Pachinko - Korean-American writer Min Jin Lee, who grew up to become a world-class writer with favorable reviews as the second Jane Austen!
The Storyline - A Curtain named Life You Can't Get Away With Struggling
The characters in "Pachinko" continue their hard lives without escaping their limitations and shackles. Life is a pain for everyone, but it was even more harsh for Koreans who moved to Japan in Japanese colonial era. Of course, they did not have a smooth life in Joseon either. They were just ordinary people who wanted their children to be treated better than they were, but the times were not easy enough to grant their ordinary wishes.
Yang Jin, the youngest daughter of a poor family, gets paid and marries Hun, a lame man in the middle of nowhere. Yang-jin, who repeatedly says, "A woman's life is a hard road," but accepts such a life as fate, runs a boarding house with her husband Hoon and does not complain. She silently raises Soon-ja, her only child and daughter, who was born as a normal person, while doing all kinds of bad things.
Soon-ja, who grew up with the caring care and love of her parents, unfortunately falls for Hansu, a fish matchmaker her mother's age, and eventually becomes pregnant with her child without knowing that Hansu is a married man. Soon-ja, who is in the abyss of misfortune, is saved as pastor Isaac greets her as his wife, and the two head to Osaka, Japan, where Isaac's brother Joseph and his wife live for a new life. Soon-ja, who gave birth to the first Noah, the blood of Han-soo, and the second Son-soo, the blood of Isaac in Japan, lives a hard life as a wife and mother, forgetting her life as a woman like Yangjin, her mother.
Kyung-hee, Soon-ja's older brother, may be a woman who has a harder life than Yangjin and Soon-ja, who live a strange life. Kyung-hee cannot have her own children due to infertility, but she is faithful to her husband and takes care of her family. Even in the face of misfortune caused by an unexpected accident, they accept and accept the fate without blaming it. The three women in "Pachinko" show the image of a strong mother and wife, while on the other hand, it also shows how pathetic a woman's life is that of a traditional female figure devoted to her husband and children.
These three women are not the only ones who can't escape the yoke of life. Soon-ja's husband, Isaac, was bound by the yoke of sacrificing himself for others, and Kyung-hee's husband, Joseph, cannot escape his own yoke of being responsible for the family. Soon-ja's two precious sons, Noah and Mo-soo, were born in Japan and have a Japanese name, but they are not recognized as Japanese, and live under the yoke of contempt and discrimination.
However, these two children accept such reality differently based on their respective values and solve it in different ways. Noah digs into his studies to overcome the environment that cannot be helped by his own power, and Hatsu responds violently to contempt and respect for Korean-Japanese. However, even if they performed much better than Japanese children and earned a lot of money by working steadily, the Japanese people's perspective on them did not change a bit. The prejudice of "Zainichi" was a shackle that the two could not escape no matter how hard they struggled, and they had to bear for life.
Why Pachinko Is Great - A Victory of Honest Narratives and a Fierce Writership
Throughout the long years from Japanese colonial era to the 1980s, people who have lived fiercely go through all sorts of events. There was love and betrayal, salvation and resentment, jealousy and despair. And there was a sense of pride that only those who overcame all kinds of difficulties and stood up to be recognized. "Pachinko" contains the emotions that the writer himself experienced as an immigrant in the United States and the sincere efforts he made to live a successful life. "Pachinko," which solves realistic and sensitive stories with macroscopic backgrounds and bold plot structures, has no choice but to have great suction power. NPR, the leading U.S. media outlet, praised "Pachinko," which is alive and attractive, reveals the richness of what history is trying to erase," and praised it as having an incredibly realistic aspect as a novel.
Lee Min-jin's spirit as a writer, who rejected the cliche narrative and thought fiercely about his identity, created a masterpiece "Pachinko" that encompasses the times while maintaining a modern and sophisticated atmosphere. The novel "Pachinko," which was born out of anger and sadness for those who should be hurt for innate reasons, is a record of the struggle life of immigrants who are discriminated against in the painful background of the times, and is about exile and discrimination. "Pachinko" is a story about continuously facing questions about identity and connecting to deep roots through the victory that was hard won by desperate struggle. It will bring deep lingering feelings and satisfaction to Korean readers, just as it did to other readers around the world who have met the book beforehand.