Book Review: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

How great writers use omniscient narrator to create worlds in which you want to linger…

Rarely do I want to linger in a book. More often I’m racing through it, eager to find out what happens next, or eager to finish since, no matter what, I always read to the end… (you just never know!)

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a novel I wanted to savor. I read it slowly, patiently. I sat with those characters, wanting to stay in those places. I wanted to devour it but didn’t dare hurry. What makes some books so captivating? Here’s why I think Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is one of those rare books you’ll want to savor:

Plot: Characters Against the World

Most plots—the sequence of events that make up a story—pit one character against another. Two people or beings want opposing things, and this creates conflict. Harry Potter wants to save the world; Voldemort wants to dominate it. Romeo and Juliet want to get married; their families forbid it. Huckleberry Finn wants adventure; the Widow Douglas wants him to be civilized (BTW, if you haven’t read Percival Everett’s rewrite of Huck Finn, James, read it immediately!).

Plot – the sequence of events that make up your story.

In Pachinko, Min Jin Lee does something different. She does not pit characters against one another, rather she pits her characters against the world. Sunja is a young Korean woman during the 1930s Japanese invasions who falls in love with a married man and becomes pregnant. When Hansu reveals he’s married, the shame Sunja’s pregnancy brings (cultural conflict) leads her to marry a sickly minister (societal conflict) and move to Japan (systemic conflict).

These conflicts create the plot and instead of wondering which character will get the upper hand, we wonder how Sunja will survive her next challenge. What will she do? How will she endure the circumstance she’s thrown into?

This may not sound like extraordinary plotting, but Lee masterfully uses the world (in this case Japan and Korea’s cultural clashes) to create major conflicts her characters must face. In doing so, she avoids having to create a villain.

Instead, her characters are fighting against racism; poverty; cultural discrepancies like clothing, food, and language; religious exile; political standing; classism; education levels; and, of course, forbidden love. This allows Lee to write characters who are neither good nor evil; they are simply flawed and trying to do the best they can. Uniquely, her plot is so much more true to the human experience.

Love as Conflict

While Lee’s characters try to survive the world they live in, Lee uses love—misguided, hapless, hopeless, terrifying love—to guide her characters’ choices. They often act wisely and foolishly because of love. Love as friendship, family bonds, romance, and even education and career define the characters’ choices and make for a compelling novel focused on positivity against all odds rather than defeating negative energy.

Too many stories (including most Hero’s Journeys, if we’re still using that) focus on those who have wronged us, the bad guy inexplicably filled with greed and hate, or some great evil that must be destroyed. But a book based on love, which is a conflict more relatable to everyday people, is worth reading.

Because we know love is foolish. Tension and conflict are built into the very idea of love. We will do wild, irrational, incredible things for the ones we love. And that’s what Lee’s characters are doing in Pachinko—they may face great oppression in the world and yet their decisions are guided by love.

POV: Benefits of the Omniscient Narrator

In addition to using love and worldly conflicts as plot devices, Lee masterfully uses the omniscient narrator to reveal her characters’ redeeming qualities. We want to hate Hansu, the married man, because he gets Sunja pregnant, but because the narrator is omniscient, we are inside his mind too and know from his inner thoughts that he is not cruel or bad. He has made a mistake, wrongly assuming Sunja will agree to be his second wife, but we know from his inner thoughts that his love for her is genuine.

Omniscient Narrator/Point of View (POV) – when the narrator skips between characters’ heads, jump time, and is all knowing.

If Lee had written this book in third person POV, limiting us only to Sunja’s point of view, we would see Hansu as she does, as the obvious bad guy. We would not believe Hansu’s words any more than Sunja does.

Instead, Lee uses omniscient POV, and by doing so allows us inside both Hansu’s and Sunja’s minds, creating yet another source of conflict. We can see exactly when and how these characters misunderstand each other. We can see how their thoughts and words conflict, the assumptions they get terribly wrong. The tension goes beyond plot and is inlayed in the very narrative choice of omniscient point of view. Knowing every character’s thoughts all the time is, in and of itself, a source of compelling conflict.

Conclusion

I don’t write many book reviews because it takes a very special story to capture my attention and make me want to study the craft contributing to its success. Pachinko is one of those books that not only reveals a culture I knew nothing about, but whose characters are so memorable I know it’s the writing, the craft devices used by the author, that makes this book an award-winning success.

(While writing this post, I realized Pachinko was made into a TV series in 2022—I had no idea! As always, I’m a believer that books are always better than the movie/show, so I highly recommend you put this on your reading list.)

P.S. Always read the Author’s Note

In her author’s note, Min Jin Lee reveals that it took her 30 years to write this novel! And she explains why. This is not surprising, considering how vast and well researched it is. Thought it is slightly terrifying because I find myself 15 years and at least 3 rewrites into my own novel and I’m still not sure if it’s finished and/or good enough.

As always, thanks for reading!