The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
The celebrated author of The Housekeeper and the Professor returns with a chilling Orwellian book about the horrors of government spying.
Things are disappearing on an unidentified island off an unnamed coast, starting with hats and progressing to ribbons, birds, and roses before things get much worse. The majority of people on the island are unaware of these changes, and the few people who have the ability to recall the vanished items must live in fear of the brutal Memory Police, who are dedicated to keeping what has vanished forgotten.
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
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A young woman who is battling to sustain her profession as a novelist devises a scheme to conceal her editor under her floorboards when she learns that he is in danger from the Memory Police. They cling to her writing as the last remaining means of preserving the past while dread and loss encircle them. The Memory Police is a beautiful new work by one of the most fascinating contemporary authors writing in any language. It is a strange, thought-provoking story about the power of memory and the anguish of loss.
The Memory Police were undoubtedly eerie. The Memory Police, who have the power to make things (and people) vanish for good at the drop of a hat, is in charge of a small island off the coast of Japan. The inhabitants of the island can hardly remember the word “bird,” much less what they looked like or any memories connected with them. One day there are birds, the following day they are commanded to be released free. Compliance is expected because disappearances are frequent. The majority of people can easily delete their memories. Unfortunately, it puts their lives in jeopardy and forces those few who can’t go into hiding. This is the situation for R, who is concealed by the book’s anonymous narrator.
We don’t discover the specifics of how the Memory Police function due to a lack of world-building; all we know is that they are stoic individuals who have no qualms about breaking into people’s homes and tearing the contents apart in search of vanished things or signs of resistance. We don’t know how these individuals obtained power, where they came from, or how long they have had it. At least some still hold out hope that they will be the ones to vanish at some point.
Although the plot moves at a leisurely pace for a dystopian novel, I liked it. The characters were given a lot of attention because there was less emphasis on the specifics of this reality. I cherished the narrator’s relationship with the elderly man in particular. Their scenes were some of the book’s best passages for me. I also appreciated R’s attempts to jog the two people’s memories of things they had long since forgotten, even if it was just one of the memories that were involved.
Some of the book’s sections are based on the narrator’s current novel, which she is also writing. I would have exchanged these chapters for more world-building even if they provide a deeper glimpse into the narrator’s mind and how she has absorbed life under the control of the Memory Police. There are so many unresolved questions. It’s possible that this is appropriate for a book about people losing their memories, and with them their knowledge, but as a reader, it’s challenging not to yearn for more background information to fully comprehend the islanders’ life.
