Pachinko is a 2017 finalist for the National Book Award for fiction and has featured on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal. It is rare for a work of fiction to read with such intimacy and heartbreak; the rich tapestry of characters and emotional conflict spanning nearly 100 years to explore the universal themes of resilience, family, identity, and displacement. This novel is revolutionary in its honest and often brutal depiction of the immigrant experience yet reads like a compassionate, beautiful hymn to the struggles of people in a foreign land. It is a vivid and humanizing novel worthy of inclusion on everyone’s reading list.
The novel announces its intentions from the opening sentence “history has failed us, but no matter” and proceeds on a sprawling and nuanced depiction of four generations of an ethnic Korean family — first in Japanese-occupied Korea in the early 20th century to Japan from the years before WWII to the late 1980s. The first character we meet is Sunja, the daughter of an arranged marriage in Yeongdo (a fishing village at the southern tip of Korea) who falls in love with a prominent (and married) mobster. Her pregnancy drives a local pastor to offer her the opportunity to escape via immigration to Japan to a Korean neighbourhood in Osaka and here is where Lee delves into the novel’s central issues of identity, homeland, and belonging.
Lee moved to Osaka in 2007 to immerse herself into extensive research on the predicament of the anxieties of ethnic Koreans in Japan in the early 20th century. The anguish and wretched emotional conflicts of the ethnic Korean population are stirring and unforgettable — Koreans were labeled Zainichi (foreign residents) and discriminated from traditional occupations, they were required to apply for alien registration cards every three years even if born in Japan. The ostracisation of Koreans as second-class citizens drives the shame and guilt that underpins many of the beautiful, cathartic scenes in the novel. Sunja’s two sons embody the painful sacrifices of being caught between two cultures and forced to choose in order to assimilate — Noa (the oldest son) sees being Korean as a “dark, heavy rock” whereas his younger brother Mozasu, even after accumulating great wealth from running pachinko parlours, confides to his friend, “In Seoul, people like me get called Japanese bastards, and in Japan, I’m just another dirty Korean no matter how much money I make or how nice I am.”
The dichotomy between the two brothers is fascinating but the novel binds all the characters as part of a wounded, politically disenfranchised minority who shares in the universality of suffering. Noa spends his life foregoing his Korean identity to become Japanese, however in a moment of introspection, realizes that he is living a “small, invisible life” in Japan, the facade of his respectable middle-class existence barely conceals the terrible conflict that plagues him daily — his Korean heritage is ingrained in him like a scar, despite his dedication to the Japanese language and culture, Min Jin Lee exposes the impossibility of redemption or equality for Koreans through Noa’s deep-seated fear; constructing him as a man who values his wife and children as a second chance but “in no way did he see his current life as a rebirth.”
Conversely, Noa’s younger brother Mozasu embraces his Korean heritage and revels in becoming one of the “bad Koreans” who gets a job as a teenager in a pachinko parlour in order to stay off the streets. Pachinkos (a popular Japanese slot-machine-like game) is one of the only ways for ethnic Koreans to make a living and Mozasu’s quick-witted business skills belie the more sinister belief that he will never truly be accepted into Japanese society, so why not tinker with machines to fix the outcomes and make money by capitalizing on chance, fear and loneliness inherent within human beings. Min Jin Lee uses the pachinko parlour as a metaphor for life — there can only be a few winners and a lot of losers in life, yet we play on in the hopes that we might be the lucky ones. Pachinko is a foolish game, but life was not.
Although Noa and Mozasu underpin the existential crisis and disillusionment in the novel, it is refreshing to see Lee building this multi-generational story on the resilience of its female characters. At first glance, Sunja’s plight is a life of suffering — her days are filled with work and endless struggle but her resilience is astounding as she keeps working hard with the understanding that “No one will take care of a poor woman — just ourselves.” Lee ensures her female characters are not merely a victim of their circumstances, their strengths are exemplified in their ability to work long hours running boarding houses or selling kimchi in grueling conditions to support their children. Even minor characters such as Akiko or Phoebe subvert the stereotype of the submissive and meek female tropes as they probe into the nuances of cultural difference and discrimination in a manner that fortifies their conviction and autonomy.
Pachinko is a masterpiece that achieves the intricate balance between exploring compelling characters and their tumultuous lives by using history itself as a character. Lee’s research into the lives of the Korean minority during Japan’s colonization of Korea and WWII is detailed and illustrious — bringing to life the sights and smells of the shabby Korean township of Ikaino in Osaka and beyond. This novel is triumphant because Lee has an uncanny ability to weave an intimate, humanising chronicle of people who are striving to carve out a place for themselves in the world. After all, living every day in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage and Pachinko is a rich, deeply moving, and mesmerizing tribute to a people that history seems intent on erasing.
This is a hauntingly epic tale that stretches over the course of a century and takes great care to amplify the vortex of a divergence of views from characters that are flawed yet unmistakably human — Lee provides a clear and thoughtful insight into the chaotic landscape of life itself; using the commonality of love, hope and misery to enrich our understanding of a world that seems so far removed from us yet so familiar. Pachinko is a sprawling, memorable novel that resists summary and it will definitely stay with you long after you have turned the last page.
