Knew this book would scare me. Didn’t know it would make me cry. Started out as a horror story. Ended like that Simpsons episode where Homer says goodbye to his mother.
There’s an oppressive heaviness to this novel, a thick smothering blanket of guilt and worry. Characters worry about money, about keeping things together, about feeling safe and normal in a society that doesn’t seem to care. And then everything dissolves.
Everyone becomes jelly. Sweet-scented, sticky and pink. No gaps between people anymore. Everything touches everything else.
Who does this? A strange man with a shadowed face. He offers theme park visitors special packets of jelly. They take it and turn into jelly too.
Reminds me of childhood nightmares. The adult world is strange and confusing, even as an adult. I’m still afraid of strange men approaching out of nowhere.
People dissolve all the time in stories. Not a new concept. But the way Cho Yeeun writes it, and the way Yewon Jung translates her words, is so perfectly strange. Their prose captures the atmosphere of stifling heat in a theme park.
This novel’s structure is a little like that Ryunosuke Akutagawa story, In a Bamboo Grove. Different perspectives of a single, horrible incident.
We start out from a child’s point of view. A girl tries so hard to act mature, while her parents constantly argue. She hopes that maybe a nice day at this theme park will keep this family cohesive. Doesn’t matter how hard she tries, though. Her maturity goes unnoticed and unthanked by her childish, bitter parents.
Then she gets lost. Meets another girl in the mushroom-shaped lost children area. This other girl is less mature. This other girl is worried her mother abandoned her for being bratty and demanding. She really just behaved like a normal kid, but guilt is a powerful thing. And that guilt makes the horror more sickening and palpable.
That other girl’s mother comes back for her. Finds her. If only everyone could be found. If only everyone could be close like them. Is it so wrong for the first girl to envy them? It’s not her fault they became jelly. She had no idea that would happen.
“Her mom’s crisp blue dress; Yuji’s small, clammy hand passing her a wet tissue; the blazing sun of a hot summer day; the mushroom-shaped Lost Children Center; the employee at the center that had sounded friendly but had looked annoyed; the names announced over the speakers; the feel of her mom’s damp body against hers as her mom suddenly appeared and took her into her arms; the taste of the sweet smoothie her mom had bought for her; a cat watching from afar.”
We come back to that other girl later, after she has become jelly. She befriends a cat. I won’t spoil it, but that’s when it turns from scary to sad.
“The gray steel reinforcement bars around her formed a strange harmony with the colorful ride parts.”
This isn’t just a horror story. It’s a mix of complicated emotions, impossible to separate. All those feelings melt together like jelly.
I always feel like a lost child. I’m constantly aware of my vulnerability. I’m always hoping someone will find me. I’m always worried people will abandon me for being bad.
Maybe that’s why this book left me so sad. This is a story about being lost, wanting connection, feeling vulnerable in a harsh, cold world. It’s about everything going wrong and feeling bitter on a sunny day.
It’s about loneliness, wanting warmth. It’s about memories, the fragments of images that stick in your mind.
“A familiar yet alien scene unfolded in the darkness. She was lying on a sofa in a sunny room. A woman was vacuuming the floor. The vacuum cleaner and the cleaner and the woman didn’t seem frightening at all. Was it because it was a dream? Though she looked tired, the woman had a gentle smile on her face, and the vacuum cleaner was much smaller than the monsters going around the park.”
It’s about uncertainty. The monsters are inexplicable, coming from some shadowy place. The horrible event is talked about online, but nobody seems to know its starting point, or to understand its true meaning. Nobody except that strange, shadow-faced man.
“Lying between the two of them, Yuji stared up at the ceiling. The pattern on the ceiling of the old apartment became strangely contorted.”
It’s about boxy cement apartments and vacuum cleaners. It’s about disinfectant and blurry videos shared online. It’s about a mysterious theme park and brightly-lit carousels.
It’s about closing gaps.
