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Deborah
I think the game of Pachinko represented life for the Koreans in Japan. There was always the hope that they would have good luck--but, as with the pachinko machines in the novel, someone was always making little adjustments to make sure that they never won.
Alexandra
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Marlena Corcoran
Pachinko, like life, is a game partly of skill, partly of chance. It is the overarching metaphor of that book; and the game is woven into the plot of the novel as well. This is illustrated in the well-chosen quotations by readers below.
Dupsie Oti
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Inga
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Aleijn Reintegrado
1. because whether you try your hardest to be good like noa did, or you don't follow the conventional life like mozasu did, or you had all the money and opportunity in the world like solomon did, you are still likely to end up in the pachinko parlor, where people will call you names, think ill of you, consider you a criminal. it is where many of us are destined, despite our best efforts to assimilate and live a life beyond the hatred -- we are kept in a parlor of shame, where no matter how successful or honest we are, people have things to say about us.
2. because life is luck, and the machines are against our favor, but we try anyway -- it matters the most that we still try. no matter how stacked the odds are against us, there is some random chance we're given the wildly arbitrary privilege of victory. sunja, for example, reflects towards the end of the book that her mother and sister-in-law kept saying that a woman's lot is to suffer. mostly they're right (after all, the unifying theme of the book is that women suffer in a variety of unfathomable ways), but there are also glimmers of hope, of love, of beauty and meaning and success. there is joy in the middle of, and even because of, the suffering.
"Etsuko had failed in this important way -- she had not taught her children to hope, to believe in the perhaps-absurd possibility that they might win."
2. because life is luck, and the machines are against our favor, but we try anyway -- it matters the most that we still try. no matter how stacked the odds are against us, there is some random chance we're given the wildly arbitrary privilege of victory. sunja, for example, reflects towards the end of the book that her mother and sister-in-law kept saying that a woman's lot is to suffer. mostly they're right (after all, the unifying theme of the book is that women suffer in a variety of unfathomable ways), but there are also glimmers of hope, of love, of beauty and meaning and success. there is joy in the middle of, and even because of, the suffering.
"Etsuko had failed in this important way -- she had not taught her children to hope, to believe in the perhaps-absurd possibility that they might win."
Stephanie
I haven't read the book, but there is an American young adult book called Pinballs. it refers to the fact that the characters were bounced around from one place to another. It sounds from the reviews, that this might apply to this book?
Cynthia Baker
Pachinko is like a pinball machine but with gambling popular with Japanese businessmen. I don't know if it's still the case but there used to be pachinko parlors all over Tokyo. I heard on NPR that a lot are owned by Japanese-born Koreans.
Kavita Dass
Pachinko is a Japanese 'gambling' machine. The name of the book is a metaphor representing that the life of the Sunja and her family is a gamble: you win sometimes or lose sometimes.
Leanne
The author answers in the conversation with her in the back of the book.
ryo
To elaborate on comments on the 'chance' aspect of pachinko, the 'contingency' of the Korean experience in Imperial Japan as explored in The Proletarian Gamble by Ken Kawashima may be apt. Kawashima illustrates Korean experiences of work, housing, and legal rights in Japan, and how it was tenuous and contingent (as in almost all basic life necessities heavily depended on a unreliable foundation of the changing interests of a rigged system or on the caprice of those who had power).
Its not a novel, but an excellent book to provide more insight on the experiences of Koreans living and working in Imperial-Colonial Japan.
Its not a novel, but an excellent book to provide more insight on the experiences of Koreans living and working in Imperial-Colonial Japan.
Cheryl Chambers
What road do we take in life? Much like a game machine, do we thrive despite our choices?
A.J. McMahon
I answered this question here:
https://www.flyintobooks.com/pachinko...
Check it out!
https://www.flyintobooks.com/pachinko...
Check it out!
Katie
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