lives in New York with her family.
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Customer Reviews
4.1 out of 5 stars

See all 7 customer reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful Novel, Universal Themes
By JLee VINE VOICE on August 11, 2016
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
Pachinko is an ambitious novel covering a Korean family from 1910 to 1989, centering on the amazing Sunja. Sunja is a woman of incredible morality, courage, strength and determination. As a teenager in a very poor fishing village, she becomes enamored of an older, wealthy man. She believes he loves her, and when she tells him she is pregnant, he replies that he is married with several children, but he will take care of her. She tells him, essentially, to take a flying leap. A Protestant minister, also a Korean, offers to marry her and takes her with him to Japan, where he is to be employed at a church. The wealthy, older man also lives in Japan, and he will appear repeatedly throughout the novel.

Sunja and her husband live with his brother and his brother’s wife in a tiny home, and the two women become lifelong friends. They will desperately need each other’s support. These are the years of Japanese imperialism. The Japanese have taken control of Korea, and they treat the Koreans very harshly. The Koreans in Japan live in a ghetto, and they have few rights and limited opportunities. They suffer harassment and discrimination from their Japanese overlords. It’s worse for those who stay in Korea. And then comes World War II, and everyone suffers. It is all the two women can do to hold it all together and keep the family safe, fed and sheltered.

It all really hit me when the story advances to 1979, when a boy turns fourteen years old and must register himself with the Japanese government as an alien. Although his family has lived in Japan for forty years, and he and his father were born in Japan, they are still considered foreigners. He must be fingerprinted and interviewed, and he must request permission to remain in Japan. He must repeat this process every three years for the rest of his life in Japan. Despite the fact that he has never set foot in Korea and the fact that his "Korean" family has become very successful in Japan, he has to bow and scrape in a humble and subservient manner to avoid deportation. It is humiliating.

It’s all fascinating and a very good read. The story does change in tone dramatically, though. We start with the innocent Sunja and her religious and very moral family. Later, when the emphasis shifts to Sunja’s two adolescent (and later adult) sons, the language and scenes occasionally become more vulgar and explicit. It is interesting that in most cases, it is the woman who initiates sexual contact, and often it is told through her viewpoint. That’s nice for a change.

“Pachinko,’ by the way is an arcade gambling game. It figures into the narrative as several members of the family become involved with pachinko parlors. However, the significance is greater, although it is not put into words until quite late in the book. I will not divulge the conversation, but it is eye-opening as the dialog speaks of not just a game, but an attitude. It’s a wonderful piece of writing that really made me stop and think. We are also presented with another character who had a different view, and we see the contrast very clearly.

There are many universal themes here of love and family and choices. Do we take the easy way, which may hurt our souls or other people, or do we take the hard way, even though that may hurt other people in other ways? Who do we love and respect and who is inferior? What choices do the poor have? What debts do we pay, and are some never fully paid? Who do we include and who do we exclude? How do we define “us” and “them”? I could go on and on. But, essentially, it is a story of family, courage, hope, dismay, and survival.

I had an advanced reading copy, so there may be some changes when the book is released. I hope it will include an index of Korean and Japanese terms smattered throughout the book. Most of the time, I could figure out what they meant by context (or they really didn’t matter), but a few times I was baffled. It’s not disturbing, but I feel it would add to the enjoyment of the novel.

It is a very good book, definitely 4 stars, probably four-and-a-half. It is well written and, despite its length, quite a quick read. I learned a lot. I am always interested in reading about people, especially women, in other cultures, and this was very enlightening. I was a little turned off by the vulgar language in the latter parts of the book. It is realistic, as this certainly is a vulgar world, full of vulgar people and entertainment, but I’ve surpassed my quota and prefer to avoid it. Still, all in all, a very good book and I can recommend it to others.

If you like Pachinko, you might be tempted to read more about some of the topics. By coincidence, I have read a few other books about Koreans recently, some of which were so good that I would like to mention them.
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The Calligrapher’s Daughter, by Eugenia Kim, takes place at the same time as much of Pachinko, but it deals with a family living in Korea under Japanese occupation. It is a wonderful book, very well written, and incredibly interesting.

Please Look After Mom, by Kyung-Sook Shin, is one of the most emotional books I have ever read. It’s impossible to describe and highly recommended.

The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea, is a terrifying series of memoirs written by a woman who married the Korean Crown Prince, only to find herself living in a nightmare, light years away from the stereotype fairy tale princess and happy ever after.
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4.0 out of 5 starsPachinko
By M. Reynard VINE VOICE on August 27, 2016
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
I had a hard time putting this book down. Which, since it's a big book, meant that I stayed up way past my bed time a few nights. As a fan of historical fiction; this opened my eyes to some events in history that I didn't know much about.

Pachinko follows the life of Sunja and those related to her throughout fifty years. It starts while she is a young girl who has become pregnant out of wedlock. Because this is a great shame, she agrees to marry a minister passing through who knows her situation and wants to help, and together they go start a life in Japan. Japan isn't very kind to foreigners though, and to survive the family has to work hard, talk to the right people, and try to navigate the political and social currents that surround Japan during the time of war (WWII).

Sunja is surprisingly a quiet character. While the book follows her timeline, it's more about the people around her than her. Her parents, friends, and children all play a more prominent role. I think my favorite character was probably Hansu. He was kind of an anomaly. Both friend and foe to Sunja and kept her life interesting and varied. While he wasn't likable in personality, he was intriguing. My least favorite was Noa because I did not enjoy his flaws or the way his head worked, although I recognize that because of his convictions, his character was very realistic.

I never realized how Korea and Japan were intertwined before. It wasn't taught in history in school here and I hadn't come across it in other historical novels. It's interesting how most countries treat outsiders and that while everyone is different, some things are sadly the same. I also found the telling of the story during WWII to give a little more of a glimpse as to what the normal people of Japan experienced and how lives were changed. And to see that timeline go through fifty years also showed the modernization and how morals and societal roles changed.

Just interesting. A very good book and while I didn't particularly care for the ending, it wasn't bad. Just not as much closure as I would have liked from the characters. I would definitely recommend reading this book if you like historical fiction.

Review by M. Reynard 2016
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4.0 out of 5 stars"A Woman's Life is Suffering."
By Mary Lins TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on August 17, 2016
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
"Pachinko", by Min Jin Lee, is a sweeping saga of a Korean family living in Japan across more than half a century. The main character is Sunja, who as a young working-class girl in Korean, becomes pregnant by a man she cannot marry. This predicament is the first domino to fall leading Sunja to move to Japan and begins the fate of her family. Her mother tells her that "A woman's life is suffering." and that pretty much sums it up.

I enjoy reading these types of family-driven plots (e.g., Jane Smiley's 100 Years trilogy) as they lead the reader through social, economic, and cultural history over the decades. In "Pachinko" we see what it is like to be "foreign", to be shunned and never accepted in the country you live in. I had very little knowledge about the relationship between Japan and Korea pre-WWII, and I was glad to have some of that knowledge-gap filled here. the privations described during the war were quite harrowing. The Korean immigrants felt no allegiance to Japan and they starved along with most of the populations. One character says, "In the end, your belly was your emperor."

Reading about Sunja and her family, it is easy to make comparisons to the treatment of refugees and foreigners in other parts of the world throughout history, including in the USA. I didn't know that as late as the 1980s, Koreans in Japan (even if they were born there) could not hold certain jobs or professions, could not rent property, and had to "register" to stay in the country.

Panchinko is a type of gambling game that is akin to pin-ball and slot machines. Skill is important, but luck plays a big role - but often cheating is involved; an apt metaphor for life.

For more related to the subject of Japan-Korea relations, I highly recommend Pulitzer Prize-winning, "The Orphan Master's Son", by Adam Johnson, about North Korea.