Pachinko

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.