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Deeply felt and unpredictable, 'Pachinko' follows the epic rise of a Korean family

John Powers

Oscar-winning actress Youn Yuh-jung plays the older Sunja is the Apple TV+ series Pachinko . Apple TV+ hide caption

Oscar-winning actress Youn Yuh-jung plays the older Sunja is the Apple TV+ series Pachinko .

Early in the Apple TV+ series Pachinko , an arrogant whiz kid named Solomon — who is of Korean ancestry, but was born in Japan — is trying to secure a huge real estate deal by getting an old Korean woman to sell her house in Tokyo. After regaling him with memories of her painful life, the woman suddenly says, "Tell me honestly. When old people talk of suffering, isn't it tiresome?" Solomon replies, "Isn't that the point? To burden us."

Book Reviews

Culture clash, survival and hope in 'pachinko'.

He's wrong, but not completely. You'll see why when you watch this adaptation of Min Jin Lee's bestselling novel , a deeply felt crowd-pleaser by a Korean American team — showrunner and writer Soo Hugh, and directors Kogonada and Justin Chon. Chronicling a Korean family's difficult rise over 70 years, Pachinko offers a cornucopian narrative that's at once a multi-generational epic, an immigrant saga, a history lesson, a portrait of cultural bigotry, a high-class soap opera and a celebration of women's capacity to survive even the darkest circumstances. Awash in big emotions, this is not a series shy about trying to make you cry.

Fiddling with the novel's time-frame, Pachinko interlaces two time periods. The first starts during the Japanese occupation of Korea in the early 20th century with the birth of Sunja, a poor girl who is obviously special. When she reaches her teenage years — where she's played by the amazing newcomer Kim Min-ha — Sunja wins the love of two very different men: a handsome gangster (played by Korean heartthrob Lee Min-ho) and a saintly Protestant minister (Steve Sanghyun Noh), who marries her, then moves them to Japan, where they live in Osaka's wretched Korean ghetto.

Movie Interviews

'i feel like i'm an olympian': youn yuh-jung on her historic oscar nomination.

The second strand takes place in 1989 Japan, where Sunja is now a grandmother brilliantly played by Youn Yuh-jung , who won the Oscar last year for Minari . The action centers on her smug, yet anxious grandson, Solomon (played terrifically by Jin Ha), who works at a New York bank and has returned to Japan to close the business deal I mentioned earlier.

Solomon thinks such a financial coup will let him escape the stigma that comes from being both Korean and the son of a low-class man who owns a parlor where people play pachinko, the pinball-like gambling game whose unpredictability becomes the story's central metaphor. Unlike his grandmother, who mourns her lost home in Korea, Solomon yearns to shed the skin of his heritage and become a modern cosmopolitan defined purely by his personal talents.

Time doesn't allow me to do justice to Pachinko 's Dickensian profusion of vivid characters, who are beautifully acted to a one and who variously speak in Korean, Japanese or English (complete with color-coded subtitles). Nor can I begin to tell you just how much stuff happens over the eight episodes. You get death, murder, suicide, love affairs, arrests, diseases, broken homes, broken hearts, fires, earthquakes, a few preposterous coincidences and many intimate moments of great delicacy.

Through all these changes there are a few constants, including the hardship, loss and misery that was Korea's lot after the nation's 1910 annexation by Japan, which proceeded to exploit its resources and workers. Such material exploitation is made all the worse by the vicious anti-Korean bigotry of the Japanese, who called the Korean people "cockroaches." When Solomon steps into Japanese boardrooms in 1989, he's still treated as a man with inferior blood who can't really be trusted.

The other constant is the Korean indomitability embodied in Sunja who, thanks in no small part to Kim and Youn's memorable performances, is both the show's spine and its beating heart. Sunja takes all manner of buffeting, yet refuses to knuckle under — either to circumstances or the Japanese. Even as she thinks longingly of her homeland or the distinctive taste of Korean rice, she finds herself wondering, What good does it do to cling to the past?

Pop Culture Happy Hour

At the oscars, 'parasite' makes best picture history.

In their different ways, Sunja and Solomon both dream of Koreans finally winning their proper respect. And this series reminds us that they've done just that — in pop culture terms, anyway. Just think. Parasite was the first foreign language film ever to win the Best Picture Oscar. Squid Games conquered the world's small screens. The K-Pop band BTS has international teens swooning. And now comes Pachinko , a show whose groundbreaking vision of Korean history in both its cruelty and triumph, will be remembered as a television landmark.

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Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2017

National Book Award Finalist

by Min Jin Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 7, 2017

An old-fashioned epic whose simple, captivating storytelling delivers both wisdom and truth.

An absorbing saga of 20th-century Korean experience, seen through the fate of four generations.

Lee ( Free Food for Millionaires , 2007) built her debut novel around families of Korean-Americans living in New York. In her second novel, she traces the Korean diaspora back to the time of Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910. “History has failed us,” she writes in the opening line of the current epic, “but no matter.” She begins her tale in a village in Busan with an aging fisherman and his wife whose son is born with a cleft palate and a twisted foot. Nonetheless, he is matched with a fine wife, and the two of them run the boardinghouse he inherits from his parents. After many losses, the couple cherishes their smart, hardworking daughter, Sunja. When Sunja gets pregnant after a dalliance with a persistent, wealthy married man, one of their boarders—a sickly but handsome and deeply kind pastor—offers to marry her and take her away with him to Japan. There, she meets his brother and sister-in-law, a woman lovely in face and spirit, full of entrepreneurial ambition that she and Sunja will realize together as they support the family with kimchi and candy operations through war and hard times. Sunja’s first son becomes a brilliant scholar; her second ends up making a fortune running parlors for pachinko, a pinball-like game played for money. Meanwhile, her first son’s real father, the married rich guy, is never far from the scene, a source of both invaluable help and heartbreaking woe. As the destinies of Sunja’s children and grandchildren unfold, love, luck, and talent combine with cruelty and random misfortune in a deeply compelling story, with the troubles of ethnic Koreans living in Japan never far from view.

Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4555-6393-7

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016

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HOUSE OF LEAVES

by Mark Z. Danielewski ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2000

The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and...

An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.

Texts within texts, preceded by intriguing introductory material and followed by 150 pages of appendices and related "documents" and photographs, tell the story of a mysterious old house in a Virginia suburb inhabited by esteemed photographer-filmmaker Will Navidson, his companion Karen Green (an ex-fashion model), and their young children Daisy and Chad.  The record of their experiences therein is preserved in Will's film The Davidson Record - which is the subject of an unpublished manuscript left behind by a (possibly insane) old man, Frank Zampano - which falls into the possession of Johnny Truant, a drifter who has survived an abusive childhood and the perverse possessiveness of his mad mother (who is institutionalized).  As Johnny reads Zampano's manuscript, he adds his own (autobiographical) annotations to the scholarly ones that already adorn and clutter the text (a trick perhaps influenced by David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest ) - and begins experiencing panic attacks and episodes of disorientation that echo with ominous precision the content of Davidson's film (their house's interior proves, "impossibly," to be larger than its exterior; previously unnoticed doors and corridors extend inward inexplicably, and swallow up or traumatize all who dare to "explore" their recesses).  Danielewski skillfully manipulates the reader's expectations and fears, employing ingeniously skewed typography, and throwing out hints that the house's apparent malevolence may be related to the history of the Jamestown colony, or to Davidson's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a dying Vietnamese child stalked by a waiting vulture.  Or, as "some critics [have suggested,] the house's mutations reflect the psychology of anyone who enters it."

Pub Date: March 6, 2000

ISBN: 0-375-70376-4

Page Count: 704

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2000

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NORMAL PEOPLE

by Sally Rooney ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 16, 2019

Absolutely enthralling. Read it.

A young Irish couple gets together, splits up, gets together, splits up—sorry, can't tell you how it ends!

Irish writer Rooney has made a trans-Atlantic splash since publishing her first novel, Conversations With Friends , in 2017. Her second has already won the Costa Novel Award, among other honors, since it was published in Ireland and Britain last year. In outline it's a simple story, but Rooney tells it with bravura intelligence, wit, and delicacy. Connell Waldron and Marianne Sheridan are classmates in the small Irish town of Carricklea, where his mother works for her family as a cleaner. It's 2011, after the financial crisis, which hovers around the edges of the book like a ghost. Connell is popular in school, good at soccer, and nice; Marianne is strange and friendless. They're the smartest kids in their class, and they forge an intimacy when Connell picks his mother up from Marianne's house. Soon they're having sex, but Connell doesn't want anyone to know and Marianne doesn't mind; either she really doesn't care, or it's all she thinks she deserves. Or both. Though one time when she's forced into a social situation with some of their classmates, she briefly fantasizes about what would happen if she revealed their connection: "How much terrifying and bewildering status would accrue to her in this one moment, how destabilising it would be, how destructive." When they both move to Dublin for Trinity College, their positions are swapped: Marianne now seems electric and in-demand while Connell feels adrift in this unfamiliar environment. Rooney's genius lies in her ability to track her characters' subtle shifts in power, both within themselves and in relation to each other, and the ways they do and don't know each other; they both feel most like themselves when they're together, but they still have disastrous failures of communication. "Sorry about last night," Marianne says to Connell in February 2012. Then Rooney elaborates: "She tries to pronounce this in a way that communicates several things: apology, painful embarrassment, some additional pained embarrassment that serves to ironise and dilute the painful kind, a sense that she knows she will be forgiven or is already, a desire not to 'make a big deal.' " Then: "Forget about it, he says." Rooney precisely articulates everything that's going on below the surface; there's humor and insight here as well as the pleasure of getting to know two prickly, complicated people as they try to figure out who they are and who they want to become.

Pub Date: April 16, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-984-82217-8

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Hogarth

Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019

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Pachinko review: a masterpiece of empathy, integrity and family loyalty

Min jin lee tells an endearing tale of hardship and inhumanity suffered by koreans.

Min Jin Lee: a writer in complete control of her characters and her story and with an intense awareness of the importance of her heritage.

Earlier this year, I wrote about Yaa Gyasi's debut novel Homegoing in these pages and praised the author's use of time and generational discord to tell a story that combined politics, history and gender with page-turning appeal. The same compliment could be offered to Min Jin Lee, whose novel Pachinko was one of the most popular choices among writers offering their summer reading selections to The Irish Times .

Pachinko tells the story of Korean immigrants living in Japan between 1910 and today, a family saga that explores the effects of poverty, abuse, war, suicide, and the accumulation of wealth on multiple generations. When the novel opens, we are introduced to Hoonie, “born with a cleft palate and a twisted foot”, who enters into an arranged marriage with Yangjin and despite their age difference – he is 28, she is 15 – a mutual respect and affection builds between them, not least because of their shared love for daughter Sunja.

It is Sunja who will prove the most important character in the novel. As a teenager, she is seduced by a yakuza, Koh Hansu, leaving her pregnant and unmarried, but when a sympathetic young missionary asks for her hand, it seems her disgrace will be avoided.

One of the most endearing elements of Pachinko is how honourable most of the characters are. Husbands love their wives, children respect their parents. Even Koh Hansu, who has played fast and loose with the affections of a young girl, spends decades trying to help Sunja, and although she is dismissive of him in later life, their relationship remains one of the most intriguing in the book.

Impoverished circumstances

But for all the love scattered across the pages, there is hatred too. The monstrous degrees of hardship, disrespect and inhumanity suffered by the Koreans makes for painful reading. They live in impoverished circumstances, are paid less than their Japanese counterparts, are spoken to as if they were dogs and, in one powerful scene, are forced to register time and again as strangers in a land in which many of them have in fact been born. Lee writes of this maltreatment with a stoicism that reflects the fortitude of her characters. Surviving is what matters to them, not human rights.

As the generations continue, we are introduced to Sunja’s sons, Noa, studious and intellectual, and Mozasu, passionate but disinterested in education. The choices both boys make in their lives stand in stark contrast to each other but they pursue their goals with equal conviction, albeit with markedly different results. No spoilers, but suffice to say that as the boys’ lives diverge they arrive at opposing fates. Ultimately, the importance of family honour proves so strong that revelations from the past lead to the most heart-breaking tragedy.

Pachinko itself is a Japanese version of pinball and while pachinko parlours become the family business later in the novel, it also stands as a metaphor for the lives they lead. In a game of pinball, the initial strike of the ball against the flipper determines how the game will play out. For Sunja and her descendants, it is what happens at birth that determines their fate. Over the years they may bounce off the sides of the machine, ricocheting against the bumpers, kickers and slingshots, but there is a sense that fate has decided how their lives will develop from the moment the plunger hits the ball.

Generational sweep

While Pachinko is only Min Jin Lee's second novel – her first, Free Food for Millionaires , will be reissued later this summer – it is the work of a writer in complete control of her characters and her story and with an intense awareness of the importance of her heritage. In its generational sweep, it recalls John Galsworthy's The Forsyth Saga , replicating some of that classic novel's focus on status, money, infidelity and cruelty as it explores the effect of parental decisions on children, and the children of children. As Faulkner put it, "the past isn't dead. It isn't even past."

This is a long book but is told with such flair and linguistic dexterity that I found myself unable to put it down. Every year, there are a few standout novels that survive long past the hype has died down and the hyperbolic compliments from friends scattered across the dust jacket have been forgotten. Pachinko , a masterpiece of empathy, integrity and familial loyalty, will be one of those novels.

John Boyne's latest novel is The Heart's Invisible Furies (Doubleday)

John Boyne, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a novelist and critic

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Pachinko review – a sumptuous South Korean epic like nothing else on TV

Min Jin Lee’s bestselling novel gets a tantalising adaptation that sweeps back and forth from Korea in 1915 to Japan’s Wall Street era. It’s a rollercoaster ride through time and space

‘T hey grabbed our land, snatched our rice, our potatoes, our fish,” snarls a fisherman to his mates over a drink. “To take a rock in my hand and crush a soldier’s head with it, to warm my cold hands with his blood! Just to know there’s one less cockroach wandering our land. That would give me pure joy!”

His friends look worried. Such careless talk costs lives. It’s Korea in 1915, but it could be anywhere oppressed peoples have chafed against imperial rule – Dublin 1916, Amritsar 1919, Nanking 1937, Mariupol 2022.

When Min Jin Lee’s bestselling novel, Pachinko, was published in 2017, it was hailed as a sweeping historical epic spanning a rich era of modern east Asian history. It journeys through colonial Korea, the second world war, the allied occupation of Japan, the Korean war, to Japan’s high-growth period – all refracted through the prism of one family. Tash Aw in the Guardian praised the novel as “a rich tribute to a people that history seems intent on erasing”. He meant the so-called Zainichi – Koreans, often compelled to leave their homeland after losing their livelihoods under colonial rule and winding up uprooted, anxious second-class citizens in Japan.

This adaptation (Apple TV+) brings to life a Korea you would never have gleaned from Squid Game or K-pop . It’s a vast, sumptuous, dynastic political TV series of the kind scarcely made any more, complete with swooning strings from Nico Muhly’s score. It reminds me of the historical television dramas I grew up with – Roots, Tenko, The Forsyte Saga. But there is a difference. Pachinko sophisticatedly cuts across continents and eras, from a rustic fishing village under the Japanese yoke in 1915, to braces-wearing financial workers greed-brokering deals on green computer screens in 1989 New York and Tokyo.

Pachinko opens on an idyllic Korean island , blighted byJapanese officers straight out of the sadistic rotters’ playbook. “We bestow on these idiots all our progress, our schools, our education only to have a cripple spew lies in our face,” says one, on the morning after the drunken fisherman’s seditious rant.

The “cripple” he is talking about is Hoonie – the kindly, cleft-lipped, hobbling father of our adorable heroine Sunja – and he won’t betray his fisherman chum to these thuggish overlords. It’s Sunja who sensibly tells our doomed rebel fisherman to clear off out of town. “I’m a man,” he tells the little girl in the opening episode’s most poignant line, “who no longer knows how to live in the world.” We cut to 1989 Osaka, where Sunja, now a beloved granny resting on the veranda, wistfully recalls this moment.

The virtue of this cutting back and forth is to reinforce the sense that the drama’s Korean characters have of living under a curse. “There is a curse in my blood,” Sunja’s mother says at the outset: all three of her sons have died in their first year and, now pregnant with Sunja, she fears the girl will die too. Later our drunken fisherman worries: “It’s too much, living with this hate. Our children will be cursed. How can all this ever end?”

Each such scene then flashes forward to 1989, where Sunja’s grandson, a Korean-Japanese Wall Street whizz kid called Solomon, is trying to broker a Trump-like hotel deal in Tokyo to make his fortune. He visits his family in the Korean township in Osaka. Is he, too, under the family curse? No doubt, that is why Solomon’s beloved granny tells him he is better off in the US.

The problem with this narrative ride through time, though, is that it overloads us with tantalising storylines. I want to care about Solomon’s sister who has disappeared and might be dead, but here she is a mere detail flagged up for future reference.

Near the end of the first episode, there is another shift in the timeline. We flash forward eight years from 1915. Sunja is now a beautiful, if impoverished, young woman, shadowed, as she strolls through her native town’s fish-gutting zone, by a strikingly handsome mysterious stranger in impeccably pressed western clothes (what kind of twerp wears a white linen suit where fish heads are flung about?) She notices she is being stared at, but he can’t keep from staring. It’s an eloquent depiction of his desire – and her intrigued disbelief that this soigné stranger desires her.

Sunja doesn’t know what horrible secrets are going to be revealed about this stranger. Those of us who have read the novel, though, do: Pachinko’s curse, if that’s what it is, is poised to strike again.

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Reviews of Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

by Min Jin Lee

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Book Summary

A new tour de force from the bestselling author of Free Food for Millionaires , for readers of The Kite Runner and Cutting for Stone .

Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.

Yeongdo, Busan, Korea History has failed us, but no matter. At the turn of the century, an aging fisherman and his wife decided to take in lodgers for extra money. Both were born and raised in the fishing village of Yeongdo—a five-mile-wide islet beside the port city of Busan. In their long marriage, the wife gave birth to three sons, but only Hoonie, the eldest and the weakest one, survived. Hoonie was born with a cleft palate and a twisted foot; he was, however, endowed with hefty shoulders, a squat build, and a golden complexion. Even as a young man, he retained the mild, thoughtful temperament he'd had as a child. When Hoonie covered his misshapen mouth with his hands, something he did out of habit meeting strangers, he resembled his nice-looking father, both having the same large, smiling eyes. Inky eyebrows graced his broad forehead, perpetually tanned from outdoor work. Like his parents, Hoonie was not a nimble talker, and some made the mistake of ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• " History has failed us, but no matter ." How does the opening line reflect the rest of the book—and do you agree?
• In a way, Sunja's relationship with Isak progresses in reverse, as her pregnancy by another man brings them together and prompts Isak to propose marriage. How does Lee redefine intimacy and love with these two characters?
• "Their eldest brother, Samoel, had been the brave one, the one who would've confronted the officers with audacity and grace, but Yoseb knew he was no hero.…Yoseb didn't see the point of anyone dying for his country or for some greater ideal. He understood survival and family." What kinds of bravery are shown by different characters, and what motivates this bravery?
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Reader reviews, bookbrowse review.

Although some of the central events of the novel, like World War II and the atomic bomb drop at Nagasaki, are familiar territory for fiction, Lee prioritizes out-of-the-ordinary perspectives: her Korean characters are first the colonized, and then the outsiders trying to thrive in a foreign country despite segregation and persecution. I recommend Pachinko to readers of family sagas and anyone who wants to learn more about the Korean experience... continued

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(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster ).

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Beyond the Book

"If you are a rich Korean, there's a pachinko parlor in your background somewhere," Min Jin Lee writes in her novel Pachinko . Several of her Korean characters end up working in pachinko parlors, despite their differing levels of education and their previous experience. Pachinko is essentially an upright pinball machine. Gamblers pay to borrow a set of small steel balls that are loaded into the contraption. Pressing a spring-loaded handle launches them onto a metal track lined with brass pins and several cups. The aim is to bounce the balls off the pins and get them to land in the cups before they fall down the hole at the bottom. A ball landing in a cup triggers a payout, in the form of extra balls dropping into the tray at the ...

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• <em>Pachinko</em> Is a Gorgeous Adaptation of a Literary Masterpiece, Marred by One Baffling Choice

Pachinko Is a Gorgeous Adaptation of a Literary Masterpiece, Marred by One Baffling Choice

W hen Japan annexed Korea in 1910, the occupation was more than just a political reality. As Korean resistance met with ever harsher responses from the colonial government, Japanese leaders took aim at the culture itself. A strategy of forced assimilation meant the destruction of cherished art, historical documents, and buildings dating back centuries. Koreans saw their language, religion, commerce, agricultural industry, and news media supplanted by the invaders’ institutions; they even had to adopt Japanese names. Meanwhile, with scarce employment prospects in their homeland, hundreds of thousands of Koreans had little choice but to relocate to Japan, where they were mostly relegated to menial jobs and faced brutal discrimination.

This atrocity, whose impact on the Korean people still reverberates in the present, forms the backdrop of Min Jin Lee ’s magnificent 2017 novel Pachinko . The rare National Book Award finalist that is also a bestseller, populated by rich characters and suffused with emotion, Lee’s story comes to television with a lavish adaptation premiering March 25 on Apple TV+. By all accounts, it was not easy bringing this epic, multigenerational, multilingual saga of immigration and family to the small screen. Creator Soo Hugh ( The Whispers ), working with filmmakers Kogonada ( After Yang , Columbus ) and actor turned director Justin Chon, as well as a uniformly excellent ensemble cast, beautifully conveys the sweep and spirit of the novel. The only major misstep is a structural choice that undermines Lee’s carefully paced storytelling.

Spanning most of the 20th century, Pachinko opens in the woods of rural, Japanese-occupied Korea in 1915. Yangjin—a young woman born into poverty, married to the cleft-lipped son of a family that owns a boarding house and reeling from the deaths of three consecutive infant sons—has come to secure a blessing for her fourth pregnancy. “There is a curse in my blood,” Yangjin (Inji Jeong) tells the female shaman. Then the action jumps three-quarters of a century and halfway around the world, to New York in 1989. An ambitious young finance guy, Solomon (Jin Ha), strides confidently into a meeting with a pair of white, male superiors, who unceremoniously inform him that he’s not getting a promotion they all know he’s earned.

When we meet Yangjin, she’s just months away from giving birth to the show’s heroine, Sunja, whose life will be shaped by what she endures during the occupation. Solomon is Sunja’s grandson. And this eight-episode first season (of four that Hugh hopes to make) patiently fills in the intervening decades, though not with the simplistic tale of immigrant bootstrapping that newcomers to Lee’s story might expect. In one of the two parallel narratives, set in the ’30s, a teenage Sunja (played with grace, vulnerability, and grit by Minha Kim) becomes entangled with a Korean businessman, Koh Hansu (South Korean megastar Lee Min-Ho), whose flexible morals have helped him prosper in Japan. Their romance catalyzes her departure for Osaka—although, again, not for the reason you might assume. The other core story line follows Solomon’s return to Osaka, where his family still lives, with a plan to prove he’s worthy of a VP title by facilitating a crucial deal that only an employee of Korean heritage could possibly close.

There is a symmetry to this structure, one that magnifies some of Pachinko ’s most salient themes. Even though they’re poor in the ’30s and relatively rich in the ’80s, the family is constantly forced, in both eras, to choose between impossible binaries: money and integrity, safety and authenticity, assimilation and persecution. But it’s not exactly difficult to glean these ideas from Lee’s chronological structure, which I greatly prefer. There’s a trend toward multiple timelines in TV these days; complicated storytelling has become the marker of prestige drama—of television as art. Yet Pachinko was art long before it was TV. The bifurcated narrative only adds too many transitions that disrupt the series’ emotional throughline and sows confusion around characters that turn up episodes before they’re properly introduced. Readers eager to see the book’s absorbing middle chapters onscreen will have to cross their fingers for a renewal.

Such a big miscalculation might sink a weaker show, but in every other sense, Pachinko —like its heroine—is too singular and alive to fail. As portrayed by Kim in her youth and Minari Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung in older age, Sunja epitomizes immigrant persistence without devolving into a stock character. Hugh avoids reducing her to either a martyr or a plucky success story. It was a wise choice, and one that has only become possible in the streaming era, to mix Korean, Japanese, and English dialogue; color-coded subtitles efficiently convey how characters combine tongues and code-switch. The art direction surpasses that of TV’s most immersive historical dramas, including The Crown . Complementing this intricate mise-en-scène and the cast’s fiercely physical performances is cinematography that lingers on textural details: the hem of a wedding dress, the pudgy foot of a newborn, the snowy brilliance of Korean white rice.

Yes, this adaptation is less than perfect; the disservice it does to the structural integrity of a novel that gains momentum and poignancy as the decades progress shouldn’t be understated. The overall impression is of an epochal masterpiece cut into snippets and reassembled out of order. That’s frustrating. Even when you account for its shortcomings, though, TV’s Pachinko remains the rare show of both artistic and historic import. Everyone should see it. But maybe read the book first.

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By Min Jin Lee

Book review and synopsis for Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, a story of a Korean family in Japan across generations.

With the backdrop of the Japanese occupation of Korea, Pachinko follows the lives of a family living in Korea that re-establishes itself in Japan. The narrative progresses through the years and the events of WWII, and we see the family's struggles and the sacrifices made in the name of survival. Even as the story near modern day, its characters are never quite free of their history and the events of the past.

Pachinko is a story of a family told across generations, whose lives are shaped by the events and attitudes of the world around them. It's a moving and intimate story that deals in universal themes and struggles.

(The Full Plot Summary is also available, below)

Full Plot Summary

Book I introduces an old fisherman and his wife who turn their small home in Yeongdo, Korea into a boarding house. Their only surviving son, Hoonie, is a cripple who marries a nice but impoverished girl, Yangjin. The young couple has a daughter, Sunja. Hoonie dies of tuberculosis when Sunja is 13. Afterwards, Yangjin keeps running the boarding house by herself for income. When Sunja is 16, she meets a fish salesman, Koh Hansu, who seduces her, and Sunja gets pregnant. Hansu is married with children and cannot marry her. He offers to take care of Sunja financially, but she wants nothing to do with him.

Meanwhile, a religious man comes to stay at the boarding house, Baek Isak, who has tuberculosis, and they nurse him back to health. When he is better, he asks Sunja to marry him after hearing about her unfortunate situation. Sunja and Isak move to Osaka, Japan, to live with Isak's brother and sister-in-law, Yoseb and Kyunghee. Isak becomes the assistant pastor at a church. One day, some debt collectors come demanding payment on a debt that Yoseb incurred when paying for the costs for Isak and Sunja to come to Osaka. Sunja sells a watch Hansu had given her to pay off the debt. Right after, her baby, Noa, is born.

In Book II , young Noa now how has a baby brother, Mozasu. However, Isak gets arrested for religious activities. Afterwards, Sunja starts selling kimchi to help make ends meet. Soon, Kim Changho, a restaurateur, offers to employ both Sunja and Kyunghee to make kimchi for his restaurants, for a generous salary. They accept. When Noa is 8, Isak is finally released from prison, weak and sick, but he dies soon after.

One day, Hansu shows up saying that Osaka will soon be bombed by the Americans and that Sunja needs to leave. He's been keeping tabs on her, and Kim works for him which is why they were offered the kimchi job. He brings the family to a farm where they will be safe, though Yoseb goes to Nagasaki for a new job. Hansu brings Yangjin to the farm as well. Yoseb is badly injured when Nagasaki is bombed.

After the war, the family moves back to Osaka and rebuilds their house larger with the money the farmer gave them. Kim also stays with them and continues to work for Hansu, who now is a gangster running a "protection" racket. As Noa grows up, he is studious and well behaved, while Mozasu doesn't like school and gets into trouble. Mozasu befriends a Japanese outcast, Haruki, whose mother is a seamstress. To keep him out of trouble, a neighbor who owns a pachinko parlor, Goro, hires Mozasu to work for him. Meanwhile, Noa gets into the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo.

Against Yoseb's advice (he knows Hansu is a bad man), Sunja asks Hansu for the money for Noa's tuition, which Hansu readily pays in addition to room, board and an allowance. Noa meets a pretty girl at school, Akiko, and they date for a long time. (Meanwhile, Mozasu marries Yumi, a girl who works for Haruki's mother.) When Noa breaks up with Akiko, she angrily tells Noa it's obvious Hansu is his real father and that Hansu is clearly a Yakuza gangster which is how he affords all these things. Noa confronts Sunja, and is furious when she confirms it even though he wasn't a gangster when they met. Noa quits school and leaves to start a new life, not wanting to be found.

In Book III , Noa now works as an accountant at a pachinko parlor in Nagano, and everyone he knows thinks he's Japanese. He gets married and has kids. When Hansu finally tracks him down, Sunja goes to see him and Noa kills himself. Meanwhile, Haruki marries one of his mother's assistants, Ayume, although he is gay. One day, she sees him engaged in a sex act with a young man, but never says anything.

Mozasu owns his own pachinko parlor now and has a son, Solomon, but Yumi soon dies in a car accident. Hansu shows up at the funeral, but he still hasn't located Noa yet. Solomon is a cheerful boy who attends an expensive international school. Mozasu dates a woman who was previously divorced and has three kids. Her daughter, Hana, gets pregnant and stays with her mother for a while. Hana is 17, but she seduces 14-year-old Solomon and convinces him to give her money. She then runs away, leaving Solomon heartbroken. (She ends up becoming a sex worker and dying of AIDs.)

Solomon goes off to Columbia University and works at a bank in Japan afterwards. His Korean American girlfriend comes with him, but is unhappy there. When there's a complication at work, Solomon is fired. His girlfriend wants to move back, but Solomon realizes he is Japanese even if Japan sees Koreans as foreigners. Solomon decides to stay and join his father in the pachinko business, even if it is un-prestigious compared to banking. The book ends with Sunja visiting Isak's grave and learning that Noa visited the grave all the time, even while he was living in Nagano. Sunja buries a photo of Noa in the dirt at the gravesite.

For more detail, see the full Section-by-Section Summary .

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Book Review

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee has been on my reading list and sitting on my bookself, looking lovely and forlorn, for some time.

With the wildfires, lightning storms and heat wave in Northern California, I decided to head to the coast for a spell and found some time to read it while chilling out in Monterey and listened to some of it via audiobook in the car while doing a little sightseeing. After reading it, I wish I had done so earlier, since it’s as good as the reviews say.

Pachinko is an understated but powerful story that is grounded in its historical context. The book starts with the Japanese invasion of Korea, and it highlights the difficulty of the lives of peasants and the discrimination Koreans faced at the hands of the Japanese during their occupation of Korea. As it proceeds, the effects and after-effects of WWII are reflected in the everyday lives of this Korean family living in Japan.

In Pachinko, the characters grapple with difficult decisions where there are often no good options, where the best option puts their integrity at risk or where any of the available options put their values to the test. Theirs is a family struggling to survive, comprised of individuals who are struggling to survive and whose lives are the result of many small decisions that are made according to the exigencies of the situation. And generations later, their children are still the product of those decisions that were made many years ago.

The meaning behind the title of the book is an apt, though perhaps not very subtle, metaphor. Min Jin Lee compares life to a game of pachinko, an gambling game where the player drops a ball down rows of pins to see where it ends up, which determines the payout. There’s a little choice in how you maneuver and semblance of personal agency involved, but mostly it’s a lot of luck and you never really know how the pins have been adjusted or tweaked to know how things will play out. At one point, Mozasu, one of the characters, tells his friend that “life’s going to keep pushing you around, but you have to keep playing.”

I don’t know that I entirely agree with that was a view on life, but it’s hard to argue that there’s not at least a pachinko-esque aspect to many parts of life.

One of the strongest aspects of Pachinko is how deeply rooted it is to the historical context of that time. Many will recognize how the treatment of Koreans by the Japanese is reminiscent of the treatment of racial minorities by Western countries. Even the Koreans born in Japan are treated like criminals and risk deportation. The book also highlights the precarious position of women during those years. It also examines the high price that must be paid and the sacrifices that are made by parents to improve the lives of their children.

Throughout Pachinko, there are so many parallels to Western history that can be seen, it makes me wonder why there isn’t a greater push to teach this type of history in schools.

Even as the racial slurs against Koreans decrease, the policies in place have kept the Koreans poor and that poverty is thrown around as an insult against them, not unlike the treatment of black people in America. The Koreans that do manage to become wealthy do so through less respected venues like running pachinko parlors, and then are marginalized socially because of their association with those trades. It’s not unlike the treatment of Jewish people who entered finance due to their exclusion from other profitable trades, which morphed over time to a stereotype about their people.

Some Criticisms

As much as I really enjoyed the book, I think there’s a few storylines that seemed incomplete or not really explored. Haruki being gay, for example, I think wasn’t given proper attention other than having his wife spot him performing a sex act, which seems like not a very complete or fair reflection of Haruki’s sexuality what it’s consequences.

I also wasn’t entirely satisfied with the ending of the book. It sort of just ends, but I suppose it’s the journey that counts in this case. I wasn’t looking for everything to be tied up neatly with a bow, but the ending felt like Lee sort of just decided she was done writing and stopped instead of concluding anything.

I also think that there was a weird sexuality to it in terms of the things that Lee chose to sexualize, which was almost elusively young women and the gay man in the book. I think those choices are questionable. I didn’t really understand what purpose it was supposed to serve or why we needed to know the shape and size of every woman’s breasts in this book. It bothers me because Asian women are already over-sexualized in media so adding to it, in a not particularly constructive way, seems counterproductive.

Audiobook Review and Apple TV+ Adaptation

Some quick notes. The audiobook is quite good. I definitely recommend it, the woman narrating does a great job. Also, there’s an adaptation of it coming soon to Apple TV+. For all the details, see Everything We Know about the Pachinko Apple TV+ Series .

Read it or Skip it?

Pachinko is a powerful book that interwines the story about the fate of a family against the backdrop of history in a way that is informative and engrossing. The Japanese invasion of Korea and the treatment of Koreans in Japan is also an often neglected history outside of Asia and is well-worth exploring and discussing, due to the important lessons it holds.

Beyond that, it’s just a good book that’s solidly written and that tells a compelling narrative. It’s easily one of the best books I’ve read this year so far, and I would recommend it any book clubs for sure, even if it’s not a new release. I’m really hopeful that the upcoming Apple TV+ adaptation will encourage more people to read this book, because it’s one that deserves to be read.

See Pachinko on Amazon.

Book Excerpt

Read the first pages of Pachinko

Movie / TV Show Adaptation

See Everything We Know About the 'Pachinko' Adaptation

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It is one of my next reads. Wonderful review! 😍

Loved your review. I read it very recently and thought the same. Perhaps you’d be interested in reading my review

I love d story and it serve as a good lesson to all people who read this book.

About the Book

By Min Jin Lee

‘Pachinko’ by Min Jin Lee combines the narrative of four generations of a Korean family as they grapple with rejection and harsh treatment accustomed to immigrants in a postwar discriminatory Japanese society.

Written by Victor Onuorah

Degree in Journalism from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

The book follows an emotional story of the Baek family – through to the fourth generation, and their migration from their home country, Korea, to Japan – just after Japan’s annexation of Korea, followed by the resulting struggle to adjust and fit in against the odds of perpetual ostracization of non-natives living in Japan.

‘Spoiler Free’ ‘ Pachinko ’ Summary

‘ Pachinko ’ narrates the story of Sunja, the central character connecting four generations of The Baek’s family. Born to a disabled, poor fisherman, Hoonie, and his wife Yangjin, in the fishing village of Yeongdo, Sunja is pampered and treated with great love and affection and taught the values of family and the benefits of being Industrious.

However, the unfortunate happens as, during her adolescent age, Sunja meets, falls deeply in love, and becomes pregnant with Hansu, a wealthy fisherman and member of Japan’s organized crime group ‘ Yakuza .’ Hunsu refuses to marry her, and this results in shame and disgrace for Sunja and her family for being pregnant without a husband.

Her saving grace comes when a Christian minister, Baek Isak, accepts to marry and adopt her child. Isak moves Sunja and her child to Japan – out of the disgraceful and mocking neighborhood of her Korean hometown, but this is only the start of her hardship as she grapples with poverty and a new environment that is highly segregated of foreigners.

She gives birth to Noa, a son, who grows up hating being identified as Korean because of the unfair treatments apportioned to them. When Noa becomes ready for college, Sunja couldn’t afford it, so Noa asks Hansu, who he sees as an uncle, to help with his tuition. Hansu agrees to pay for everything but Sunja is adamant she doesn’t need his help and promises to pay back every penny spent.

Noa is extremely happy to be going to college and feels eternally grateful to Hansu for making that happen. However, Noa soon discovers from a secret source that his real father is in fact Hansu, not Isak. Devastated by the news, Noa drops out of college, travels to a distant land, marries and has kids, and refuses to be in touch with his family.

After years of searching, Hansu finds Noa and brings his mother Sunja to him. The two reconcile, with Noa promising to visit her from time to time, however, Noa kills himself shortly after their meeting.

‘ Pachinko ’ Summary

Spoiler alert : Important details of the novel are revealed below

‘ Pachinko ’ is introduced with the grandparents of Sunja residing in their Korean hometown, in a village called Yeongdo. Their son, Hoonie, who is club-footed and cleft lip, is cultured and hardworking just like his parents, but the family fears he may not be able to find a wife due to his disabilities. He does find a wife – Yangjin, a beautiful young woman, and has a daughter they call Sunja, whom they shower with great love and affection.

However, Hoonie dies of illness when Sunja turns 13, and this causes an upheaval in the destiny of the teenager. A few years later, Sunja is in the market where she meets and feels for a wealthy and influential fish seller and starts a relationship with him.

She becomes pregnant months later, and as is Korean tradition, must get married to Hansu to wipe the shame and disgrace off the face of her family. Hansu refuses to marry her with the excuse that he already has a wife and children back in Japan, but pledges to be responsible for her and the child. Sunja rejects the gesture, thinking of the shame and torment this would bring to her family.

Then comes a young Christian minister, Baek Isak, who arrives sick at the boardinghouse tended by Sunja and her mother, Yangjin. After being treated and shown love by the two women, Isak decides to help erase the shame by marrying Sunja – who agrees.

Following the marriage ceremony, Isak relocates Sunja and her unborn child to Osaka, Japan, to live with Yoseb and Kyunghee, his brother and sister-in-law. Osaka has a high population of Koreans living in Japan, and the majority of dwellers here face maltreatment and systemic ostracism from the locals.

Not long afterward, she gives birth to a son, Noa, who joins them in an extremely difficult life characterized by poverty and discrimination. Around six years later, Noa welcomes a brother, Mozasu, but the war (WW II) has just begun all of their lives are at risk.

Isak, their father is arrested and jailed by the Japanese government as part of the people who refuse to denounce their Christian worship during the war tension even after strict orders from authorities. Isak dies moments after his release three years later.

Life becomes even harder for Sunja and her children that she started a street food business, partnering with Kyunghee. Hansu, who has been keeping tabs from a distance, wants to ease the suffering of Sunja so he arranges for the two women to be employed by one of his restaurants without them knowing he owns it.

Later, the war heightens and life becomes even riskier. Hansu finds Sunja and offers to move her and her children to the remote countryside to save them from an imminent plan to bomb Osaka. He promises to feed them well and take good care of them. She agrees. Hansu would later arrange for Sunja to reunite with Yangjin, her mother, and rescue Isak’s badly wounded brother, Joseb from the thick of war.

Despite the odds, the family thrives through the hardship and soon the brainy Noa receives an admission to study in the university, while his little brother Mozasu, who hated school, gets a job working at the ‘ Pachinko ’ gambling company, and soon moves up the ladder in terms of position and earning.

Paying tuition for Noa proves impossible for the family, but Hansu weighs in to help with all expenses – to the dismay of Sunja who promises to pay back every penny.

Noa begins college and has a girlfriend, Akiko, who will later meet Hansu and tell Noa how strikingly alike they look. Noa takes Akiko’s words seriously and goes and asks his mother, Sunja. He finds out that Hansu is, in reality, his real father and is devastated by the news.

For this reason, Noa drops out of school, travels to another city, and gets employed by the ‘Pachinko’ company. He embraces a Japanese identity, maintains a middle-class status, meets and marries a new lady, Risa, and has four children but stays out of touch with his mother, Sunja for a long time.

Meanwhile, his brother Mozasu, who’s already having a successful career with the Pachinko company, settles down with Yumi and bears a son, Solomon. One sad day sees Yumi lose her life to save her son from a drunk driver.

Mozasu finds a Japanese girlfriend, Etsuko – who has a daughter – Hana, but raises Solomon as a single parent, often with the help of his mother, Sunja. Shortly after meeting each other, Solomon and Hana begin a romantic affair which they keep secret until he travels to the United States for studies – where he has a new girlfriend, Phoebe.

Phoebe moved to Japan to live with Solomon after he secured a high-paying job, but soon dumps him and returns to the United States after he was fired. Solomon hears that Hana is on a dying bed and visits her one last time. Hana inspires him to take after his father’s ‘ Pachinko ’ business.

After sixteen years, Hansu locates Noa and reunites Sunja with him. Mother and son reconcile. Noa promises to stay in touch but instead commits suicide after Sunja leaves.

What is the main story behind the book ‘ Pachinko ’?

Min Jin Lee’ s ‘ Pachinko ’ covers a lot of grounds. However, a major story it portrays is the reality of the pains and struggles faced by Korean foreigners in Japan.

How old is Sunja when Hoonie dies?

Sunja has just entered her teenager when she, unfortunately, loses Hoonie, her father. She was only 13 at the time.

What kind of character is Hansu?

In Pachinko , Hansu is described as having a strong personality. That partly explains why he’s a member of the ‘ Yakuza ’, one of Japan’s most notorious crime rings.

How are Noa and Mozasu related?

Noa and Mozasu share the same mother in Sunja. However, Mozasu’s biological father is Isak, the Christian preacher, while Noa’s father is Hansu, the influential fish mogul and ring leader who refuses to marry Noa’s mother, Sunja.

About Victor Onuorah

Victor is as much a prolific writer as he is an avid reader. With a degree in Journalism, he goes around scouring literary storehouses and archives; picking up, dusting the dirt off, and leaving clean even the most crooked pieces of literature all with the skill of analysis.

Cite This Page

Onuorah, Victor " Pachinko Summary 📖 " Book Analysis , https://bookanalysis.com/min-jin-lee/pachinko/summary/ . Accessed 26 March 2024.

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Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)

Contributors

By Min Jin Lee

Formats and Prices

• Hardcover (Large Print)
• Audiobook Download (Unabridged)
• Trade Paperback
• Audiobook CD (Unabridged)
• Hardcover $29.00 $37.00 CAD
• ebook $11.99 $15.99 CAD
• Hardcover (Large Print) $54.00 $69.00 CAD
• Trade Paperback $19.99 $25.99 CAD
• Audiobook CD (Unabridged) $35.00 $45.50 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around February 7, 2017. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Also available from:

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Description

• One of Buzzfeed's "32 Most Exciting Books Coming In 2017" Included in The Millions' "Most Anticipated: The Great 2017 Book Preview" One of Elle 's "25 Most Anticipated Books by Women for 2017" BBC: "Ten Books to Read in 2017" One of BookRiot's "Most Anticipated Books of 2017" One of Nylon's "50 Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017" One of Entertainment Weekly's Best New Books One of BookBub's 22 Most Anticipated Book Club Reads of 2017
• "Stunning... Despite the compelling sweep of time and history, it is the characters and their tumultuous lives that propel the narrative... A compassionate, clear gaze at the chaotic landscape of life itself. In this haunting epic tale, no one story seems too minor to be briefly illuminated. Lee suggests that behind the facades of wildly different people lie countless private desires, hopes and miseries, if we have the patience and compassion to look and listen." The New York Times Book Review
• "In 1930s Korea, an earnest young woman, abandoned by the lover who has gotten her pregnant, enters into a marriage of convenience that will take her to a new life in Japan. Thus begins Lee's luminous new novel PACHINKO--a powerful meditation on what immigrants sacrifice to achieve a home in the world. PACHINKO confirms Lee's place among our finest novelists." Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her
• "A deep, broad, addictive history of a Korean family in Japan enduring and prospering through the 20th century." David Mitchell, Guardian, New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks
• "Astounding. The sweep of Dickens and Tolstoy applied to a 20th century Korean family in Japan. Min Jin Lee's PACHINKO tackles all the stuff most good novels do - family, love, cabbage - but it also asks questions that have never been more timely. What does it mean to be part of a nation? And what can one do to escape its tight, painful, familiar bonds?" Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Little Failure and Super Sad True Love Story
• "Both for those who love Korea, as well as for those who know no more than Hyundai, Samsung and kimchi , this extraordinary book will prove a revelation of joy and heartbreak. I could not stop turning the pages, and wished this most poignant of sagas would never end. Min Jin Lee displays a tenderness and wisdom ideally matched to an unforgettable tale that she relates just perfectly." Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and Korea: A Walk through the Land of Miracles
• "PACHINKO is elegant and soulful, both intimate and sweeping. This story of several generations of one Korean family in Japan is the story of every family whose parents sacrificed for their children, every family whose children were unable to recognize the cost, but it's also the story of a specific cultural struggle in a riveting time and place. Min Jin Lee has written a big, beautiful book filled with characters I rooted for and cared about and remembered after I'd read the final page." Kate Christensen, Pen/Faulkner-winning author of The Great Man and Blue Plate Special
• "An exquisite, haunting epic...'moments of shimmering beauty and some glory, too,' illuminate the narrative...Lee's profound novel...is shaped by impeccable research, meticulous plotting, and empathic perception." Booklist (starred review)
• "PACHINKO by Min Jin Lee is a great book, a passionate story, a novel of magisterial sweep. It's also fiendishly readable-the real-deal. An instant classic, a quick page-turner, and probably the best book of the year." Darin Strauss, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Half a Life: A Memoir
• "The breadth and depth of challenges come through clearly, without sensationalization. The sporadic victories are oases of sweetness, without being saccharine. Lee makes it impossible not to develop tender feelings towards her characters--all of them, even the most morally compromised. Their multifaceted engagements with identity, family, vocation, racism, and class are guaranteed to provide your most affecting sobfest of the year." BookRiot, "Most Anticipated Books of 2017"
• "An absorbing saga of 20th-century Korean experience... the destinies of Sunja's children and grandchildren unfold, love, luck, and talent combine with cruelty and random misfortune in a deeply compelling story, with the trouble of ethnic Koreans living in Japan never far from view. An old-fashioned epic whose simple, captivating storytelling delivers both wisdom and truth." Kirkus (Starred Review)
• "A sprawling and immersive historical work... Reckoning with one determined, wounded family's place in history, Lee's novel is an exquisite meditation on the generational nature of truly forging a home." Publishers Weekly
• "If proof were needed that one family's story can be the story of the whole world, then PACHINKO offers that proof. Min Jin Lee's novel is gripping from start to finish, crossing cultures and generations with breathtaking power. PACHINKO is a stunning achievement, full of heart, full of grace, full of truth." Erica Wagner, author of Ariel's Gift and Seizure
• "A beautifully crafted story of love, loss, determination, luck, and perseverance...Lee's skillful development of her characters and story lines will draw readers into the work. Those who enjoy historical fiction with strong characterizations will not be disappointed as they ride along on the emotional journeys offered in the author's latest page-turner." Library Journal (starred review)
• "Brilliant, subtle...gripping...What drives this novel is the magisterial force of Lee's characterization...As heartbreaking as it is compelling, PACHINKO is a timely meditation on all that matters to humanity in an age of mass migration and uncertainty." South China Morning Post Magazine
• "Everything I want in a family saga novel, a deep dive immersion into a complete world full of rich and complex lives to follow as they tumble towards fate and fortune...PACHINKO will break your heart in all the right ways." Vela Magazine
• "Gorgeous." Nylon.com, "50 Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017"
• "Expansive, elegant and utterly absorbing...Combining the detail of a documentary with the empathy of the best fiction, it's a sheer delight." The Daily Mail
• "Deftly brings its large ensemble of characters alive." The Financial Times
• "A social novel in the Dickensian vein...frequently heartbreaking." USA Today
• "Spanning nearly 100 years and moving from Korea at the start of the 20th century to pre- and postwar Osaka and, finally, Tokyo and Yokohama, the novel reads like a long, intimate hymn to the struggles of people in a foreign land...Much of the novel's authority is derived from its weight of research, which brings to life everything from the fishing village on the coast of the East Sea in early 20th-century Korea to the sights and smells of the shabby Korean township of Ikaino in Osaka - the intimate, humanising details of a people striving to carve out a place for themselves in the world. Vivid and immersive, Pachinko is a rich tribute to a people that history seems intent on erasing." The Guardian (UK)
• "Min Jin Lee has produced a beautifully realized saga of an immigrant family in a largely hostile land, trying to establish its own way of belonging." The Times Literary Supplement
• "Lee's sweeping four-generation saga of a Korean family is an extraordinary epic, both sturdily constructed and beautiful." The San Francisco Chronicle
• " Pachinko is a rich, well-crafted book as well as a page turner. Its greatest strength in this regard lies in Lee's ability to shift suddenly between perspectives. We never linger too long with a single character, constantly refreshing our point of view, giving the narrative dimension and depth. Add to that her eye and the prose that captures setting so well, and it would not be surprising to see Pachinko on a great many summer reading lists." Asian Review of Books
• "A sweeping, multigenerational saga about one Korean family making its way in Japan. The immigrant issues resonate; the story captivates." People
• "A culturally rich, psychologically astute family saga." The Washington Post
• "[An] addictive family saga packed with forbidden love, the search for belonging, and triumph against the odds." Esquire, "Top 10 Best Books of 2017 (So Far)"
• "An intimate yet expansive immigrant story." The Michigan Daily
• "The seminal English literary work of the Korean immigrant story in Japan...Lee's sentences and the novel's plotting feel seamless, so much so, that one wonders why we make such a fuss about writing at all. Her style is literary without calling attention to its lyricism." Ploughshares
• "Effortlessly carries the reader through generations, outlining its changing historical context without sacrificing the juicy details...Life is dynamic: in Pachinko , it carries on, rich and wondrous." The Winnipeg Free Press
• "The beautiful, overwhelming tone of the novel - and the one that will stay with you at the end - is one of hope, courage, and survival against all the odds." The Iklkely Gazette UK
• "An exquisite, haunting epic." The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center & Bloom Magazine
• "As an examination of immigration over generations, in its depth and empathy, Pachinko is peerless." The Japan Times
• "Lee shines in highlighting the complexities of being an immigrant and striving for a better life when resigned to a second-class status. In particular, she explores the mechanisms of internalized oppression and the fraught position of being a "well-behaved" member of a maligned group. When history has failed, and the game is rigged, what's left? Throughout Pachinko , it's acts of kindness and love. The slow accumulation of those moments create a home to return to again and again, even in the worst of times." Paste Magazine
• "This is honest writing, fiction that looks squarely at what is, both terrible and wonderful and occasionally as bracing as a jar of Sunja's best kimchi." NPR Book Review
• "Lee is a master plotter, but the larger issues of class, religion, outsider history and culture she addresses in Pachinko make this a tour de force you'll think about long after you finish reading." National Book Review
• " Pachinko gives us a moving and detailed portrait about what it's like to sit at the nexus of two cultures, and what it means to forge a home in a place that doesn't always welcome you." Fusion
• "If you want a book that challenges and expands your perspective, turn to Pachinko ...in Lee's deft hands, the pages pass as effortlessly as time." BookPage
• "A big novel to lose yourself in or to find yourself anew-a saga of Koreans living in Japan, rejected by the country they call home, unable to return to Korea as wars and strife tear the region apart. The result is like a secret history of both countries burst open in one novel. I hope you love it like I did." Alexander Chee, author of Queen of the Night and Edinburgh writing for the Book of the Month Club
• "Sweeping and powerful" The Toronto Star
• "[An] immersive novel." BBC.com's "10 Books to Read in 2017
• "This family saga about a Korean family living in Japan sticks with you long after you've finished the 496th. I didn't want it to end." Reading Women
• "A sprawling, beautiful novel." PBS

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Pachinko: A Book Review

A Review of Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Divya Shankar , Reporter | January 24, 2022

This book originally started trending on social platforms and has since gained incredible amounts of fame. Multiple reviews illustrate Pachinko as an “epic,” however I wanted to give my own two cents on the matter.

To begin with, Pachinko is a novel revolving around the life of a woman named Sunja. Born in 1910 Busan, South Korea, she belongs to a simple family, with the business of owning a motel. At around 17, she becomes pregnant unexpectedly, which entirely turns her life around. A pastor decides to marry her to save her reputation, and together they move to Osaka, Japan, where they start the beginning of a very large family.  The book follows Sunja’s family as it grows. Some of the book’s themes include racism and multigenerational history, and it illustrates the lives of Koreans in Japan during WWII.

Note: I recommend that anyone without a level of maturity does not read this novel. It has frequently occurring profanity, etc. Personally, I rate Pachinko as 15+. Please keep this in mind before or if you should ever decide to read it.

The author, Ms. Min Jin Lee, has incredible talent when it comes to conveying impactful tales. If I’m correct, this story is not completely true. However, it is accurate in portraying the life of Koreans during WWII, as I’ve found through research.  The way this book is set up is very well done. It started with the life of Sunja, and ended with the life of her grandson, switching through multiple people’s lives throughout the book. Through synopses and blurbs, I would admit that I wasn’t enticed by the summary of the book. It’s now safe to say that none of them did any justice to the book. The story, along with the way the author wrote it, is completely riveting.

This book is actually important to read, as it introduces the reader to another World War II perspective.  It helps you realize that the life of Americans during this time was different than the life of others.  Given this, I believe the current generation has become accustomed to American War stories, and it’s very important to understand that ours wasn’t the only side of the story.

The language used in this book can be somewhat difficult from time to time, however, I found that this made it more entertaining. The way Pachinko is written describes the setting to minor details, and this aids what the reader imagines of it. Of course, there is profanity, however, that is a part of day-to-day life so I believe it shouldn’t take away from the rating of a book. Other than this, I think the imagery provided in this book is spectacular, and it was very eloquently written, which is evident throughout the book.

Chapters/Sectioning

The transition from chapter to chapter in Pachinko can be extremely confusing as they tend to constantly change from person to person. For instance, chapter one could be told by Sunja, while chapter two could be told by her son. I found this out a bit later in the book, so I had to reread a small portion of it again to understand it better.  This book certainly requires careful, slow reading, in order to not miss anything.

Every character in this book had incredible depth, and there isn’t a single complaint I have about any of them. While there aren’t complaints about the characters, the length of the book posed a problem in comparison to the number of characters in it. There was a huge number of characters that told portions of the stories, and I feel that the length of the book didn’t do justice to introducing them properly.

RATING: 9/10

Personally,  Pachinko is the best book that I’ve read in a while, and its pros outweigh its cons.

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Discussion Questions for ‘Pachinko’

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Our July pick for the PBS NewsHour-New York Times book club, “Now Read This” is Min Jin Lee’s historical novel “Pachinko.” Become a member of the book club by joining our Facebook group , or by signing up to our newsletter . Learn more about the book club here .

Below are questions to help guide your discussions as you read the book over the next month. You can also submit your own questions for Min Jin Lee on our Facebook page , which she will answer on the NewsHour broadcast at the end of the month.

1. The book’s first line reads: “History has failed us, but no matter.” Why do you think Min Jin Lee chose to begin the book this way?

2. The inciting incident in the book comes when Sunja, the daughter of a boardinghouse owner, is seduced by Hansu, the mysterious and wealthy stranger. How does that moment reverberate through the generations?

3. What role does shame play in the novel?

4. How does being in exile and being perceived as foreign affect how Sunja’s family members see themselves?

5. Sunja is told early on that “a woman’s life is endless work and suffering … For a woman, the man you marry will determine the quality of your life completely.” How do the women in this book have or not have agency? And how do they struggle to reclaim it?

6. How did the book make you think differently about migration, if at all?

7. Did you know much about the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 through the end of World War II before reading this book? Or about Korean culture in Japan?

8. “There was more to being something than just blood,” Min Jin Lee writes. How do the characters grapple with this idea throughout the book?

9. The epigraph for the third section of “Pachinko,” from Benedict Anderson, describes a nation as “an imagined political community.” Do you agree?

10. Which character throughout the four generations do you identify with most, and why?

11. How did the book make you think differently about what makes a family?

12. At one point in the novel, Min Jin Lee writes: “You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.” How does that apply to characters in the book and the larger historical events happening around them?

13. Did you identify at all with Noa’s efforts to “pass” as an identity different than his own — as Japanese instead of Korean — and if not, did it feel relevant to today?

14. “We cannot help but be interested in the stories of people that history pushes aside so thoughtlessly,” Min Jin Lee writes. Do you think “Pachinko” is an effort to reclaim those stories?

15. After finishing the book, why do you think Min Jin Lee chose the title “Pachinko,” from the game common in Japan? How does she compare the game of Pachinko to the game of life?

Follow New York Times Books on Facebook and Twitter (@nytimesbooks) , sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar . And listen to us on the Book Review podcast .

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Elisabeth moss, kerry washington to star in ‘imperfect women’ for apple.

The streamer has landed the series based on Araminta Hall's novel of the same name, with 'Physical' grad Annie Weisman set to serve as showrunner.

By Lesley Goldberg

Lesley Goldberg

Television Editor, West Coast

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The Handmaid’s Tale ’s Elisabeth Moss and Scandal favorite Kerry Washington are going to star opposite one another in a new series for Apple.

The iPhone maker/streamer has, following a bidding war, landed the television adaptation of Araminta Hall’s novel Imperfect Women with a straight-to-series order for the drama from Physical alum Annie Weisman.

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The series is a co-production between Disney’s 20th Television and Apple Studios. Weisman will adapt the novel and serve as writer and exec producer on the series, which keeps her in business with Apple following the three-season run of her dark comedy Physical, which starred Rose Byrne. Weisman is currently serving as the showrunner on the upcoming second season of Peacock’s Based on a True Story .

“I’m honored that Apple is once again trusting me to help bring complex, layered female characters to the screen,” said Weisman. “Elisabeth, Kerry and Araminta are the perfect collaborators to bring these Imperfect Women to life.”

Moss and Lindsey McManus and their Love & Squalor Pictures banner, who initially optioned the book, will exec produce alongside Washington and her Simpson Street partner Pilar Savone. Author Hall will also serve as executive producer. (Details on which characters Moss and Washington will play have not yet been revealed.)

“I couldn’t be happier that my book has found a home at Apple, home of some of my favorite programs, said Araminta Hall. “And, to be working with Elisabeth and Lindsey is a dream. They have an incredible talent for storytelling and immediately understood my book in an exactly the way I meant it to be read. And then to have Kerry Washington on board is like a bonus on top of a bonus. My book couldn’t be in better hands.”

“From the moment I received Araminta’s novel, I couldn’t put it down. It was such an electrifying read; I fell in love with it immediately,” said Moss. “I’ve admired Kerry and her work as an actor and producer for many years and have been looking for something to work with her on and was so thrilled that she responded to the material when we sent it to her and Pilar at Simpson Street. They were the first and only people we thought of. We are so happy that Apple and 20th Television agreed to partner with us on this, as well. It’s all an absolute match made in heaven.”

Washington, meanwhile, broke out with her role in Shonda Rhimes’ ABC political drama Scandal. More recently, the actress and producer who has an overall deal with Disney, counts Hulu/Onyx Collective’s Unprisoned and Reasonable Doubt among her credits.

Imperfect Women joins a roster of Apple original dramas including The Morning Show, For All Mankind, Franklin, Masters of the Air, The New Look, Pachinko, Severance, Slow Horses and many more.

Moss is repped by WME, Independent Talent Group, Ocean Avenue, Ribisi Entertainment Group and Hansen Jacobson. Washington is with CAA, Washington Square Films and Gretchen Rush. Weisman is with WME and Gendler Kelly. Hall is with WME, David Higham Associates and Frankfurt Kurnit.

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EXCLUSIVE : In a competitive situation, Peacock has handed a straight-to-series order to romantic dramedy The Miniature Wife , starring and executive produced by Elizabeth Banks ( Pitch Perfect) and Matthew Macfadyen ( Succession ), from Michael Ellenberg’s Media Res ( The Morning Show, Pachinko).

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Based on the short story written by Manuel Gonzalez, The Miniature Wife is a high-concept marital dramedy examining the power (im)balances between spouses, Lindy (Banks) and Les (Macfadyen), who battle each other for supremacy after a technological accident induces the ultimate relationship crisis.

Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer executive produce for Media Res.

A three-time Emmy nominee, Banks most recently starred opposite Zach Galifianakis in Apple TV+’s true-life dramedy  The Beanie Bubble , voiced one of the main characters in Universal’s animated movie Migration and starred opposite Sigourney Weaver in the Sundance-premiering drama  Call Jane . She’ll next be seen in Christine Jeffs’ medical drama  A Mistake and in Skincare , a new film from Andrea Iervolino & Lady Bacardi Entertainment.

Known as much for her work behind the camera — most recently on hit Cocaine Bear — as in front of it, Banks’ TV acting credits include major stints on Scrubs and 30 Rock. She is repped by UTA, Untitled Entertainment and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.

Probably best known for playing the cunning Tom Wambsgans on HBO’s Succession , a part which has earned him two Emmys, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award, Macfadyen has romance background. His first major movie leading role was as Mr. Darcy opposite Keira Knightley in the 2005 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic Pride & Prejudice .

Ames and Turner are repped by WME, TFC Management and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.

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