extremely late to the game but i finally read pachinko by min jin lee and absolutely loved it. naturally, i went to view other takes and reviews on this book and noticed that everyone seems to love koh hansu! this shocked me, as i found him to be a selfish man at best and absolutely despicable enemy at worst. to me, he came off as self-motivated, violent, (more) misogynistic (than other men), and controlling. the only explanation i can think of why people like him: he’s rich.
am i missing something? does he have character motivations that i overlooked? am i crazy? most other characters i could understand the like and dislike for, but hansu just seems irredeemable to me. he literally kickstarts a series of bad events in sunja’s life, whether she chooses to see it that way or not…
by Conscious_Profile257
1 Comment
Is he actually “an enemy” when he was constantly the reason that the protagonists got anywhere? Thinking of the characters in this book as enemies or not enemies is unproductive, I think, ultimately the point is that you can only escape misery through wealth and you can only reach wealth through exploitation of some sort – whether direct like Hansu or indirect like exploiting Pachinko/gambling addiction.
There’s no pure “good” character in the novel except maybe arguably Isak and even that’s very debatable. >!Noa is ultimately brought down by hubris and pride after he’s set up as the golden child, the man who literally keeps his wife at home and doesn’t let her even work is no doubt more misogynist than Hansu, and Solomon and Mozasu are really the least “problematic” characters, but they get there by skipping over the moralizing of the other “good” characters. And obviously in the process they’re not exactly blameless given how they get their wealth.!<
I haven’t really run into people loving Hansu, but I also don’t really believe he deserves any more hate than many other more selfish characters. The novel isn’t a morality tale at all, it shows the world as a place where the rich thrive and the poor struggle, and the only solution is to actually become rich yourself.