A review by caseylikekc
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

5.0

What Yoko Ogawa manages to do within The Memory Police is truly spectacular. Especially compared to a lot of today's dystopian SF, Ogawa's world building is extremely simple, and despite a number of very anxious encounters with the book's titular enforcement agency, the narrative itself churns on with a relatively predictable consistency. What The Memory Police evokes most strongly is an growing sense of dread, loss, and heartache, which only grows stronger with every disappearance and every small moment of hope held quietly within this world. And it was that, oddly enough, which kept me from putting the book down. The inevitability of every loss, and the deepening realization that the power of memory spans far beyond any one object or person, is what drives the story forward, through the very end. During my read, I couldn't help but think of Elizabeth Bishop's poem "One Art," especially during the passages featuring the novel being written by the main character.

Highly recommend to anyone who is especially interested in the impacts of cultural trauma upon memory, survivor's guilt, etc. But also wow--really would recommend this to anyone.