"Pachinko" by Min Jin Lee

I don’t know a lot about Korean or Japanese history, so I learnt quite a lot from reading this inter-generational family drama set in Korea and Japan from the 1930s to the 1990s. It is fascinating to read all sorts of little details about what life would have been like, the similarities and the differences of life experienced by each generation. This novel deals a lot with the struggles of families who find themselves living in poverty (in contrast to the more effortless lives of rich characters), who seem to have been dealt so much bad luck, and how different people’s personalities and their life experiences, not to mention their gender, shape their fortunes within the confines of what circumstances they find themselves in. How hard some people work, just to get by, yet live with such kindness, generosity and strength. How each generation dreams and projects their dreams on each subsequent generation, hoping for them to have a better life with more opportunities than they themselves did, and yet how this can be at odds with what the next generation’s personalities and desires and experiences are. It also shows intergenerational effects of poverty, suffering and war, and how decisions and mistakes of one generation can still have serious consequences for future generations.

I enjoyed this book, although I definitely was more drawn in by the first half than the second, as I found myself more interested in the lives of the older generations and history of the earlier eras in Japan and Korea rather than the ones of the more recent generations in more modern times. Reading this book in the lead up to International Women’s Day also made me thankful that I am born as a woman in current times, even though there is still much to be done in search of gender equity especially when considering the opportunities for non-white, non-cis-het women, we have still come a long way in the last 100 years.


Started reading on my Kindle: 20th February 2020
Finished: 6th March 2020
My score: 8/10
Stats: Historical novel, Female author, American-Korean author.