Between the Lines — Pachinko
Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko is a gripping multi-generational saga of a 20th century Korean family. The story opens in a fishing village in Korea shortly after the Japanese annexation, then follows this family to Japan from the years before World War II to the late 1980’s. I am embarrassed to admit that I knew nothing about this time period: nothing about Korea or the Korean immigrant story in Japan. Pachinko is both a heartbreaking and tender fictional story, but it is the historical world that opened up to me that made the book even more compelling. I wouldn’t say Pachinko is perfect; the last third which covered the later years felt rushed. And some readers might not like that the book switches perspectives often and sometimes suddenly. Personally, I did not take issue with that, and I enjoyed the stories of the minor characters as much as the major ones. Overall, I see Pachinko as a story of what it is like to be an immigrant, to be a second-class citizen, to be without a homeland, to be an outsider all while trying to forge a home and a better life for oneself and one’s children oftentimes at great sacrifice. The book begins “History has failed us, but no matter.” Indeed it seems as if history doesn’t care about these people, but in the end history does not diminish them, nor strip their lives of the complexity, richness, kindness and the good and bad fortune that all humans experience. For Lee’s characters that have the fortitude to carry on in the face of great adversity, the mantra really is “no matter.” There is too much here to summarize, after all the novel spans 8 decades, but the stand out theme for me concerns what it means to be an outsider and to what extent and to what length one will go to fit in. In Pachinko, it isn’t just the Ethnic Koreans that suffer discrimination. There are other ways to fall from grace. Lee shows compassion for and understanding of all her characters. There are those that are shunned for possessing physical deformities, ostracized because a parent commits suicide, ones hiding homosexuality, others hiding their ethnicity, adulterers, addicts, and prostitutes. All these people struggle to be ”good” and to fit in. Lee is especially skilled in her portrayal of Sunja and Kyunghee, whose quiet dignity and humanity provide the backdrop for all the stories found in this novel. At the end of the book, Sunja reflects on her life “Beyond the day lines there had been moments of shimmering beauty and some glory too, even in this ajumma’s* life. Even if no one knew, it was true.” In the end Pachinko comes full circle history may have failed Sunja and her people but “no matter” because Sunja knew what her life and the life of her family meant to her and that was enough.
Additional Notes
The book takes its title from the popular game Pachinko, a part slot machine, part pinball game of chance. Despite the game’s popularity, Pachinko parlors were looked down upon as dens of gambling and crime. Ethnic Koreans in Japan, discriminated against and shut out of traditional occupations, were forced into finding other ways to earn money and Pachinko parlors became one way of finding work and accumulating wealth. It is estimated that 80% of Pachinko parlors in Japan today are owned by Ethnic Koreans.
Pachinko was a 2017 finalist for the “National Book Award for Fiction” and was named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2017.
Overall
I strongly recommend you put Pachinko on your Summer reading list. Yes, I know that summer reading lists are meant to be light and fun, an escape from reality and Pachinko is tougher than that. There is pain and heartache and grim life here, but there is also hope, love, courage and perseverance. I am also aware that summer reading lists are often books about women and largely read by women. To that end, Pachinko fits the bill. There are plenty of male characters in Pachinko, but the book opens and closes with a woman’s story: Sunja’s story, a story of grace, love and sacrifice. It is a page turner and at time feels like a soap opera (which I say in a non-disparaging way) as well as a well-researched and absorbing piece of historical fiction.슬롯머신