Barry Pierce's Reviews > Pachinko

In the sweeping and monolithic Pachinko, Min Jin Lee documents four generations of a Korean family in Japan from 1910 to 1989. First conceived in 1989, Lee worked on this novel for over 25 years and what a masterpiece she has to show for all her work. Only really comparable in scope to Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle, Pachinko is an education as well as a flawlessly crafted story. It theorises on an ugly aspect of Japanese society and the people who struggle against this open prejudice.

What I know about the history of Koreans in Japan wouldn't fill the back of a postage stamp. To call my knowledge of the culture and politics of east Asia in the 2oth century a blindspot would be offensive to actual blindspots. (Honestly, all my knowledge of Japan comes from Sondheim's Pacific Overtures) What I'm saying is that I probably know minus-information about this area of the world and its history. So Pachinko was a real history lesson for me. But, as the Financial Times' review put it, 'we never feel history being spoon-fed to us.'

Lee imbues the history into her characters. Through them we witness WWII and the division of Korea, the stories and journeys of the millions of post-war Korean migrants in Japan (a people known to the Japanese as the Zainichi), and the frank bigotry that many of them (and their subsequent generations) faced in Japanese society. One of the novel's best characters, the Dickens-loving Noa, is described as having to 'pass' for Japanese and even hides his true Korean identify from his wife and children. I had no idea about any of this stuff and it was truly eyeopening.

But the novel is not just a history lesson: it's a veritable soap opera. I described it to one of my friends as 'Maeve Binchy goes to Asia'. There are twists and turns in Pachinko that would have caused Jackie Collins to down the driest martini. Love, marriage, betrayal, kimchi, death. I mean, the yakuza play a very significant role in this novel. It's a blockbuster of a book. Your mother who only reads Danielle Steel deep-cuts would get as much enjoyment out of this as a thesis student in Asian Studies.

I devoured Pachinko. It is a somewhat dense 531-pages but I had to constantly pull myself away from it. If left to my own devices the whole book would have been conquered in just one prolonged sitting. Sunja's story captivated me, Noa's story intrigued me, Mozasu's story broke me, Hansu's story enraged me, Solomon's story gave me hope, and Yangjin, the woman who starts it all, she enthralled me from page one.

It is difficult to think of any novel published in the last couple of years that is even comparable to Pachinko. One year since its publication and it has already been deemed a modern classic. Min Jin Lee has created a literary juggernaut. And I loved it.