The Memory Police (2019)-Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder)

You need to have strong suspension of disbelief to enjoy this book

Content Warnings: death, police brutality, confinement/entrapment, rape

Rep: Japanese, Asian

Fav Quote: “Maybe there’s a place out there where people whose hearts aren’t empty can go on living.”

        The Memory Police is a 1994 speculative sci-fi novel that was translated from Japanese to English in 2019. The story is centered around a young novelist who at a young age, her mother was taken away by the “Memory Police.” This police force’s job is to enforce “disappearances” on the island where the story take place. When a disappearance occurs, everyone on the island is meant to forget about the object that disappeared and discard any remanence of it. Such disappearances in the novel include seemingly harmless objects like ribbon, and birds.

        Some on the island, however, are inexplicably immune to the disappearances and maintain their connection to the objects. These people are constantly in hiding for fear of being taken away. The novelist’s mother was one of these people, and she soon discovers that so is her editor R. As disappearances continue and it becomes more and more difficult for these people to hide in plain sight, the novelist takes it upon herself to help R.

        The influence that the novel takes from historical instances of oppressed groups being hidden from an oppressive government is clear. What’s a bit more unclear is the workings of this disappearance system and the aim of this government. The extent that people remember different objects feels inconsistent, particularly when it is unclear how omniscient the narrator is. And while the initial intension of the government seems to simply be a means of exercising control, many of the objects chosen to disappear don’t appear to ultimately benefit the government.

       The pace of the novel feels steady if not a bit dragged on, and the overarching narrative is helpfully interspersed with the writing of the story’s protagonist giving greater variation. That story within the story itself also feels to drag on and branch into odd directions but fits well as a story someone would write in the protagonist’s position. The characters overall are likable and familial but not especially well developed.

3.25⭐️