Book Review: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Books that touch on generations of a family are not a favorite fictional approach personally, but the way that Min Jin Lee effectively travels from 1910 to 1989 and tells the story of a Korean family in Korea who leaves to Japan and the struggles they face and overcome as minority immigrant is fascinating. Especially for someone like myself who loves Korea and Korean history. This helped me to better understand Korean culture and history while enjoying the story of this fictional family who faced what many Korean families faced through history and sadly still do today (in North Korea and Korean's living in Japan and around the world). The characters are engaging and well developed a long with the various plots and story lines. Now I can't wait to watch the TV miniseries based on the book. Finally, I want to note that the book does not take a skeptical or condescending approach toward the Christian faith and its place in Korean culture and especially with the story of this family. If anything, the book is honest to the struggles of the faith and also the way the Christian faith, if lived out honestly can effectively change peoples lives and generations of a family. I can't recommend this book enough.

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Covid Culture goes Pop

(Nighthawks go home!)

Thinking about when this Covid19, Corona Virus, CCPVirus passes as to our world wide lock down, this event in history will not only be embedded in our collective psyches but also it will play out in various plots of tv shows, movies, books, art, music and plays for years to come.

In many ways it already has:

Love them or hate them, Twenty One Pilots song Level of Concern hits the right notes visually and lyrically.

Some may not like the falsetto voice of Ryan O'Neal from Sleeping At Last, but his rendition of It's a Small World is fitting to remember with this pandemic we are all dealing with the effects. The song has always had a creepy, annoying tone with kids singing it so I never really listened to the lyrics. It was interesting.

Finally, I read The Stand by Stephen King years ago in high school. This isn't recent pop culture but it is old pop culture in a new light of Covid in the U.S. Draw the parallels if you like today.  Here's a great interview of Stephen King on NPR Fresh Air and talking about writing and how Covid 19 changes settings set in 2020. This novel is worth reading as your stuck at home. 

Surprised by Hawking

Sitting down to watch A Theory of Everything I wasn't expecting much.  I had actually decided to watch it because one of my favorite theologians/philosophers, William Lane Craig, posted a video analysis of the science and philosophy of the film.  I wasn't surprised by Stephen Hawking's atheism or his theoretical analysis of the beginning of the universe using quantum mechanics. What I was surprised about is that his wife, Jane Hawking, was a Christian before marriage, during marriage and even more so today.  I was surprised the divorced (spoiler alert, oh I guess too late).  I was surprised that Stephens progressive atheism from agnosticism seemed to stem not only from his worldview, his research, but also from his relationship to his wife.   I saw it based on his views between A Brief History of Time to The Grand Design.  But I didn't know the underlying story.  I enjoyed the film.  I read that Jane thought there should be more emotion to the story to show their struggle together and Stephen thought there should have been more science, but both seemed to endorse it and show them both with warts and all.

Here is an interesting article on Jane Hawking and her book:

The Theory of Everything and the Faith of Jane Hawking

Finally here is the video and analysis from William Lane Craig: