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A review by asreadbycatarina
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
2023 Reading #0 (5/9) | Winter Reads
(The fragility of freedom.)
_______
Mini-review: for the time it took to pick up, and for me to follow through with reading it, this was pretty good! After a few years, I was finally reminded of why I used to love dystopias so much.
_______
As mundane objects start vanishing one by one on a small island, its citizens also begin to lose all their memories. With them, the whole of society slowly seems to erase itself, little by little, every new disappearance causing more of a stir than the previous one. This is the premise of The Memory Police: Yoko Ogawa, an eerie dystopian novel that explores notions of freedom and oppression, mortality and remembrance.
Those who do not and cannot forget are taken away by the Memory Police — and the only way to avoid it is to go into hiding. This is where the story takes us: our unnamed main character, a young female writer, decides to hide her editor, R, in a secret room. R still remembers many things, as the protagonist’s mother once did. The fear of losing another important person in her life seems unbearable, and R readily accepts his fate. Alongside a gentle and hardworking old man, the main character navigates what is left of her world and of the people she loves.
Even though the plot was very original, I think it lacked depth sometimes. The main character’s luck was too good to be true — she escaped far too many times for it to become a believable thing! — and the ending was pretty unsatisfactory, in my humble opinion. It was vague and somewhat boring, definitely not what I was expecting for a book with such hype around it. Regardless, it was a great reminder of why dystopias were once my favourite genre and why I deeply miss reading them more. Also: it is impossible not to draw a parallel between this book and what happened during World War II and the Holocaust: the secret room screams Anne Frank to me!
Ultimately, this book confronts us with the fragility of freedom, how it can so easily be taken away from us, and of memories. Memories have the power to keep us alive — that is what makes this book both so horrific and emotional at the same time. It is definitely a slow burn (it took me some time to get on with it!), but the suspense and the existential questions keep the reader going.
P.S.: Reading this book was a saga in itself: I started on paperback, moved on to ebook, and pretty much finished it on audiobook!
[Read between 2 April 2022 - 13 February 2023. | Review written on 13 February 2023. || I am also on Bookstagram and Goodreads as @asreadbycatarina!]
(The fragility of freedom.)
_______
Mini-review: for the time it took to pick up, and for me to follow through with reading it, this was pretty good! After a few years, I was finally reminded of why I used to love dystopias so much.
_______
As mundane objects start vanishing one by one on a small island, its citizens also begin to lose all their memories. With them, the whole of society slowly seems to erase itself, little by little, every new disappearance causing more of a stir than the previous one. This is the premise of The Memory Police: Yoko Ogawa, an eerie dystopian novel that explores notions of freedom and oppression, mortality and remembrance.
Those who do not and cannot forget are taken away by the Memory Police — and the only way to avoid it is to go into hiding. This is where the story takes us: our unnamed main character, a young female writer, decides to hide her editor, R, in a secret room. R still remembers many things, as the protagonist’s mother once did. The fear of losing another important person in her life seems unbearable, and R readily accepts his fate. Alongside a gentle and hardworking old man, the main character navigates what is left of her world and of the people she loves.
Even though the plot was very original, I think it lacked depth sometimes. The main character’s luck was too good to be true — she escaped far too many times for it to become a believable thing! — and the ending was pretty unsatisfactory, in my humble opinion. It was vague and somewhat boring, definitely not what I was expecting for a book with such hype around it. Regardless, it was a great reminder of why dystopias were once my favourite genre and why I deeply miss reading them more. Also: it is impossible not to draw a parallel between this book and what happened during World War II and the Holocaust: the secret room screams Anne Frank to me!
Ultimately, this book confronts us with the fragility of freedom, how it can so easily be taken away from us, and of memories. Memories have the power to keep us alive — that is what makes this book both so horrific and emotional at the same time. It is definitely a slow burn (it took me some time to get on with it!), but the suspense and the existential questions keep the reader going.
P.S.: Reading this book was a saga in itself: I started on paperback, moved on to ebook, and pretty much finished it on audiobook!
[Read between 2 April 2022 - 13 February 2023. | Review written on 13 February 2023. || I am also on Bookstagram and Goodreads as @asreadbycatarina!]