3.5 Stars
This is a
multi-generational saga about life for Koreans in Japan. It covers four generations of one family over
much of the 20th century as various members strive to carve out a
home and livelihood. Since ethnic
Koreans are shut out from many occupations, several individuals become involved
in the pachinko business. The
pinball/slot-machine-like game, as both a recreational arcade game and
a gambling device, is very popular in Japan but is often considered dirty; “pachinko
gave off a strong odor of poverty and criminality.”
Pachinko
unifies the novel and serves as a perfect metaphor for the whims of life: “life was like this game where the player
could adjust the dials yet also expect the uncertainty of factors he couldn’t
control. [The game] looked fixed but
also left room for randomness and hope.”
In pachinko, the odds strongly favour the house but people keep playing because
hope motivates people: “The stupid heart
could not help but hope.” In pachinko and
in life “there could only be a few winners and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope
that we might be the lucky ones.” One
mother regrets that she didn’t teach her children to hope, “to believe in the
perhaps-absurd possibility that they might win.”
Though
there are a couple of exceptions, hope and resilience certainly keep the family
members moving forward. It is the female
characters who seem the most resilient, Sunja in particular. Sunja’s mother teaches her about the
importance of perseverance: “’Sunja-ya,
a woman’s life is endless work and suffering.
There is suffering and then more suffering. It’s better to expect it, you know. . . no
matter what, always expect suffering, and just keep working hard. No one will take care of a poor woman – just ourselves.’” It is Yangjin, Sunja, and Kyunghee who keep
their families alive through the most difficult of times.
Of course,
these women face challenges because of culture and tradition. The women are illiterate because education
was reserved for male children in a family.
When Sunja and Kyunghee devise a plan to make money to help their destitute
family, Kyunghee must convince her husband to let her work outside the home,
and he does not react well to the suggestion.
A woman’s behaviour, especially sexual behaviour, can damage her family’s
reputation; a young woman is seduced by a man twice her age but it is she and
her family who suffer the consequences of a pregnancy outside of wedlock.
The book
examines the Korean immigrant experience in Japan through the experiences of
four generations of one family. What is
emphasized is the exclusion and discrimination faced by Koreans. Because of
discrimination, some characters try to pass as Japanese because to be
discovered as ethnic Korean means rejection.
One man, an ethnic Korean born in Japan, cuts off contact with his
family and hides his identity; he says, “’No one knows I’m Korean. Not one
person. . . . My wife doesn’t know. Her
mother would never tolerate it. My own
children don’t know, and I will not tell them. My boss would fire me. He doesn’t employ foreigners.’”
Another
character summarizes the travel restrictions faced by Koreans: “Most Koreans in Japan couldn’t travel. If you wanted a Japanese passport, which would
allow you to reenter without hassles, you had to become a Japanese citizen –
which was almost impossible.” Koreans in
Japan could get a Korean passport but they felt little affiliation to a country
they had never visited. In 1979, one of
the characters turns fourteen and he has to go through the humiliating
experience of getting his alien registration card: “Koreans born in Japan after 1952 had to
report to their local ward office on their fourteenth birthday to request
permission to stay in Japan. Every three
years, Solomon would have to do this again unless he left Japan for good.” The options for ethnic Koreans are limited,
as one man clearly explains: “’Koreans
like me [born and living in Japan] can’t leave.
Where we gonna go? . . . In Seoul
[South Korea], people like me get called Japanese bastards, and in Japan, I’m
just another dirty Korean no matter how much money I make or how nice I am. . .
. All those people who went back to the North are starving to death or scared
shitless.’” It seems that ethnic Koreans
in Japan are perpetual outsiders.
The book
begins with the statement that “History has failed us” but the book succeeds in
filling in some history about which most Westerners probably know little. And though the Japanese treatment of Koreans
is clearly described, the author does not portray all Japanese as bad; there
are several positive Japanese characters and at the end, one of the youngest
generation says, “Sure, there were assholes in Japan, but there were assholes
everywhere, nee? . . . Kazu was a
shit, but so what? He was one bad guy, and
he was Japanese. . . . [My stepmother, my first love, and my father’s best
friend] were Japanese, and they were very good.”
The book is
narrated in third person omniscient point of view. One problem is that everyone’s point of view
is given, even that of the most minor characters. For example, is it really necessary to be
given the thoughts of a garden boy who appears only once in a book of almost
500 pages? The numerous shifts among characters
are sometimes jarring.
The book is
divided into three parts. The first is
the strongest; the characterization is rich and detailed. The third part, however, feels rushed so that
the reader’s emotional attachment to the fourth generation is definitely not as
strong.
I love
books that inform me about some part of history about which I previously knew
little. This novel is not an
exception. I understand why it is a finalist
for the National Book Award for Fiction.
It is a compelling story told in a compelling way.
