Pachinko

Very light spoiler that pertains to the progression of the book

I did really enjoy the view of history that I've not seen covered in a book before. I got through the first part pretty quickly due to not wanting to put the book down. But then it just started dragging. I was avoiding reading because I didn't want to be reminded that I had this on my phone waiting to be finished.

SPOILERISH I also got to the point that my first though when being introduced to a new character was "ok and how long until they die?" END SPOILERISH

This should have been a DNF for me, but I'm still going to give it 2 stars because I really did appreciate Min Jin Lee bringing forward the racism and disparity that Koreans faced during that time. I cannot begin to fathom leaving your birth country and then have no country want to claim you as a citizen.

I just wish some of the parts would have been slimmed down a little more.

To be clear, I did thoroughly enjoy it and it is a page-turner. However, I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that the book was heavily edited to appeal to a larger audience. In a few place, Lee's writing does shine, but these moments are thinly dispersed. On a different level, I was fascinated about the historical details of the 20th century Korean / Japanese relationship. Being half Korean born just before the 80s, some of the questions towards the end of the book did resonate with me - of which the pachinko game is an apt metaphor.

Beautiful in its starkness, sudden and yet inevitable, with characters cut from glass and etched on your heart, even if you've never met such a person, you feel as if you have, because even though they feel very Korean, they're also just so human. I felt like I learned a lot about a culture without it ever being "work" to read or confusing. This is a family epic done in the very best way I've ever read, that pulled me in and affected me deeply. This made me feel things without being in the least bit saccharine. It just felt brutally honest.

And yet, nothing is perfect, I suppose. The one thing that I didn't like was the sudden, sometimes quite explicit sexual content. This author has a style where she likes to jolt you with suddenness, and it really works...but personally I would much rather not have this level of explicit information. I don't feel that that does anything for me.

So alas, I thought perhaps I was reading the perfect book, maybe I had found it. But nothing is perfect, nothing ever will be, there will always be some little wrinkle, no? And so I will keep reading, searching for that one perfect book out there...

The first third was easily engrossing. It was refreshing to learn about the history of Ikuno and about the Korean diaspora in Japan. The formula of family sagas is difficult to escape though. The older generations stoically live through readable hardship, while the younger generation is spoiled and ungrateful. I was actually expecting the youngest generation here to end up in America and to experience new discriminations, but the United States is maintained as a distant promised land. The novel holds the ideology too of work and wealth as virtue with no compunctions for example about swindling an old lady out of her home—and I nearly resented having to read through a banker bro poker game. Why are all the protagonists of the younger generation men? Both the narrator and the characters examine the structures of racism but none confront the misogyny, and the women who are granted long lives surrounded by devoted family members accept their lot as one to suffer—confines that are vocalised repeatedly across 470 pages.

Incidentally, if Phoebe and her disapproval of aspects of Japan were to be written more roundedly, the most salient affliction of living in Japan as a woman and expat is the omnipresence of pickup artist bullshittery and anti-feminist pageantry.

I know so little of Korean and Japanese history. The love of a child is a common human thread and sadly so is the hate of some one who is"the other".
This book opened my eyes to how much we share as human beings

Overall I liked the book. The writing was clear and engaging from the start.
Although I felt that throughout the book women characters were painted as almost completely powerless and victims of others and their own shame, pinned into a small hole. It was at times hard to read and understand how they operated within these tight constraints without any outlet for release. Perhaps it was and may still be a reality.

There are some good parts and some strange parts.

I enjoyed because of the following:
The book clearly demonstrates the harsh standards for women in Korean and Japanese society.
Clear demonstration of unfair gender standards for men, the power and privilege pinned against carrying the load of the world on the shoulders and stumbling under it.
The issue of belonging, not belonging and fitting in.
Racism and xenophobia.
Personal shame with no means of dealing with it.
Insights into immigrant culture.

The things I didn't like:
There was some loosely relevant stories interwoven briefly and then dropped.
The second part of the book lost sight of the main & most interesting characters although they were still living.
The last part of the book felt less and less believable and did not draw me in emotionally the way the first part.
Crude language in narration of sex scenes was a bit jarring in a contrast to the literary language throughout.

This is the first book I've read by This author, but it will not be the last. This book resonated with me throughout my day. Not many books do that for me. Because GR doesn't permit half stars, I thought it only right to round up. I love the way that Hansu keeps his word which allows this entire family to pull itself up by its bootstraps out of poverty. Family plays a big role in this book. In good times and bad this family is there for one another.

I loved this book. There is something about it that reminds me of Pearl Buck's writing. Such deeply known characters and the hardships they endure with tenacity