A Book Club discusses Pachinko

Pachinko was supposed to be a book club read, but it was eventually dropped because most people had already read it once and didn’t want to read it again. I started reading the book since it has been on my TBR for long, and midway through the book, I realised I could have my own book club discussion too. There were three of Me reading the book simultaneously: Reader One who loved the book, Reader Two who was cynical and critical, and Reader Three who was the discerning one. They started by sharing their first impressions about the book.

Reader One:
Oh, I absolutely loved the book. It is such a brilliant intergenerational generational saga of a Korean family that immigrates to Japan at the turn of the century. It starts with a girl in a fishing village in South Korea who gets pregnant from a man who is already married. Though she has no prospects and she dreads the social stigma of being an unwed mother, she refuses to be his mistress. A pastor offers to marry her and they move to Japan where they start a new life. The book talks about the discrimination that Koreans face in Japan, the way they are treated as inferior citizens, the ghettoisation, the lack of prospects, the way they have to struggle to make their living.
What I absolutely loved about the book were the strongly etched characters. Each of them had integrity, and did the honourable thing at all times. In different ways, they all went out of their way to prove that they were “good Koreans” in a country where it was assumed that anyone who was Korean was “bad”. I loved the ups and downs that the members of the family face, and of how none of them compromises on their core values, of how they remain true to themselves and of how they do not even think about rebelling against the system.

Reader Two:
That is such a romantic view of the book. I totally disagree. I think that one fine day, the author woke up and decided to write “The Great Korean Novel” and she did. Look at it, she has literally thrown every possible trope into the book- racism, bigotry, colonialisation, poverty, social boycott, even homophobia. She goes on and on about how Koreans are treated as second class citizens in Japan, and yet choose not to go back to Korea. Honestly, what would she know about all this? She may be of Korean descent, but she is Korean American- her family has never even lived in Japan
Yes, the novel was widely popular, but I wonder why. So many of the stories have an unsatisfactory ending. Sure the book covers a wide swath of history, but that doesn’t mean individual stories need to be left dangling.

Reader Three:
I think both of you are reading too much and too little into the book. The author’s intentions are clear from the title of the book- Pachinko. The lives of the people are like a game of pachinko. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it appears as though everything is going for you, but then suddenly your luck changes. The rules change everyday, but you keep playing because you cannot give up hope. The title is a metaphor.
I particularly loved how the author uses food as a metaphor for life. After the marriage of her daughter all that the mother wants to do is to serve the couple white rice once. Making and selling kimchi is what enables the family to earn enough money to survive, but it is the smell of kimchi that marks their children as “different”. Over time, the same person who through she was extremely privileged to be served white rice twice after her wedding, casually opens a package of imported cookies and serves it with tea. It is these deeper metaphors that make the book so meaningful for me.

Reader One:
Absolutely. The book is a classic. I nearly cried while reading the scene where on his 14th birthday Solomon had to queue up at the office to get his immigration papers. His father is rich enough to be able to hire a top pop singer to perform at the birthday party, yet his greatest worry is that they might be deported from the country of their birth. We see this even today where despite all their wealth and education, people of certain ethnicities and religions are relegated to being second class citizens.

Reader Two:
It is just tropes, nothing but troops. You spoke about food. In the book, the author categorically states that food doesn’t have much value to Korean American women. For all practical purposes, that is a value judgement on the Korean women in Japan. There is so much talk about good Koreans and bad Koreans in the book, but the author is also making a distinction between Koreans in Japan and Koreans in America. You talk about bigotry- maybe some of the author’s own bigotry is coming out here.

Reader Three:
No, no, no no. I think the author only brings that up to show the genuine difference between Koreans in America and Koreans in Japan. Korea had been colonised by Japan, so the Koreans in Japan faced discrimination and were forced into ghettos- they had to hold onto their traditions in a way in which the Koreans who chose to migrate to America didn’t need to. I am sure that the author only wants to draw attention to the fact that one community was forced to remain insular while the other was able to integrate into the mainstream.
Let’s not try to guess her intention. Let’s read it as a book which describes a part of history that you were perhaps unaware of. Yes, the book could have been better edited, but you have to acknowledge that the author gave many years of her life to this book- she would want it to be as comprehensive as possible.

Reader One:
What is the one thing I dislike about the book? Well, I didn’t quite understand why Hansu was so fascinated by Sunja. Though she is a hard worker, she is repeated described is not being very attractive. How then does she have such a hold on him? Could it be because he knows she cares for him in a way his wife never did, or is it because of the Korean preoccupation with a male child? I would have loved to understand that better.

Reader Two:
Okay, what do I like about the book? Interesting question. I think what I like about the book is the patterns that keep emerging. Similar things happen to different people at different points of time, and they react so differently to it. What I also liked was the fact that nobody was painted all black or all white. Even at the community level, there were good Japanese and they were bad Koreans, and the book described them all with honesty.

Reader Three:
What about the book could have been better? It could certainly have been much shorter. It would have worked better for me if instead of making it a chronological saga, the author had picked one person, and gone backwards and forwards in time. I also think certain parts of the book could have been left out completely- for instance, why was a lesbian relationship introduced without any intent to take it forward?

Much wine was consumed. None of the readers were able to bring the others to their perspective. But by the end of the meeting, they all agreed that Pachinko was an interesting read, and whether or not they would recommend it to others or not would depend on what the others expect from a book.