Four generations. I only really wanted the first two.

Better on Sunja than on anybody else in it, and the drop-off after her is steep. The first third I would defend against anyone; Yangjin, the boarding house, the salted cabbage, Isak's cough. Lee writes hunger and rent and the cost of things better than almost anyone working, and I mean that as high praise, because most novelists find money boring.

Then the later generations arrive and the novel starts explaining itself. Solomon's chapters read like a briefing. You can feel her reaching for coverage, one character per decade, one issue per character, and the closing third went past me without leaving much behind.

Lorraine, who taught French and read everything, told me I was being unfair, and that this flattening was deliberate: the further from Sunja, the less anybody is permitted to be. I don't buy it. I have thought about it since, though.

The Dewey question came up as well. We had it in fiction and a parent insisted it belonged in history, a compliment to the research and a misunderstanding of what a novel is for.

Eight. It is a proper big book, the sort you can live inside for a fortnight, and there aren't many of those about any more.