Pachinko – Min Jin Lee

100-Word (or Less) Synopsis: [adapted from the dustjacket] In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant — and that her lover is married — she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.

Expectation: A richly drawn, multi-generational story about love, loss and finding purpose.

Reality: A sometimes melodramatic, but ultimately effective snapshot of life in Asia during one of the most tumultuous time periods in history.

Recommended For: Fans of diverse perspectives about world history.

Why I Read It: It had been a long-time resident of my TBR list and was almost universally loved by friends.

My Take:

Last year, I gave Amor Towles’ “A Gentleman in Moscow,” a rather half-hearted recommendation because it was one of the few books that doesn’t lend itself to audiobook narration.

“Pachinko,” on the other hand, does.

Min Jin Lee’s multi-generational, decades spanning story about native Koreans living in Japan (among other things) is engrossing, heartbreaking and informative. So, it’s disappointing that one of the worst things about this book is its narration.

Thankfully there’s no kitschy — or in this case stereotypical — characterizations to Allison Hiroto’s narration; it simply is not good. Her delivery is a singsong of rising and falling inflection that puts a sheen of saccharine over some of the most depressing sections of the novel.

In my experience listening to hundreds of hours of audiobooks each year, rarely does an audiobook narration detract from the story, but that’s the case here. Still, I was fully immersed in the world Lee created and that’s a testament to her storytelling.

Admittedly, I was ignorant to much of what Lee presents, primarily through the experiences of Sunja and her Korean family. As a teen, Sunja becomes pregnant by a married Japanese businessman, and facing lifelong shame becomes betrothed to a pastor who raises her son, Noa, as his own.

Sunja is the core story, but many of her relatives and friends weave in and out of the third person narration, which provides a 360-degree view of the goings-on. And there is a lot that happens. Covering both World Wars, the Korean War and ending in the late 1980s. It’s a personal snapshot of life in Asia during one of the most tumultuous centuries in modern history.

To me, Book I and Book II were the strongest. The frank portrayals of racism, classism, religious bigotry, and misogyny were presented through a lens many Western readers haven’t experienced. I was most fascinated by the section in Book II that explored the discrimination Koreans in Japan faced and how everyday people living in Japan responded to World War II.

Book III felt more tedious as I never felt as connected to Noa and Mozasu. While fascinating to see how their lives differed — and were similar — to those of their parents and grandparents, what struck me most about this section was the discussion of home and belonging.

Given its length, “Pachinko” is a commitment, but I think the payoff is mostly there. Read it for nothing more than a different perspective on well-known global events and for Lee’s understated, yet effective prose.   

Rating (story): 4/5 stars

Rating (narration): 2/5

Formats: Audiobook (library loan)

Dates read: August 25 – September 6, 2021

Multi-tasking: Okay. Because of the poor narration it does require quite a bit of concentration.