How I wish I read Japanese & could have read this story in its’ original language. This is one of those books where I feel something may have been lost in translation. Still, it was a profound read. Let’s review.
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
- Category – Dystopian Sci-Fi Realism
- Length – 274 Pages
- Read Time – 10 Days
- GR Rating – 4 Stars
This story takes place in an unnamed part of the world, on an unnamed island & is told to us by an unnamed protagonist. Given the plot of this story, the lack of names feels eerily intrinsic. Who, what & why are never explained either, adding a spine-chilling layer of anonymity.
The story begins with our unnamed protagonist reminiscing on days past with her mother, someone who was able to remember. Her mother collected & kept things that had been ‘disappeared’. Showing the trinkets to her daughter, our protagonist, from time to time. Explaining what they were & how people used them, or explaining how they interacted with the real thing before its disappearance. Disappearances weren’t announced in any official way, people just kind of caught on to the fact. There would be a “feeling in the air” & people would notice their memories, of whatever the thing was that had been ‘disappeared’, gone or fading.
“The island is stirred up after a disappearance. People gather in little groups out in the street to talk about their memories of the thing that’s been lost. There are regrets and a certain sadness, and we try to comfort one another.”
Once something disappeared from the island peoples memories began to vanish along with it. It didn’t always happen all at once, suddenly like the flip of a switch, more like the ‘disappeared’ thing was too unimportant to remember. Sometimes people with closer ties to the ‘disappeared’ thing found their memories fading away, while for other people it was a quicker “oh, that thing is gone” moment. For example, if you were a gardener & the roses disappeared, the word rose might’ve lingered in your thoughts but the “life” behind the word would be gone. You’d forget how the rose petals felt against your nose, their scent as you breathed them in, where they had once been & that they had been at all.
“But no one makes much of a fuss, and it’s over in a few days. Soon enough, things are back to normal, as though nothing has happened, and no one can even recall what it was that disappeared.”
Some people however did not forget ‘disappeared’ things. Enter the Memory Police, whose duty it is to ensure all traces of ‘disappeared’ things are gone from the island. Including people who remember ‘disappeared’ things. Ominous, yes, very much so, especially when you add on the fact that no one remaining on the island knows the whereabouts of any of the people who can remember or why the memory police took them. Once taken by the memory police these people disappear as well.
While reading I kept wondering if there were any disappearance “rules”, how far could the disappearances go. Early on in the book we’re told of when the birds were ‘disappeared’, if birds, living beings, could be ‘disappeared’ could all of the people be too. Throughout the story I got the sense that was something our unnamed protagonist also wondered & that it was exactly the direction the books ending was headed. There is a level of ambiguity throughout this book, with so little explained & seemingly ambivalent ways of disappearances, that really worked for me, it fit within the overall essence of the story.
Thank you for joining me for another review & as always, happiest reading!
Hasta la próxima – V
Chatting with V 
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