Pachinko

A fascinating look at Koreans dealing with war and fleeing to Japan.
Spans decades.

Wow. Just WOW! Once this book got going, I could not put this book down. Incredibly riveting, deeply emotional, and it made me want to read more Japanese and Korean literature.

I'm trying to expand my reading into other genres.  I love history but haven't had much luck with historical fiction so far.  This is one where I just couldn't get along with the writing style.  Things seemed to be skipped over and I just couldn't get into it.

Pachinko is a sprawling examination of a family and a place and a time over several generations. More specifically, it is an examination of one family's experience as Koreans navigating the unbending world of the Japanese people and culture and their status as second-class unacknowledged citizens. Sometimes happy, often tragic, always fascinating, the author—from my limited knowledge of this history—does a tremendous job humanizing this period in time and the lives orbiting it.

Here comes the criticism . . .

The storyline is too ambitious for one volume. This book should have been either edited down or split into two or three volumes and fleshed out a bit more. I would have voted for editing it down.

Also, it's written in omniscient POV. This is terribly distracting. There is so much unnecessary exposition and individual backstory thrown in and then sometimes a significant event or subplot is tied off with a single phrase or sentence.

I have no idea how this became a National Book Award finalist other than as acknowledgment of the depth of research and breadth of storyline. BUT! I still recommend this book. Maybe a change of POV and two more editing passes and this book would have been elevated from very good to excellent. This year, I suspect I  will be recommending this book to every reader I know.

This book had the bad manners to take a hard turn into Christianity while an edible kicking in, which was an experience I'm not sure I'm coming back from.

This was a historical fiction about Korean culture during the Japanese occupation. Beautifully written, but so sad. Loved it!

Loooved this. The sprawling timeline, the way the language and mood of the characters evolved to match the more modern settings and sensibilities. The narration shifted perspectives so seamlessly. I was never confused about whose perspective we were getting even amongst a scene with multiple characters. In the first couple chapters, the cast evolved so quickly that I didn't think I'd care about anyone by the end, but that is not the case. I'll think about these characters for a long time.

In the broad landscape of european perspectives during the second world war, I think while the book has a lot of stylistic and pacing issues, especially with jolty timeskipping, it captures broad issues of culture, patriotism, and naturalization of korean japanese.

The character development fell flatter as the book progressed however, I think there was a good sense of closure by the end.

I think it is worth a read to learn about east asian history if that is of interest.

took me like two years of on and off reading (not an avid reader) and it was so worth it. just an amazing saga from start to finish. love how as we meet the children of these characters, they slowly start to get fleshed out as they grow older. Sunja’s journey from start to finish is so heavy, her presence just adds so much more weight to her family’s individual lives.

Foresto Gumpu San

The first two thirds of this are outstanding. The last third is so awful that I had to plug my nose to get through it.

Sweeping multigenerational family saga about a Korean family's experience in Japan. This is not a part of history I know much about - and this story made me interested in learning more. The book follows one family, and the story jumps forward a few years for each new chapter. Felt like a series of related vignettes, but I was very engaged with the story and the characters. I really liked this one.

I loved Pachinko for many reasons. I felt the book was strongly written and while it often got depressing, it provided a sense of realness that soothed the harsher edges. And while upsetting, I enjoyed reading the historical look into the lives of Koreans in Japan and the discrimination they faced there. There were also many strong themes throughout the book that elevated the read and caused me to often think deeply. Tackling issues such as mental health, regret, and shame, this book became more than just your typical generational novel.

However, I had one main issue with Pachinko. As a generational novel this book contained many characters, and while not hard to follow, I found the constant switching around caused a lack of emotional connection. This novel moves swiftly, and I often felt that around the time I was finally getting a strong feel for a character the POV would switch. I found myself often wishing for deep dives into certain characters, only to instead be getting whisked around from character to character. This often meant I wasn't connecting to the characters emotionally, which usually left me feeling distant from the novel.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was well written, and I loved reading about the history of Koreans in Japan. A personal highlight for me was reading about Korean dishes throughout the novel which always left me hungry.

This book hadn't been on my radar but I have seen it around over the past few years. I picked it up when it was selected as a group read. I'm glad I got to go into it with an open mind. I came away with mixed emotions.    Beginning in the early 1900s, we meet Sunja and her family living in Korea. She meets Hansu and envisions a future with him, especially once she discovers she's pregnant. Unbeknownst to her, he has a wife and children in Japan. Refusing to see him again, she accepts the offer of marriage from Isak, an ailing minister. Together they set off for Japan to live with Isak's brother and his wife with Isak adopting Noa and raising him as his own. Parts two and three follow the lineage of Sunja's family through to the 1980s.    As I was reading the book's first part, I anticipated this being a five-star read. I was completely absorbed in the plot, characters, setting, history, writing... all of it. Part two started to lose me a little bit, especially reaching the second half of it. Part three was an absolute headache. I no longer had a grasp on the characters or the many plot lines the story now involved.    So many of the monumental moments of the book, particularly in the second half, start, occur, and end in the span of one to three paragraphs — if that. Because of this, there's no chance to build a bond with a number of the characters or their situations. After a slower build in the beginning, all of a sudden switching to fast pacing and sporadic time jumps was dizzying. I cannot recall most of this second of the book as my reading was interrupted to go back and see if I missed something, only to realize a major plot point was dropped in a singular sentence with little to no explanation around it.    I'm definitely walking away feeling disappointed after so much enjoyment in the beginning, but I'm glad I went along for the ride. 

—Japón nunca cambiará. Nunca integrarán a los gaijin y, cariño, aquí tú siempre serás un gaijin, nunca serás japonés.

Considero que Pachinko es una excelente introducción no solo a la literatura coreana, sino también a la discriminación histórica hacia los coreanos por parte de los japoneses. Es algo que ya conocía, pero leerlo e imaginarme las experiencias de los personajes hizo que esta realidad fuera más vívida y me llegase más. También destacar que algunas situaciones narradas fueron experiencias reales, lo cual hace que me sienta aún peor (gracias Min Jin).

Lee ha realizado un trabajo admirable al crear situaciones complejas donde la discriminación y la marginalidad son una constante en la vida cotidiana. Cualquier coreano o japonés es capaz de hablarte del sentimiento anticoreano/antijaponés que existe en sus países. Y aunque el tiempo avance, seguirá persistiendo una hostilidad entre ambas comunidades, convirtiendo este libro en algo atemporal.

Es un libro de lectura fácil. A partir de la mitad del libro se me hizo un poco cuesta arriba, pero creo que es porque los cambios de generaciones hicieron que desconectara un poco.

What is the meaning of suffering? What was the point of this book? These are the questions I asked myself upon finishing it.

This is a massive book that follows a few generations of people during a very difficult period of time in Korea and Japan.
For what is worth, I found the historical components of this story (of which there are many) quite fascinating. There is so much I didn't know and managed to learn from this book; it sparked interest in exploring the history of Korea and Japan more deeply and for that, I have to give it praise.
I also would like to highlight the beginning of the story - both the plot and the characters of the first third of it were fascinating and I ate it up greedily.
But there are things about this book that left me very dissatisfied and a bit bored.
To begin with, the book is too long (much like this review). And this comes from a person who prefers longer books.
For one, the pacing of the book is completely unbalanced. We would spend a ton of time on some minute detail about a certain aspect of life, which while interesting on its own, was ultimately irrelevant to the story and as such slowed it down to a glacial pace for a period of time. As a contrast, we would barely brush over a massive world shattering event, as though it's an annoying fly to be rid of. For example, she would spend pages upon pages on the minutia of cooking and then spare a single sentence on the death of a very important character. Either end a chapter with “And then he died” - no preamble or anything, or start a chapter with “After his death...” - again no lead up to it.
I felt as though the author had no idea what we're here for.
Secondly, we follow way too many characters. We witness the lives of almost 4 generations of people pretty much entirely (I say almost because the first generation we only follow for a chapter of two).
And the truth is, there are only so many people one can care about. You can't both develop a generation of characters and fully complete the entirety of their lives' arc in a third of a book. And then successfully transition into another generation of characters and keep our interest. That is applicable to me at least.
In all honesty, the further I got into the book, the less I cared. I loved the first third, I was lukewarm on the second and outright did not care one bit about the third. I felt like the story overstayed its welcome which led me to view the youngest generation as intrusive strangers who are wasting my time.
I firmly believe that it would've been way better to split the story into 2 or even 3 books. This way we wouldn't have to cut down on the historical and daily life details, but we would be able to spend more time with the big important moments. And the newer generations of characters would have the chance to be the main focus of interest in their own books.
And lastly, this is a very tough book to read. From the abuse of Koreans, to the abuse of the poor, to the abuse of women... There is no end to the frustration one experiences reading this book. And while it's important to have these aspects of history represented and portrayed in an honest way, i believe it is equally important to offset that by some deeper meaning. At least in fiction. Why? Because this is where the value of fiction lies. This is why reading and writing fiction is important as opposed to nonfiction.
Let me explain. Nonfiction is meant to represent the facts objectively and portray historical events as they were (as much as it's possible). It is as it is - sometimes bleak, sometimes horrible. We learn what got us here and what not to do. That's how we evolve as a society. Fiction on the other hand gives the author the ability to take the background of these awful bleak events and weave a story that can give them meaning. Allow us to view tragedy and suffering differently and make sense of it. This is how we evolve as individuals.
So when you have a story that follows such bleak reality and no philosophical way to look at it, you're just left with the frustration. And no matter how historically accurate it is, to me it's borderline meaningless to read.
So the 3 ⭐️ I am giving are only earned by the setting and the first third of the book.

Appropriately enough, I bought “Pachinko” during a layover in Incheon. It pulled me in from the first sentence. From the second page until the very end, I teared up every fifty pages or so because nothing makes me weep quite like a generational story about Asian immigrants. This novel is a literary throwback in the best sense, generous in spirit and epic in scale.

wow like 5 years ago when everyone was like “Pachinko is great” I was like “ok I'll get around to it someday but IDK looks kinda long” anyway I am here in 2023 to say yeah, Pachinko is great. Really rich and compelling, loved the historical detail and the epic nature of it. I'm glad I made time for this (but also glad I waited until I was in the right mood for this kind of read!)

Al principio me estaba gustando mucho, pero llega un momento en el que hay tantas tramas de tantos personajes abiertas que me resulta desprolijo. Adem??s, creo que da mucho peso en las introducciones y resuelve los desenlaces con cuatro pinceladas. No es mi tipo de lectura favorita.

i just like an epic

Começou tão bem, mas foi me perdendo

My problem with this book is how it read so clinical. I couldn't become emotionally invested in these characters because of it. This happened, and then this hardship happened, and then this other thing happened...and then some abruptly crude sexual moment is sprinkled throughout. My criticism also comes from having read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu in the past year. The structure of following families through history and the struggles they go through is similar, but with these other two books, I cried and laughed while along the ride. Also, I started this book as an audiobook, but the mispronunciation of almost every Korean word made me switch to the physical copy so quickly. I liked the story, and I will probably really like the mini series, but I didn't enjoy reading this book.

DNF @ 45%

Given the glowing reviews I expected so much more from this.

Perhaps it was the flat, bland narration of the audiobook but the writing just felt completely detached, cold and emotionless.

Characters died and it was glossed over, there was not a single event that was written with any more feeling than the description of a flat wall painted matt white.

Simple and really addictive. Its characters are a major point. Quite long but never verbose, I loved reading it!

this book keeps disappearing from my shelves even though i read it in January, goodreads please PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER

I'm a sucker for reading something before watching a movie or television adaptation, so when I heard good things about this year's Pachinko series on Apple TV+ I decided I had to read this.

This is a multi-generational drama set in a culture and period that I did not have a lot of familiarity with. I actually somehow had no idea that Japan had annexed Korea for the better part of the first half of the 20th century, so seeing a representation of racism and oppression in that setting was something new to me and drove me to a bit of further reading on the history.

Between the writing and the narration of the audiobook I listened to, the whole book had a stoic matter-of-fact quality to it that worked a lot of the time in a somber “life trudges forward” sort of way, but at other times made the story feel a bit long and drawn out. Time passes effortlessly and characters age drastically from one moment to the next, which in some cases made them feel like someone I knew intimately and in some cases I felt as if I never had a chance to understand them. It was a bit frustrating at times though it did also add a lifelike quality to the whole thing.

I'm really interested to see what the show is like now, because it does not feel like a straightforward thing to adapt and I'm curious to see what angle they come at it, and I think I'm glad I read this first to be able to analyze the show in that way. We'll see!