“Pachinko” was a National Book Award finalist as well as one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2017. The story spans the years from about 1910 when the Japanese occupied Korea until the end of the 1980s. The author has given us the story of four generations of a family who lived through the two World Wars, the Cold War and the Korean War and the effects these events had on ordinary people.
The story opens in a small fishing village, Yeongdo, on the southeast coast of Korea. There, in an arranged marriage a young girl named Yangjin weds a good man who has a double disability, both a cleft lip and a club foot. Despite the difficulty of making a living, the couple had a happy marriage, especially when a daughter, their only child, was born. It is this girl, Sunja, who is the center of the novel. The family remained desperately poor, and more so when the father dies early on.
The young Sunja was an innocent and naive girl, and she was attracted to a well dressed Japanese man who came back and forth to her little village, though we are never quite sure what his business there was. He took notice of Sunja in the marketplace, and then took advantage of her. As these these tales often go, it wasn’t long before Sunja found she was pregnant. Hansu was married with a family back in Japan, and what’s more he was a powerful member of the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia. In a strange way, Hansu loved Sunja for her purity, and though he could not convince her to leave with him, he continued to secretly follow her whereabouts and support her in ways she was unaware of. He appears again and again throughout the book, never losing his love for Sunja.
One day a young Korean Christian missionary, Isak, en route to join his brother in Japan, stays at Yangjin’s boarding house. Sensitive to Sunja’s condition and the shame and rejection she would bring upon the family, he offers to marry her and bring up her child as his own if she will join him in Osaka. It is the story of this family which is the centerpiece of the novel. Because the story follows four generations in the Baek family, it is not possible to give a plot summary, of this well-written book, rich with detail. Poor and forced to live in the Korean ghetto where they were known as Zainichi, the first generation faced discrimination and often brutality. Feeling shame the women worked hard to make and sell kimchi in the marketplace. Three strong steadfast woman kept the family intact and close. Though they longed to return to Korea, they could not because of occupation and war.
Sonja and Isak had two sons and these men became very successful but by different pathways. Noa, the oldest, longs to be Japanese and eventually changes his name and moves to Nagano where he passes for Japanese, his wife and children unaware of his roots.
Mozasu, the second son, who was never much of a student, becomes wealthy by running and eventually owning Pachinko parlors. Pachinko is a game similar to vertical pinball. Wildly popular, they are everywhere in Japan, noisy and full of people at all hours. In the past, it was a path out of poverty for the many Koreans who ran them. Inevitably they were targets for the Yakuza.
Mozasu’s son, Solomon, faces different challenges. He is a modern child, educated in America, with a degree in business. Sadly, he discovers that working for a British investment bank does not shield him from discrimination and even sacking, when he is considered redundant after completing a large deal for the company.
Min Jin’s characters are strongly drawn and realistic. Family ties, the role of women, the shame and struggle of being an immigrant, are all themes which run through the book. I enjoyed the novel and highly recommend it as a great read as well as a bit of history one may not be familiar with.
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