读完「Pachinko」

「Pachinko」这本小说有种魔力，拿得起就放不下了，必须一直看。这是所有写得好的小说的共同点。就凭这个，也应该推荐给大家看看。英文极简单，有个四级就能看下来；行文平淡，不会刻意用夸张地形容，但是在每个故事情节的过程中，又有那种波涛大浪的感觉，类似看路遥、阿耐的小说，或是Ken Follet写的东西。我个人看起来不知道是缺点还是优点的是，时间跨越很大，每一段时期都有一两个主角，主角之间的转换略显生硬。很多时候感觉是还在这个主人公时，其实已经跨到下一个了。有的时候写出来的情节，也没有后续发展，不知道写出来是为啥，难道是为凑字数吗？也许作者有其他用意，我只是没法发现。

这本书为啥好看呢？因为写的是普通人的生活，有喜怒哀乐，有悲欢离合，这八个字在小说里面全部有；没有金手指，没有不合常理的地方。摊开到1900-1990这一段在日韩国人的奋斗，或者说，活下去的经历，没法不让人感动。

好，举几个例子。我印象最深的情节是，考上了早稻田大学的Noa，发现生父不是一直以来爱戴的Isak，而是提供他学费的Yakuza大佬Koh Hansu时候，他内心崩溃了。一辈子活下来都在找认同感的他，一下子没有了奋斗的方向。于是做了一个普通人都无法理解，但是放到书里又是本该如此的决定，退学，逃离整个家族，隐姓埋名成为日本人，假装有尊严地活下去。在Pachinko Parlor工作，但是生活极其简单，有规律。在离开家族的17年中，拿到日本国籍，假装是日本人，娶妻生子；就在大家以为这辈子也就这样的时候，他妈妈找到了他；他也很高兴地接待了他妈妈，告诉了她家里的近况，告诉她现在有个约会，请她先回Yokohama的家中，他晚上会和她联系。待他母亲离开后，书里没有更多笔墨展开，只是通过Koh Hansu的转告说是在办公室自杀了。我想，他内心是崩溃地吧，死前也会对自己说，自己总算没有逃过去，就这样吧。

第二个我留有印象的情节就是solomon被裁的故事。solomon在投行工作，close了一个deal，但是这个deal因为涉及到卖方在成交后死亡的现实，被无情裁员。看下来就是年少初入社会，对人无比信任，掏心挖肺地对待自己上司，但是当事情goes south，被无情地当成了ass wiper。于是我想了一下自己的经历，我考，这种热脸热心的事情，我发现我没少干。只是在职场中，运气好一些，没出现这么可怕的上司/同事。嗯，说到这个，同一个公司的没有，隔壁公司的，倒是没少在大老板面前投诉我，又是微信截图，又是活都是我干的说辞，好笑到失禁。

因为说的是普通人的故事，看起来格外真实。也因为自己就是普通人，导致小说代入感及其强烈。读者就跟着书中人物一起起伏，小说看到最后能看出电视的感觉，就是想放下小说，大骂里面的人物，但又舍不得放下。好小说不多，这本书，我肯定打5星推荐。

参考书评：The Misplaced Props in Pachinko，我本人是在首尔工作过几年，韩语现在还记得一些，所以这里不停出现的以英文方式书写的韩文词汇，我都认得，看起来还有些亲切，但是对于未接触过的读者，挑战还是有的，因为这些词汇直接就跳出来，也不给任何解释。只是用的够频繁了，读者能够猜出意思。当然，这就是最自然的语言学习方式。

Just because they’re Korean doesn’t mean they’re our friends. Be extra careful around other Koreans; the bad ones know that the police won’t listen to our complaints.

In a way, the two women tried to obey Yoseb in their disobedience—they did not want to hurt Yoseb by defying him, but the financial burdens had become impossible for one man to bear alone.

Noa did not believe in God anymore. God had allowed his gentle, kindhearted father to go to jail even though he had done nothing wrong.

“It’s been a long time,” Hansu said calmly, entering the restaurant. Sunja stepped several paces away from him.

Besides, they’ll kill you in the North, and they’ll starve you in the South. They all hate Koreans who’ve been living in Japan.

But know this: Those communists don’t care about you. They don’t care about anybody. You’re crazy if you think they care about Korea.”

“For people like us, home doesn’t exist.” Hansu took out a cigarette, and Kim rushed to light it.

she loved her husband, and she loved Yesu Kuristo, her god, whom Kim could not believe in and who did not allow his followers to have sex outside of marriage.

“Koreans. We argue. Every man thinks he’s smarter than the next. I suppose whoever is in charge will fight very hard to keep his power.” He repeated only what Hansu had told him, because Hansu was right, especially when it came to seeing the worst in people—in this, he was always right.

Yangjin was exhausted herself. In three years, she’d turn sixty. When she was a girl, she’d believed that she could work harder than anyone under any circumstances, but she no longer felt that way. Lately, Yangjin felt tired and impatient; small things bothered her. Aging was supposed to make you more patient, but in her case, she felt angrier. Sometimes, when a customer complained about the small size of the portions, she wanted to tell him off. Lately, what upset her most was her daughter’s impossible silence. Yangjin wanted to shake her. The kitchen was the warmest room in the house, and the electric lights emitted a steady light. Against the papered walls, the two bare lightbulbs attached to the ceiling by their electric cords made stark shadows, resembling two lonely gourds hanging from leafless vines. “I still think about our girls,” Yangjin said. “Dokhee and Bokhee? Didn’t they find work in China?” “I shouldn’t have let them go with that smooth-talking woman from Seoul.

It seemed as if the occupation and the war had changed everyone, and now the war in Korea was making things worse.

I won’t pay you very well when you start, but you’ll be able to get by.

That evening, when Noa did not call her, she realized that she had not given him her home number in Yokohama. In the morning, Hansu phoned her. Noa had shot himself a few minutes after she’d left his office.

And her mother, on hearing that Mozasu wanted to marry her, said, “Honto? To a pachinko Korean? Haven’t you done enough to your poor children? Why not just kill them?”

If life allowed revisions, she would let them stay in their bath a little longer, read them one more story before bed, and fix them another plate of shrimp.

if he followed all the rules and was the best, then somehow the hostile world would change its mind. His death may have been her fault for having allowed him to believe in such cruel ideals.

“So then the success tax comes from envy, and the shit tax comes from exploitation. Okay.” Solomon nodded like he was starting to get it. “Then what’s the mediocre tax? How can it be wrong to—?” “Good question, young Jedi. The tax for being mediocre comes from you and everyone else knowing that you are mediocre. It’s a heavier tax than you’d think.”

“Jedi, understand this: There’s nothing fucking worse than knowing that you’re just like everybody else. What a messed-up, lousy existence. And in this great country of Japan—the birthplace of all my fancy ancestors—everyone, everyone wants to be like everyone else. That’s why it is such a safe place to live, but it’s also a dinosaur village. It’s extinct, pal. Carve up your piece and invest your spoils elsewhere. You’re a young man, and someone should tell you the real truth about this country. Japan is not fucked because it lost the war or did bad things. Japan is fucked because there is no more war, and in peacetime everyone actually wants to be mediocre and is terrified of being different. The other thing is that the elite Japanese want to be English and white. That’s pathetic, delusional, and merits another discussion entirely.”