As the weather gets much nicer and due dates for research papers loom in our periphery, I tend to adopt a transcendentalist approach to life. So, what better way to do so than read magical realism? Recently, there has been a big movement out of Korea and Japan to create a new genre called “healing fiction,” which presents real-life advice through fantastical settings. Unfortunately, its content can become much too saccharine and feel-good, abandoning characters for aesthetics.
“Marigold Mind Laundry” by Jungeun Yun is one of the genre’s bestselling books in Korea. Translated by Shanna Tan into English, it has also infiltrated the American market. The story takes place in a small village near the human world, where the main protagonist, Jieun, develops magical powers. These out-of-control powers lead to her family’s disappearance, and Jieun spends nearly 1,000,000 lives trying to reunite with her family. After no success and her own impending end, Jieun settles in the town of Marigold and magically constructs a laundromat that will wash away their pain. She helps various people struggling with failed relationships and unsatisfied careers, who all want to get rid of the heartbreak they carry. In doing so, Jieun begins to confront her own painful past by connecting to her new ‘found family.’
I loved the concept of this magical laundromat. However, its execution did not quite live up to what I imagined. We had very little insight into the emotional depth and pasts of the customers, which made it difficult to connect with the characters on a deeper level. While I thought the book was cute, it did not extend beyond the surface level. It would have been much more impactful to have developed the characters beyond a simple stereotype and its quick fix. It felt like the characters went from being miserable to suddenly super happy, which takes away from the idea of healing in favor of something much more superficial.
Another big issue was the construction of the dialogue itself. While I cannot pinpoint if this was due to an awkward translation, some sentences would jump from one character’s speech to another without any real warning. It made the book super confusing to follow, especially during the beginning. It jolted you out of the very magical setting being laid out. It almost seemed like the author was making things up as they went to create more cohesion in the story, which ended up doing the opposite.
The author Jungeun Yun is a self-help writer, so it makes sense that this novel is brimming with life advice. But they tell and do not show, which results in these super saccharine and surface-level life lessons that don’t leave much of an impact. Coupled with the poor interiority of the other characters, this makes the advice one-dimensional. Ultimately, despite the world being so magical, it somehow felt dead. The lessons were incredibly repetitive and failed to strike me as helpful. I felt the author was too ambitious: you cannot create such a magical feeling while also simply espousing these grand pieces of advice. You have to show them, and with underdeveloped characters, that is pretty much impossible.
After this book, I am not sure if I will continue reading this ‘healing fiction’ genre. It is hard to give ‘life’ advice when your setting is so otherworldly, as if somehow your inner world is not connected to the real systemic factors. You quickly fall into this neoliberalist trap of personal responsibility in a world that makes it impossible for people to thrive. “Marigold Mind Laundry” could not make up its mind on what it wanted to be: magical realism, self-help, or a book about character evolution. Thus, leaving us with a wishy-washy plot that has no real substance in the end. My fault for choosing a book based on its cover.
1.5/5
