A review by caitlin_89
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

1.0

feel bad giving this 1 star, because know this is from japan's most celebrated novelist, but... It was a 1-star experience for me. hated it. IDK if the soul of it was lost in translation, or what, but it felt very derivative and try-hard for me. There'sa moment where the fictional facsimile of the main character compares her disappearing life to the quick upshot and return of a typewriter key, and got the impression the whole book was clumsily built around that one metaphorical image. The novel within the novel sucked and was way too on-the-nose. The "memory police" aren't compelling when they have no motivation or rationale. The book has no feeling when the characters don't care about what's happening to them. The magical elements of disappearance make no sense in any way - even magical realism should follow *some* kind of logic; why do some things actually disappear and others have to be manually destroyed? why is everyone mindlessly complying? If something (like a ferry?) is forgotten, HOW DOES EVERYONE STILL KNOW WHAT IT IS? If the concept of birds disappears, how do you even remember your dad studied birds? the logic just doesn't logic.
There were also some really random and bizarre moments, like the memory of climbing the lighthouse steps with a cousin who "licked all my cuts." Excuse me? This should have been a short horror story a la shirley jackson. Whoever suggested this concept could hold the weight of a novel was wrong.