The Memory Police

Ogawa first published The Memory Police in Japanese thirty years ago, in 1994. It is a disturbing and beautifully written story about an unnamed narrator who lives on an island where things keep disappearing. And I do not mean a crime spree or that the air is being drugged to cloud memories. It is more surreal and ubiquitous than that.One day, the occupants wake up and all the rose petals on the island have fallen from their bushes and are washing out to sea. Soon after, everyone on the island has forgotten about roses. Nobody remembers why people grow and give roses, how they smell, even what the word means. Except for the people that do. But the Memory Police take care of them.The narrator is herself an author, and weaves her latest novel into the text until the lines become blurred, further demonstrating how slippery reality feels under an authoritarian regime that feeds on fear and learned helplessness, that targets authenticity, nostalgia, and art to break down community. Yet people keep trudging on, going to work, switching professions, marrying and having children, grocery shopping. The worse things get, the more resigned people feel. We surpass a tipping point on restrictions, and everything starts feeling arbitrary and pointless. Each next deprivation, and any resistance to it, feel ever more hollow. Because when the goal is complete control, it's a race to the bottom.It is...something to read in January 2025. Still, the characters are so tender towards each other in a brutal world. They carve out what they can with what they have (not much, and less everyday), and take calculated risks to hold onto each other and keep each other safe. It is exquisitely depressing and simultaneously muted and tense and ambiguous and I will be thinking about this book forever. Unless the Memory Police wipe it out, of course.Excellent audiobook narration by Traci Kato-Kiriyama, especially the voice of the old man. I have to read all of Ogawa and also this again 16 times. For fans of quiet dystopias (bonus points for woman author, bonus BONUS points for translated) like [b:The Wall 59468837 The Wall Marlen Haushofer https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639132182l/59468837.SY75.jpg 573687], [b:I Who Have Never Known Men 60811826 I Who Have Never Known Men Jacqueline Harpman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649947133l/60811826.SY75.jpg 14356], [b:Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind 60754889 Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind Molly McGhee https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1682359454l/60754889.SY75.jpg 95796035], [b:Severance 36348525 Severance Ling Ma https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1507060524l/36348525.SY75.jpg 58029884], the movie The Double (based on [b:Dostoyevsky 210190 The Double Fyodor Dostoevsky https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388265212l/210190.SY75.jpg 236056]), and in some moments even [b:The Book Thief 19063 The Book Thief Markus Zusak https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1522157426l/19063.SY75.jpg 878368].