Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist) (2017 original; edició 2017)

This is an epic family tale that spans four generations, beginning in 1910 in Korea and ending in 1989 in Japan.

Sunja is the naive daughter of a lowly disabled fisherman in Korea when she becomes pregnant. After learning her illicit lover is married, she marries a kind English missionary she barely knows. They will travel to Osaka, Japan where he has been encouraged to come by his brother. Sunja will remain a Korean living in Japan for the rest of her life.

Pachinko excels as a well researched historical novel. It excels as well as a novel based on the life of a woman and mother who had to fight with determination against racisim and sexism to provide for her family. Unfortunately as a character driven novel I thought there was weakness. The characters didn't breathe for me, they were always characters on a page. Still I learned a lot from Lee, I knew nothing about the history of Koreans in Japan and I was always engaged by the story.

A family saga covering 5 generations of a working-class Korean family that immigrates to Japan in the 1930s.

This story is wrapped in Korean and Japanese 20th century history and culture. Lee does a magnificent job of making sure her readers understand without stopping to explain anything.

The story begins in 1910, when Japan annexed Korea. An elderly couple begin taking in boarders as their rent went up. Their only surviving child, Hoonie, had a cleft lip and bad foot, yet in 1911 a matchmaker comes with a proposal to marry the youngest of 3 very poor sisters. And that marriage between Hoonie and Yangjin sets the story rolling. Their daughter Sunja moves to Japan with her Christian missionary husband from the North, Isak, who is joining his brother and sister-in-law.

Korean immigrants to Japan were never treated well--they often worked in pachinko parlors and were considered gangsters. Most Japanese would not hire or work with or live near Koreans. Even Sunja's grandson, the second generation born in Japan, is not a citizen and carries a South Korean passport and an alien registration. And that is largely what this book is about--should they stay or return to Korean? But Korea is facing a war, then is split, and they hear of hunger. Sunja's sons have no knowledge of Korea and can't imagine living anywhere but Japan. Yet they still feel trapped--by what jobs they can hold, who they an date/marry, where they can live.

I really enjoyed this novel. I love family sagas, and I love immigration stories (this is the first Korea-to-Japan story I have read). I may up this to 5 stars later (if it really sticks with me), but for now it somehow felt distant and not emotional. And no book hangover. ( )

4.5 stars

This follows a family through a few generations. They are from Korea. They are poor and end up in Japan for more opportunities. The Japanese look down on them. I've never thought about the prejudices between different East Asian countries. Even Koreans born in Japan for a couple of generations are still considered not to be citizens. They have to have permit cards. And they have no Korea to go back to either, especially the ones who came from North Korea. Japan took over Korea during the war. After Japan was defeated, no one was in power in Korea so in the north a dictator took over. I never knew how it came about before reading this book. Anyways, the history in the book was really interesting to me. I became totally wrapped up the lives of the characters also. I rooted for their success. I felt their loses. This book leaves a lingering effect. ( )

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Actually, I liked it a lot.
From page one the story of Sunja and her parents grabbed me. I'm not sure what it was that draw me into the book, for usually I'm not so very fond of these family saga kind of books. Apart from a few exceptions. And this was one of them.

The flowing text, the way the words painted a world that is utterly foreign to me, both in the geographical sense of the word as well as in the every day life sense. I have no idea how it is to live in an Asian country, or in a country whose inhabitants don't want me to be there. I have no idea how it is to be really poor, or to be a female in an old fashioned patriarchal family/society.

The family history of Sunja and her relatives/acquaintances/friends is an interesting one. Many things are touched upon, not everything elaborated. Mostly that's good, because the book has a limited number of pages. But especially when nearing the end I missed the detailed descriptions of early in the book.
And if you're looking for a 'they lived happily ever after'-book I wouldn't recommend it, it tends to be quite sad at times.

Nevertheless I loved it and it was with a big sigh that I closed it today. No more pages to read, no more things to discover, no more steps taken by Sunja to follow. I'll miss it. ( )

This may be the first novel that looks carefully at the situation of Koreans living in Japan, connecting through one family the early 20th Century Japanese colonization and its impact on Korea and Koreans moving to Japan, through WWII, the division of Korea up to the end of the 1980s. The female characters are quite interesting, the life as game idea works well. ( )