Books: “Pachinko” by Min Jin Lee

After two seasons of “Pachinko,” (Apple TV), I decided to see if Min Jin Lee’s best-selling 2017 novel is just as wonderful. Good news: it is.

At 500-plus pages, it’s a brick of a book, but moves as gracefully as a Japanese swift. In 1910, Sunja (Kim Min-ha), an innocent maiden from a Korean seaside village, is seduced and abandoned by Hanso (Lee Min ho), a slick (and married) Korean who has been sent by the Japanese to overlook the Busan fish market. Sunja becomes pregnant but is saved from a life of disgrace by the fortuitous appearance of Isak (Noah Sang Hyun), a Christian missionary who shows up at Sunja’s mother’s boarding house, sick with tuberculosis.

Nursed back to health by Sunja and her mother, Isak agrees to marry Sunja despite being aware of her pregnancy. The only catch is, she must leave her mother and friends behind and return with him to Osaka, where his brother Jozeb (Han Joon-Woo) and Kyung-hee, his sister-in-law (Jung Eun-chae) have emigrated for work.

We soon learn of Koreans’ second-class status in Japan. Known by the derogatory term of “zainichi” (temporary resident), Sunja and Isak, like their fellow countrymen, work menial jobs and live a miserable existence in the Korean ghetto of Osaka. When Isak is arrested for being part of the independence movement, Sunja is forced to earn a living as a kimchi-monger, in order to support Noah (Kang Tae-chu), her illegitimate son, as well as her second son by Isak, Moizu (Sohee Park).

Spanning close to 80 years, the novel captures the major events of 20th-century Japan and Korea, all through the eyes of Sunja and her family—from the 1923 conflagration of Yokohama, to the strafing of Osaka during WWII, and the tragic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Fast forward to the late 1980s, where Solomon (Jin Ha), Sunja’s Yale-educated grandson, an investment banker in Tokyo, is still suffering a more subtle but ever present prejudice against Koreans.

So why the title “Pachinko?” It’s a popular Japanese slot machine game not unlike American pinball, and Lee implies that our path in life is similarly random. While the novel, a National Book Award finalist, strays from the TV series somewhat, it nevertheless serves as a great companion piece and answers some of the questions that may have left hanging in Season 2. It provides plenty of fodder for a Season 3.

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