Book Review: Min Jin Lee - Pachinko

"History has failed us, but no matter" belongs up there in the pantheon of opening lines, and it's especially apt, given that this is not quite a "historical novel", but a novel which uses the vicissitudes of real history - the Japanese occupation and annexation of Korea, the migration of Koreans to Japan for work, the devastation of WW2, the partition of Korea - to follow an ordinary Korean peasant family from the very early part of the 20th century near to its end as successive generations experience poverty, fall in love, settle in Japan, try to make money, survive wars, encounter racism, and, most of all, try to turn their sorrows into fulfilling lives. Korean history is something I have large gaps of understanding in relative to Japanese and Chinese history, particularly prior to WW2, so I would have appreciated this novel even if it hadn't been so affecting. Many questions of Korean identity are raised repeatedly by Koreans, South Koreans, North Koreans, and Korean-Japanese; I don't have any special take on that, but for me the pleasure of the novel lies in how these lovingly rendered characters make their choices, and how those choices define their lives but also present new opportunities even when they're really painful. Pachinko is, of course, a popular game for gamblers, and the central idea that fate and freedom are present in every moment is very movingly presented here.