Thoughts on Pachinko | a review

On the early dawn of our final exams last year, in my uni group chat my friends and I were chatting about the books we were excited to read once semester was over. It was cathartic, to say the least, letting us forget for a moment the stress and anxiety looming directly in front of us. We recommended to each other books and gave book suggestions - it was fun. One girl recommended Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, a novel I had heard of before on Goodreads but had almost forgotten about. Then a few weeks later my friend and I went to Dymocks and did a book-swap, buying a book for the other. She gave me this book, and we decided to buddy read it together over the summer hols, which was ever so exciting. No surprises, she finished it in a few days, while for me it took me over a month (I am slowly emerging out of the book-reading daze or toll of uni days!). But in the end I am glad I picked this book up and I thought to share some of my thoughts below.

I can't quite articulate my feelings about Pachinko. On some levels I absolutely loved this novel, and in another way I have mixed feelings about it. I think another review described it well with pin-pointing the strength of the first half of the book - that part of the narrative completely drew me in to the characters' lives, their motivations and broken experiences. Historically I found it deeply fascinating tracing the lineage of a Korean family emigrating to Japan in the early part of the 20th century, only to face discrimination, terrible living conditions & suffering over the generations.

The focus of the novel is on Sunja, and while the novel carries the weight of multi-perspective development of different characters across several generations, the narrative always turns back to her (and is where I think the story felt strongest with a more brisk pace to the story). Her family faces shame when Sunja is found pregnant out of wedlock, but a young, sickly Christian minister named Isak, volunteers to marry her and together move to Japan to be with his brother and his wife -- her life to forever be changed. It was of particular interest to read this novel, knowing that though the story was fictional it was grounded around true events and experiences faced by the Korean people under oppression, when Korea was taken as a colony by Japan in the early 1900s, and the Korean Christian community was familiar and wonderful to be reminded of, from the autobiography I once read "If I Perish" by Esther Kim (highly recommend). It was amazing to see how Min Jin Lee was able to weave together the personal and political dimensions of Pachinko, so that we could see both sides of the story as it were - those who chose to make Japan their home, and those who felt outside of it, struggling with their self-identity. Are they Korean, Japanese? This was especially exemplified by Sunja's children & grandchildren - Nao, Mosazu and Solomon. Further issues such as racial discrimination, classism and, religious persecution, and intergenerational trauma all play a part in the fabric of this novel.

I felt more connected to the elder generation, not so much to the younger and like many people have observed, the story does begin to fragment and be a bit rushed in the second half. At times it was a bit of a slog, when it did not feel as such at the beginning. For me personally it was partly due to the sexual content, which was too explicit for me (thankfully those moments are brief and can be more or less skipped, but I did find them increase and be a more prominent aspect of the second half that I guess historically makes sense with the moving towards the 1960s social changes). I just wasn't a big fan of it and it often made me feel less keen to pick the book up; besides I felt way less connected to the characters in general. However at the very end the overall theme came back together as it were and I was reminded of why this novel was worth reading, and why it will leave an impact on me.

Ultimately, this story's theme is one of redemption - you see it in the way the characters are named after Biblical characters, and there is that beautiful undercurrent of the Christian faith throughout, held by the legacy of Isak (Sunja's husband). Honestly his character was my absolute favourite in the novel and what made me love it so much (and wish he had had a bit more page-presence). Such a kind and GENTLE upright man who showed love through sacrifice and humility, the protecting and generous heart. I loved the metaphor for his marriage and redeeming of Sunja to the book of Hosea in the Bible. Another character that absolutely broke me was Noa. That poor poor kid. His narrative more than anyone else I think embodies the idea of "pachinko", the one at struggle with his own identity, and what integration, denying your heritage or culture can be both a means of survival and preservation and deep down devastating and humiliating. It was so sad and gave me food for thought. 

3.5 to 4 stars.