Pachinko

An absorbing family saga over 4 generations, from 1910 up until 1980s, with good insights into relationship between Koreans and Japanese, immigrants, racism and discrimination, strength and resourcefulness of women, power of family, importance of Korean culture and identity, religious values, faith etc
Interesting insight again into children’s rejection of their parents ( a recurring theme of several books we seem to have read recently including Love after Love)
Did tend to jump about in time periods. Could have done perhaps with being shorter (over 500 pages) . Last section most confusing - too many characters, slow and least interesting.
Some truly shocking events and incidents - suicides, burning at Nagasaki, deaths etc so a tragic story.
Interesting parallels with The Mountains Sing - Korea, like Vietnam, a country that has been invaded and whose peoples have suffered and been oppressed through centuries of invasion by USSR, US, China, Japan etc.
Family tree might have been helpful.
Originally was to be called Motherland. Pachinko seems an apt title as their lives very much a lottery/game of chance.
Interested to know that a well reviewed mini series will be available on Apple Tv Plus from Friday.
8 of us had read it . Total score of 62 so an average score of 7.75

The hardships these people went through and the lengths they went to in order to provide for for their families in a Korean ghetto in Japan!
I learned a lot about the history of Korean-Japanese relations and felt for these immigrants facing discrimination and sacrifice through the decades. Pachinko, by the way, is a Japanese casino game, that Koreans often worked in. The loading of the pegs in the pachinko machines to limit the wins is a metaphor for the discrimination faced by Koreans which is felt even to this day, but hope endures in spite of this.

Just heartbreaking but really enjoyed the story and learning about this time in history