Pachinko

Pachinko is one of those sprawling, multi-generational novels that often are made into TV miniseries. The difference is that Pachinko is actually a very good book, even though it does have many of the tropes of the genre: a boy who does not know who his real father is, suicide, and even step-sibling incest. But Min Jin Lee has other fish to fry. This story is about Koreans who live in Japan, and I, like most Westerners, I expect, had no idea of how they lived and were treated.

The title refers to a form of pinball that is played in Japan that is a kind of gambling, and usually is depicted as a tawdry business, often run by the Yakuza, or Japanese organized crime. It becomes important in the book because it is one of the few places that Koreans could make a foothold, and two of her characters make their fortune running parlors.

The story covers almost the entire century, from 1910 to 1989. It starts with a simple man who has a harelip and a deformed leg, who is married off to a woman who has several miscarriages, but finally gives birth to Sunja. When she is a teen she will be seduced by a rich Korean who lives in Japan, Hansu, who is probably in the yakuza. He impregnates her, and while he is married with daughters, he offers to take care of the child. She rejects him, and is overjoyed to accept the proposal of Isaak, a Christian pastor, who will take care of the child as their own. They move to Japan to live with his older brother, and have a son of their own.

These two boys will lead disparate lives. Noa is a serious student who loves to read English novels, while Matsuza goes to work at pachinko parlor and will end up a millionaire before he's through. Noa does not who his real father is, and when he finds out he suffers a crisis of identity.

The last part of the book deals with Solomon, Matsuza's son, who studies finance in America and works for a British bank in Tokyo. But he will discover that being Korean in Japan is somewhat like being black in America.

"He was a Korean, after all, and no matter how appealing his personality, unfortunately he belonged to a cunning and wily tribe. There were many Japanese who were fair-minded and principled, but around foreigners they tended to be guarded," Lee writes. Korea was occupied by Japan for many years, ending with World War II. The one thing that a Korean could do, if he was brought up in Japan and spoke the language, was pass for Japanese, which is what Noa will do. Some of the characters go back to Korea, but if they return to the north they will never be heard from again.

"You can’t fix Korea. Not even a hundred of you or a hundred of me can fix Korea. The Japs are out and now Russia, China, and America are fighting over our shitty little country. You think you can fight them? Forget Korea," we are told, and despite some of the horrors of living in Japan, particularly during the war (one character is badly burned in the bombing at Nagasaki) they do not return. Home has taken on a new meaning for them.

In fact, Motherland was Lee's original title for the novel. What is our motherland? Does that make us who we are? Can we remake ourselves in a new country? Some of the characters long to move to America, with California has a euphemism for paradise. To some people, home is where they lay their hat, but others can be expatriates for most of their lives and still regard where they came from as home.

Pachinko is not only very well written--Lee's style is simplistic, with just enough detail but not too much--but also instructive on what life in Korea and Japan was like during the twentieth-century. For those who like pulpy multi-generational novels, it will also scratch that itch. And no family tree in the beginning of the book is necessary.