Pachinko
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Pachinko
Narrated by:
Allison Hiroto
Buy Now for ₹893.00
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Narrated by:
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Allison Hiroto
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Written by:
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Min Jin Lee
About this listen
Yeongdo, Korea - 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a 15-year-old girl. The couple have one child: their beloved daughter, Sunja.
When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then, Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife. Following a man she barely knows to a hostile country in which she has no friends and no home, and whose language she cannot speak, Sunja's salvation is just the beginning of her story.
©2017 Min Jin Lee (P)2017 Hachette AudioGreat story of four generations of Koreans
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An amazing journey of a family
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The book is written like a saga. Witnessing this family’s saga makes me yearn to be able to listen to my own ancestor’s and family’s journey in a similar fashion!
Very well written & narrated
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heartwarming book!
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We follow the journey of Sunja, a Korean girl whose life changes after an affair with Koh Hansu. It just takes a brief moment, one impulsive step for her life to turn topsy-turvy—much like the state of Korea in the hands of Japan. What follows next is an existential tale of three generations of Koreans who struggle with identity, racism, poverty and preconceived notions.
Pachinko is a gambling game that is highly prevalent in Japan. Gamble is used both literally and metaphorically in this story. Stranded in war-torn times, Sunja and her family’s life are no less than a gamble. When uncertainty looms large on every basic aspect of existence, you are ready to take on any gamble. What options are we left with anyway?
With deceptively simple prose, Lee puts across the survival struggle with an interplay of a vast variety of perspectives. Each character tries to grapple with the state of Korea in one’s own way. At one point, Hansu remarks that patriotism, communism and capitalism are merely ideas, and ideas can make a man forget his own self-interest.
We see women trying to hold onto their youth and their suppressed desires. Men grapple with social identity and lost ambitions. We get a sense of the decadent history as the glorified Americanism slowly takes over the Koreans with a false sense of Utopia. Lee deals with everyone without a bone of judgement.
Reading this book during the pandemic has been rather surreal. It makes you question fate, destiny and free-will. Sunja was never prepared for what lay ahead of her. And neither any of us are. She had little in her control and made the most of it. Maybe that’s all we can do—to take one moment at a time. It’s a good enough eulogy to leave behind, I guess?
I lived every moment of Pachinko and I think you’ll do too.
Lucid, Lovely and Thought Provoking
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