The Memory Police

by

274 pages

Published Oct. 28, 2019 by Pantheon Books.

ISBN:
978-1-101-87060-0
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4 stars (4 reviews)

**2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.**

On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.

When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.

A surreal, provocative fable about the …

6 editions

reviewed The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Moody, Evocative

4 stars

It wasn't for me, but I'm still glad I read it. Ogawa's greyscale, slowly grinding dystopia gives the mind's eye a view of a world where epistemic injustice is extremely unsubtle, and still the people oppressed are unable to give voice to this, in fact directly because of it. The mechanics of the world don't quite make sense -maybe something lost in translation- but once you move past the small things that you think need answers and look at the bigger picture, things begin to take shape. Interesting questions about the setting and happenings of the narrative are left unanswered intentionally, and left as exercises to the reader. I was reminded throughout my reading of Yokohama Kaidashi Kiko- that being a 90s reaction to climate change and this a piece of dystopic literature, but the comparison seems apt to me because of the slow creep of impending doom. The eponymous …

reviewed The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Very simple prose, but still a good read.

4 stars

The story was enjoyable enough which was good since there really isn't a massive underlying story going on. You do not get any answers as to what is going on. You are literally following the MC as she is experiencing things in her life disappear and you never know anything more than what she knows.

All the characters in this book are anonymous, no names are ever given, but it felt right and did not detract from being able to follow the story at all.

There is not some big "AH-HA" moment where everything clicks. For me, it came across that in the beginning, the MC is afraid of losing her editor/friend (who does not lose his memories) after having lost her parents. But on the flip side, her friend is watching her deteriorate bit by bit as the memories are taken from her and she begins to forget how …

reviewed The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Radical acceptance, maddening passivity, or…?

4 stars

Kept waiting for the central allegory to explain itself: things disappear on an island, then the memories of them, all enforced by the titular authority. Felt similar to Miéville’s “The City and The City” but fuzzier. There’s no logic to what disappears—birds, stamps, green beans, roses—and people give them up with no resistance. Seeing how the banning of books and critical race theory played out, I think I get it now.