“The Marigold Mind Laundry” by Jungeun Yun

Jungeun Yun

Healing fiction is currently hugely popular in South Korea, and has been since the 2022 release of Welcome to the Hyunam Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum. A raft of English translations are aiming to capitalize on the trend for all things hallyu to make Korean healing fiction an internationally known literary genre. This is a genre that aims to soothe readers exhausted by the pressures of a hypercompetitive and hierarchical society. 

In this respect, it recalls the international vogue for books about the Danish hygge aesthetic of around 2016. Korean healing fiction values cosiness like hygge does, but also takes the positive affirmations found in self-help, and weaves them into a narrative.

While the genre’s current popularity is a response to the stresses and strains of 21st-century life, healing fiction’s origins can arguably be traced back to the Korean popularity of Demian by Herman Hesse, a book that often appears on the Korean ministry of education’s list of recommended books for young people, and which has also inspired K pop megastars BTS. This slim philosophical novel from 1919 is structured around its protagonist meeting and conversing with a series of people, each of which stimulates his personal growth in some way. Covid-19 was also a contributing influence, when, among the stress and upheaval, workaholic Koreans realized the benefits of time at home, spent on hobbies and with family.

The narrative blueprint for Korean healing fiction is simple: somebody, usually a woman in her 30s, is burned out from the rat-race of modern Seoul and reconnects with the simple joys of life through a traditional hobby such as pottery, or by starting a small business such as a bookshop. In a fast-paced South Korea where aesthetics are often given a back seat to convenience, these novels vividly describe the simple pleasures of curling up with a book, drinking a hot cup of coffee, or autumn leaves crunching underfoot, but link these moments to personal growth.

 

Marigold Mind Laundry: A Novel, Jungeun Yun), Shanna Tan (trans) (Dial Press, October 2024)
Marigold Mind Laundry: A Novel, Jungeun Yun, Shanna Tan (trans) (Dial Press, October 2024)

Jungeun Yun’s The Marigold Mind Laundry differs from this template in injecting a fairy tale magic realism to the proceedings. We are introduced to Jieun, a woman living in a fairytale location,  a “village of wondrous powers”. Jieun is told by her parents that she has a magical gift. When her parents presumably die—framed by Yun as a sudden disappearance—Jieun realizes that she must leave the village to go wandering, and to find a use for her exceptional powers. 

This is a classic setup that would have theorist Joseph Campbell  nodding sagely. Campbell posited a “monomyth” template, referred to as “the hero’s journey”, that can be applied to various myths and legends across cultures. What Campbell might not have predicted though, is that Jieun would then set up The Marigold Mind Laundry of the book’s title—a place where emotional traumas are given physical manifestations as stains on a white t-shirt. Jieun can then wash away this trauma by washing the shirt, transforming the stains into beautiful patterns of flowers, and leaving the customer healed.  It’s a metaphor that is everyday and magical at the same time, and a physical manifestation of the process of healing.

The rest of the novel follows Jieun as she heals a series of people, each burdened with their own trauma. The first visitor is Jaeha, a filmmaker facing both creative block and the suffocating pressure to be successful in his industry.  He is followed by his friend Yeonhee, a woman dealing with her partner’s infidelity. The third visitor is Eunbyul, a suicidal social media influencer, who arrives in the village from the big city, and is overwhelmed by a career that has spun out of control. Then there’s Haein, a harried photographer who was bullied in childhood, Yeonhui, a courier with an unhappy childhood, and Yeonja. a woman who answers a knock at her door to discover that her boyfriend has a secret wife and child. The specific texture of these characters’ experiences will resonate more deeply with the novel’s original Korean audience, but their emotional response to these hardships will be widely understood.

 

Eunbyul, the social media personality, has the most raw emotions and is also the most poignant example of this cultural relevance. Her struggle to maintain her social media persona while supporting a demanding, materialistic family shows the strained reality of life as an influencer, which many young Koreans imagine is an escape from everyday pressures. There’s a lot of potential here for Yun to explore how pressures such as beauty standards and gender expectations are reconfigured in the supposed utopia of cyberspace, but since Yun wants to tell at least five stories here, this potential is not fully explored as it might have been.

Likewise, the notion that we could wash away our painful memories raises a fascinating question: do we need these memories to give us strength and knowledge, or should we be free of them? This is a question that belief systems such as Scientology hope to answer. However, the book does not address this question in much depth. Moreover, while the descriptions of these characters and their sad lives is often poignant, the advice they receive from Jieun can be trite, as when she writes the ubiquitous  “dance like nobody is watching you” poem on a t-shirt as if it is a profound zen koan.

The first chapter’s intriguing fairy-tale, magic realist tone is a high point. It draws the reader in, and leaves one yearning to know more about this deliberately thinly-sketched magical village, the source of Jieun’s powers and how they work, and the mysterious disappearance of her parents. A full-blown high fantasy novel by Yun would be an intriguing prospect.

However, once Jieun arrives in a recognizable modern Korea, the book settles into a more matter-of-fact style. Despite the heavy themes such as depression and suicide, this is light reading that can be devoured quickly, which is no doubt part of Korean healing fiction’s appeal. Finally, lovers of healing fiction will be intrigued by the magic realist elements that put a new spin on this genre.


John A Riley is a writer and former university lecturer based in Newcastle, UK.