Reviews with content warning for Body horror - The Memory Police

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

44 reviews

mlewis's review against another edition

mysterious reflective sad tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

I have more complicated feelings about this than I expected to, as taken as I was with “The Cafeteria in the Evening and a Pool in the Rain,” a short story of Ogawa’s published about a decade after this novel was.

The prose often felt flat to me, and I wonder whether it's because -- at the risk of sharing too much and in an odd venue -- I've spent the pandemic feeling an increasing sense of derealization. I think this novel was doing something that I didn't appreciate until too close to the end, a feeling reinforced by reading “How ‘The Memory Police’ Makes You See,” a great review by Jia Tolentino. I’m also still learning to read deeply, and may still struggle with the stylistic choice to give a narrator a diegetic voice that doesn’t resonate with me immediately.

I think it’s still a great testament to a book’s force that you know you’ll continue thinking about it and want to revisit it, even if you can’t speak glowingly of it right away.

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chaos_animates's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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3eggomelet's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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matcha_reader's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I was expecting more from this book. Great idea, poor execution - in my opinion.
The writing is okay, very beautiful in the beginning actually. The first pages are what got me into this book in the first place. But then... the narrative gets painfully slow at some points and so many questions are left unanswered (personal preference, but I don't like it when too many plot points are left to my imagination, I want to know what happened!).
Also, the end seemed rushed, as though the author had no idea how to continue the story and decided to end it in the most most simple way. I feel like overall the book was a bit absurd and pointless, but interesting nonetheless.

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morimyths's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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serendipity421's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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jamie_reads_stuff's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book is so sad but so heartwarming. It’s such a beautiful take on trauma, memory, and existence with a larger context of mass manipulation and dystopian police brutality. Something about the book to me was really heart warming about just people living their day to day lives in unfathomable consequences. That being said there’s like super minimal plot, but if you want to read it for the vibes, definitely do so!

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malachinelson's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Damn. This was a read. It captured me. I was hoping for and terrified by the possibility of it ending. 267 pages later I closed the book. I'll be thinking about this one, and revisiting it, often.

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jmarob's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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u_0's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Wow, this got me out of a decade long reading slump. I struggle to have words for this book. It was extremely emotional at times and at others I was pushed to a deeply sad state of calm acceptance similar to the main character in the book. I adore the writing of this book- it's not needlessly complicated or convoluted. It's beautiful and intentional. The Memory Police has a lot of special and unexpected qualities to it- the heartwarming depiction of platonic friendship and love, normal people instead of chosen one/super important characters, and a silent depiction of trauma that hit deep.

I was surprised that the novel within the novel was so mesmerizing and disturbing to me, the ending and the actions of the woman are still haunting me. I will say that the beginning of the book was an unquestionable 5 stars for me, middle slowed down and was a 4 stars, and the ending brought it back to 4 point something. I'm a little dissatisfied that most of my questions never got answers but I understand why Ogawa wrote it that way. The foreshadowing and laying of plot details was so good! I was so impressed with the way that information was revealed and later made relevant. I grew up really loving books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, and this book easily stands among or above them as a cautionary tale and retaliation against oppression and totalitarianism.

The "tropes" felt familiar but then I realized it was the "tropes" of oppression, totalitarianism, and surveillance that were the same, that all these books are fighting the same evil. The last note to my stream of consciousness review is that this book really resonated with me because of my memory loss and disabilities too. The trauma of having something important indiscriminately taken away from you and having to live with a new normal without knowing what you've lost is an open wound for me and definitely explored in the book, if not in this context.

Everyone will walk away with something important to carry with them.

UPDATE:
[ I've sat with it a little longer and I now have an even stronger appreciation for this book. The text is quiet and slow paced, but it's also alive and screaming. I don't think everyone will like the format, but it really spoke to me. So much is written in subtext and to be understood and explored by the reader. This novel is so well crafted and I'm blown away that Ogawa was able to accomplish this tone and effect and still capture the beauty of humanity.

More and more I appreciate the ending and the choice of the slow, violent progression to the conclusion. Someone else wrote here in a review that the real terror of the novel comes from us having to continue reading the story although

the characters don't resist or try to change their fates.

It is much more profound this way and is the first time a story has broken me like that. Perhaps there was nothing that could change things past a certain point, perhaps our characters alone couldn't do it. Maybe it's wrong to expect them to sacrifice their lives to resistance?

I think the most important aspect of this book might be the refrain from making this book a fantasy or adventure about courageously overcoming the Memory police. Instead, the novel sits entrenched in the horror and sees the story to conclusion. The sense of normalcy and adaptation of the community is terrifying. The fact that life goes on is terrifying.

The fact that no one comes to save them is terrifying.

It's a type of tragedy I've never read before but it's one I think we're all living in a version of.

It left me with questions of what I expected from the protagonists. What should be expected from me If I was in their position? What is reasonable to expect of others? When one is powerless, what is there to do? Is there dignity in just surviving? What checks failed for this to happen and how could it have been prevented? How close are we to this now? Is it already too late?

I think it will be very natural for most of us to feel dissatisfied that we never got answers to the mysteries or that

the characters weren't able to save themselves,

but the point of this book was never to satisfy the reader. This was definitely a case where I expected to go on an adventure in the fiction but was instead left questioning why I would look for escape in a setting such as this. At the very least, I know I will always be grateful for this depiction of trauma.

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