Pachinko by Min Jin Lee was a book that took me a while to pick up. The size of it is a commitment that I wasn’t sure I wanted to take, so I gave myself a little push and the book caught me without a problem. I was not expecting this book to have such an impact on me. When I read Pachinko, I did a reading blog documenting my week of reading. There you can find more of my thought that I won’t be mentioning here. Find week one and week two.

Author: Min Jin Lee Pages: 537 Genre: Historical Fiction, Korean Culture Publication: 2017

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Synopsis:

In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant — and that her lover is married — she refuses to be bought. Instead, 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.

Review:

Oddly enough, I didn’t enjoy everything about Pachinko, but it’s one of the best books I’ve read. It’s one of those books that stay with you even after finishing it. And I’m not talking about hearts and giggles, the romance was so kawaii, or I found my new book crush. Nothing like that. This book is serious. It’s not funny or lovely. It’s honest, real, and a thought-provoking piece of literature.

Pachinko is a perspective overlooked in the history books. Although this book doesn’t teach any history. Everything that was happening in the world or was changing these characters lives were just mentioned as events to situate the reader in the political climate. Instead of just dump a bunch of history, the author managed to do something even better: make me go out of my way to find more about Korean history.

I knew zero about Korea – apart from K-pop and k-dramas – when I started reading. I didn’t even know why there were two Koreas in the first place. But Pachinko made me curious to find more. And a book that can spark any sort of curiosity outside of what is written on the page is a great accomplishment. I didn’t just read a book from the point of view of three-generation Koreans living under Japanese occupied Korea and then migrating to Japan and the struggles they all faced along the way. I read about the Korean War, the division of Korea, the Empire of Japan annexing Korea. Suddenly, my mind was open to a whole new chapter in world history that I had no idea existed. And all because I picked up this book.

What I didn’t enjoy as much, was the more fictional part of the story. I wanted to spend more time with Sunja. I wanted this book to be all about her life, her pain, her feelings, her problems, her happiness… her. Every time something big or emotional happened, there was a time jump. There wasn’t that proximity with the character to see the reaction. In the next chapter, the moment would already be gone. And that created a distance between the reader and the character. I think you aren’t supposed to feel invested in these people’s lives like you do in other romance novels. You are just an outsider looking in. Although I couldn’t help bonding with Sunja and caring for her. I wanted her to be the sole protagonist of this story from birth to death.

The story starts off in 1911. a long time ago, and it was fascinating to learn how people lived back then. I was enjoying the day-to-day life and how different it compares to the one we have today. Since this is a multi-generational story, time moves forward and, suddenly, the “back then” wasn’t that long ago. But that wasn’t the book I wanted to read. I wanted to stay back in 1911 when you couldn’t call for a doctor and had to go running out of the house to find one. I wanted the story to keep in that era.

This book still is a beautiful adventure through time against a world of adversities made for thinking. Thinking about religion. Thinking about politics. Thinking about war. Thinking about women. Thinking about men. Thinking about wealth. Thinking about poverty. Thinking about injustice. Thinking about benevolence. Thinking about children. Thinking about mothers. Thinking about fathers. Thinking about family. Thinking about honour. Thinking about culture.

I will forever treasure Pachinko for all these reasons and more. And this is why you should read it too. It’s not just beautifully told, it will open your mind to things you never thought of before.

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