Min Jin Lee

This is a family saga which takes us from early 20th century southern Korea, in a fishing village not far from Busan, to Japan in the late 1980s.

Let's begin with Sunja, who comes near to bringing shame on her family by becoming pregnant to a rich wheeler-dealer before marriage: he himself is married, of course. She's redeemed by Protestant pastor Isak, who marries her despite knowing her history, and takes her to begin a new life with him in Osaka, Japan. Following Korea's annexation to Japan in 1911, life had become increasingly hard- food shortages, punitive taxation, land annexation. But for those Koreans who sought a different life in Japan, things weren't a lot better. This was a life of sacrifice, hardship, and being a less-than-second class citizen. Sunja, her husband, her in-laws worked hard - very hard - though soon Isak was imprisoned for his beliefs, and died on his release.

Sunja's early shame and guilt underlie much of this book. As do guilt and shame generally. Noa, Sunja's first son does all he can to pass for Japanese all his life, and his beginnings come back to haunt him in a terrible fashion.

This is a book about resilience and emotional conflict passing down through the generations. It's about well-drawn characters making their way in the world, sometimes with great success, but rarely able to escape from the shadow of their past. It's a real page turner, from which I learnt much about this period of Korea's history. Highly recommended… (mere)

Hoonie is born in the late 1800s with a cleft palate and twisted foot but he’s very strong, a hard worker, and loyal to his wife Yangjin. Their only surviving child is Sunja, and this book mainly tells her life story, her mother Yangjin’s story, and Sunja’s children and grandchildren through the late 1980s. Pachinko, a game of chance, makes this poor family eventually very wealthy. I like family histories but this one didn’t work well me. What I liked was the book rarely delved into gory facts, such as dying. We knew a main character was going to die…& then in the next chapter, time has gone by, the death is in the past, as a matter of fact. I appreciated avoiding some cringey scenes. It was a good book. It just didn’t flow well for me. I even waited to review it in hopes I’d think better of it over time. Nope. So it’s a low pick for me.… (mere)