Disneyfied Magical Realism | Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim

Title: Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop
Author: Roselle Lim
Published: August 4, 2020
Genre(s): Magical Realism
Page Count: 305
Rating:

Summary from Goodreads:

Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people’s fortunes—or misfortunes—in tea leaves.

Ever since she can remember, Vanessa Yu has been able to see people’s fortunes at the bottom of their teacups. To avoid blurting out their fortunes, she converts to coffee, but somehow fortunes escape and find a way to complicate her life and the ones of those around her. To add to this plight, her romance life is so nonexistent that her parents enlist the services of a matchmaking expert from Shanghai.

The day before her matchmaking appointment, Vanessa accidentally sees her own fate: death by traffic accident. She decides that she can’t truly live until she can find a way to get rid of her uncanny abilities. When her eccentric aunt, Evelyn, shows up with a tempting offer to whisk her away, Vanessa says au revoir to America and bonjour to Paris. While working at Evelyn’s tea stall at a Parisian antique market, Vanessa performs some matchmaking of her own, attempting to help reconnect her aunt with a lost love. As she learns more about herself and the root of her gifts, she realizes one thing to be true: knowing one’s destiny isn’t a curse, but being unable to change it is.

The very origin of “magical realism” as a genre is rooted in colonialism, oppression, and trauma. The height of this genre’s movement, of course, occurred in Latin America, with the works of Garcia Marquez, Allende, etc.Yet even when writers beyond that region picked up the genre, their works often use the “magic” to write about marginalization/trauma in transformative ways—Angela Carter, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich. 

Magical realism, as a literary movement, is not and has never been “quirky magic powers in a whimsical setting.” The point of this genre is not to create some beautiful fantasy world that resembles our own, only with a classic Walt Disney gloss. Yet that is exactly what Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop is. It’s a picture-perfect ode to a fairytale vision of Paris that, frankly, does not exist, as explored by a woman who can tell fortunes by drinking tea (…or coffee…or lemonade). This book is “magical realism” only in the shallowest, most meaningless sense of the term. Even bestselling American author Sarah Addison Allen’s books have more meat to them than this.

Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop is an odd novel, because although it’s ostensibly a story about the eponymous Vanessa’s journey to self-actualization, it’s really just an extended, orgiastic tourist diary of Paris. Every single bite of food Vanessa eats is lovingly cataloged, her adventures to Versailles and the Eiffel Tower are meticulously detailed, and every piece of artwork she sees is breathlessly described. Of course, the image of Paris project by the text is hopelessly manufactured and rose-colored; Vanessa never does a single thing in Paris that an actual Parisian would do. Rather than giving the vibe of authentic, realistic France, I found this book to be alienating in its sugary, ultra-privileged tone. I mean…who eats bird’s nest soup, foie gras, and a smorgasbord of imported oysters on the daily? Vanessa Yu does, apparently

In the same way that Roselle Lim’s setting for this novel is plastic and artificial, so is the character arc that protagonist Vanessa undergoes. To be clear: this is a book that believes in literal, actual soulmates, each connected by the red thread of fate (which is invisible unless you have Special Powers). And the problem with soulmates is that…no character growth is necessary! You pop out of your amniotic sac already with a guaranteed partner, so you don’t need to be self-aware, you don’t need to put in any work on yourself, and you certainly don’t need to compromise or grapple with the messy business of joining your life to another person’s. Fate will find a way!

I read romance novels, which are…the antithesis to this. (Whatever “this” even is.)  Romance novels have emotion and complexity and genuine personal connections. In contrast, Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop is soulless. I had hoped that somewhere amid the pretentious, overblown descriptions of pastries and Klimt paintings, there might be some humanity to this book. But no. Just as Lim takes only the pretty packaging of “magical realism” and a Parisian setting, she also only takes the outward husk of what makes people tic.

That’s the thing with fate and soulmates, though. Why bother digging deep into life and all of its complications if destiny will inevitably take you where it wants to regardless of your participation?

This book is very pretty, but it has zero substance or staying power.