A review by sebby_reads
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

The Memory Police by a Japanese novelist Yōko Ogawa was written in 1994. It is a compelling story of a dystopian place on an unnamed island where things, both man-made and from nature, are disappearing. The book was the finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature and the 2020 International Booker Prize.
On the island, one by one, things like hats, ribbons, photographs, perfume, birds, and roses cease to exist one day and soon people forget about their existence. A few people who have the ability to remember these lost items are hunt down by the Memory Police to make sure these vanishing things are completely wiped out physically and in memory. People who remember also become disappearing. Some are arrested by the Police and never heard about them again. Some hide in safe houses of their acquaintances and some escape from the island.
The protagonist is a novelist who lost her parents when she was young. Like majority of the people, she also forgets things after their disappearance. She can barely recall her memory with her mother who has the ability to remember the lost objects. She has very little acquaintances—her editor and an old man she knowns since childhood. When she finds out her editor also has the ability remember the lost things, she decides to hide him in her house with the help of the old man. As the story continues, more things vanish. The struggles our narrator endures to the loss of things around her under the surveillance of draconian laws are depicted remarkably.
In 2019, an immaculate translation by Stephen Snyder was published. It effortlessly carries the cadence of original story. Simply put, it is an Orwellian novel but with an essence of hypnotic narration. People are forced to get rid of the things that are supposed to be gone and the Police wants them to eradicate the existence even in our memory. In a way, our memories are our voices and having memory itself is a crime in this story. The event of each disappearance was told beautifully with such subtlety. The collective traumas of fear and loss of a person living in a dystopian world is told in a cinematic narrative.
The tragic differences between ones who can remember and those who can’t (but fight to the authority to an extent) are portrayed and it is painful to read how they try to console one another under the totalitarian tyranny. In some chapters, the writer includes some parts of a novel that the narrator is working on. She writes about a character who has lost her voice in the story, drawing parallels between her world and the character she created. Writing a novel is another way of preserving the things that are lost or protecting one’s memory.
The theme of this speculative fiction is people’s attempt to preserve the past with the power they have. We all battle with losing valuable things and people we cherish around us as well as our own existence. Creating art (taking photograph, writing stories, painting, sculpture, etc) is our way of keeping memories as well as our resistance towards the authority. It is such a provocative read and very surreal, too.