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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Feb 2017, 496 pages
Paperback:
Nov 2017, 512 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Rebecca Foster
Buy This Book
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.
Chapter 1
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 ...
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).
Darin Strauss, the national bestselling author of Half a Life: A Memoir
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. David Mitchell, New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks, Cloud Atlas, and Black Swan Green
A deep, broad, addictive history of a Korean family in Japan enduring and prospering through the 20th century. Erica Wagner, author of Ariel's Gift and Seizure
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. Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Little Failure and Super Sad True Love Story
Astounding ... 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? Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her
[A] powerful meditation on what immigrants sacrifice to achieve a home in the world. Pachinko confirms Lee's place among our finest novelists. Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and Korea: A Walk through the Land of Miracles
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 ... Min Jin Lee displays a tenderness and wisdom ideally matched to an unforgettable tale that she relates just perfectly."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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