The Memory Police
Ratings276
Average rating3.7
I thought the story would take a positive turn at the end. But I was mistaken.
The last 4 chapters left a void in my heart eventhough I have kind of foreseen the events that took place.
Truly a very unique and emotional read for me. A piece of fiction where I expected an explanation (for the disappearances at least) but didn't get any and had to adjust my thoughts about it accordingly - just like the characters in the book had to adjust to the disappearances on the island.
Remember how you felt when you first read 1984 and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle? Don't let that disappear.
Though I wouldn't quite label this Orwellian, The Memory Police certainly was haunting.
Somewhere in the ocean off Japan, there's an island run by the Memory Police who can make objects (and people) disappear forever at a whim. One day there are birds, the next day they're ordered to be set free, and soon enough, the people of the island can hardly recall the word ‘bird' let alone what they looked like or any memories associated with them. Disappearances are a common occurrence and compliance is expected. Most people are able to erase their memories without effort. Unfortunately for those few who can't, it means their lives are in danger and they must go into hiding. Such is the case for R who is hidden by the unnamed narrator of the book.
Lacking in world-building, we don't learn exactly how the Memory Police operate, only that they are stoic figures who think nothing of barging into people's homes and tearing the contents apart in search of disappeared items or evidence of resistance. We don't know how these people came to power, what their origin is, or how long they've been in power. It's been a while at least, and several hold out hope that they will someday be the ones to disappear.
The story itself has a slow pace for a dystopian novel but it worked for me. Less focus on the technicalities of this universe allowed for a lot of attention on the characters. I especially loved the narrator's friendship with the old man. Their scenes were my favorite parts of the book. I also liked R's efforts to try and get the two to remember items they'd long forgotten, even if it's just one of the associated memories.
The narrator is a novelist and some sections of the book follow the book she's writing. While these passages give a deeper look into the narrator's mind and how she's internalized life beholden to the Memory Police, I would have traded them for more world-building. So many questions go unanswered. Perhaps this is fitting for a book about people losing their memories (and in turn knowledge), however as a reader, it's difficult not to crave more build-up for a full understanding of the islander's lives. Nevertheless, the ideas of this book — manufactured memory loss — are too intriguing not to enjoy.
3.5
I loved the writing a lot, especially in the first half of the book. Before the she tries to save her editor and a lot of things got more uncomfortable and weirder from that point onward. I understand that it might be to explore the possibilities or the strangeness of it all, but if it makes me uncomfortable, I can't love it. Also, the ending was not very satisfactory imo. The novel as a whole was not very impressive and it was just pretty words and no plot. And I have a soft spot for pretty words but the story and the end really weren't for me. It didn't ruin it, but the end just felt rather abrupt, as in I expected something more to happen. Very interesting concept and I think I will have to revisit this book one day and maybe it'll make more sense if I do.
I wish I had gotten along with this more, but it was a little flatter than I expected. It was reminiscent to me of 1984 in some ways, although I wouldn't draw a tight comparison between the two. I thought the titular Memory Police would play a more pivotal role in this, but it felt like they only existed to add stakes to the story. I just felt a lot of “why?” reading this. I could draw connections to colonialism and the erasure of cultures, or the oppression of afab bodies, but it didn't feel like a fully formed commentary was there. I was largely bored by this and although some aspects were compelling, I felt let down.
still don't 100% understand what happened but definitely enjoyed myself regardless!!
How do you feel after waking up? There is disorientation and irritability, and you're trying to remember what you dreamed about - but it all slips away. If you could distil that feeling of disorientation and grudging acceptance that comes when you have awoken and compressed it into a novel - it would be The Memory Police.
There's so much and yet so little to talk about this. You could say that the novel has its own Kafkaesque and Orwellian sense of prose and humour, true, but that would be doing it a disservice - Ogawa has her unique brand of melancholy that has to be seen to be believed.
Then again, many questions are left unanswered - how and where does this island exist? How was the technology for selectively discarding people's memories made in an environment where even aeroplanes and mobiles are not present? Why do some people remember everything? What is the moral, if any, of the story-within-a-story? Ogawa doesn't bother answering these questions, and for a good reason - her focus is on the characters more than the setting.
The characters are the fulcrum of the story - but the mute girl and the typing teacher, the Memory Police and the island have a life of their own. I think that is what Ogawa's entire point is, about how inanimate objects and sensations dictate our life. “Hole in the heart” and “hollow soul” are terms that repeatedly pop up when even something like calendars disappear - and I began to wonder if these weren't hyperbolic terms after all.
As a story, The Memory Police is amazing - but as a thought experiment, it is even better - I would rank it amongst the classics of dystopian fiction. Reading this amid a rewriting of history through politics around the world imbued me with a sense of nervous energy I didn't know I had.
I really wanted more from this book. It had an interesting premise, but the story never really seemed to go anywhere. The characters weren't unlikeable, but there wasn't a whole lot of dimension and the themes were heavy handed.
slow burn, the last 2/3 chapters were basically Endgame with characters disappearing. good writing but the pacing was not my forte.
A reviewer named Laura McGaha mentioned this article and it cleared up some confusion.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/how-the-memory-police-makes-you-see
Plus Lavka's answer in one of the FAQs made sense as well.
Unsettling, melancholic, and serene.
I feel numb.
I'm not one who enjoys anything remotely depressing or distressing but the writing style seems to have consumed me somehow.
Miksiköhän Muistipoliisi, joka on alunperin ilmestynyt Japanissa jo vuonna 1994, on nyt päätetty suomentaa? Asiaan ehkä liittyy kirjan englanninnos vuodelta 2019, se kun pääsi muun muassa International Booker Prizen ja World Fantasy Awardin lyhytlistoille. Mikäpä siinä ja kaipa se toisaalta vähän niin on, että menestynyt englanninnos vauhdittaa usein muunkielisen kirjallisuuden menestystä – luin aivan vastikään Annie Ernaux'n kirjan Vuodet, joka sekin tuli suomeksi vuosien viiveellä menestyneen englanninnoksen myötä.
Muistipoliisi on joka tapauksessa edelleen ajankohtainen. Se kuvaa epämääräisen japanilaista saarta, jonka asukkaat elävät pienimuotoista elämäänsä keskellä asioiden unohtamista ja katoamista. Ihmiset vain heräävät aamulla siihen, että joku tuikitavallinen asia on unohtunut. Yhtäkkiä tämä asia – vaikkapa postimerkit, valokuvat tai linnut – ei enää merkitse kenellekään mitään. Kaikki vain hankkiutuvat eroon kadonneista tavaroista, eikä niitä sen jälkeen enää muistella.
Jotkut kuitenkin muistelevat. Joukossa on niitäkin, jotka eivät unohda. Heidän mielessään kadonneet esineet pysyvät kirkkaina. Sitä varten on salainen muistipoliisi, jonka toiminta on tosin kovin näkyvää ja näyttävää: vihreäasuiset poliisit kiertelevät metsästämässä muistajia ja hävittämässä kadonnutta, kiellettyä tavaraa.
Kirjan päähenkilö on nuori kirjailija, jonka kustannustoimittaja paljastuu yhdeksi muistajista. Kirjan jännite rakentuu siitä, kun kirjailija päättää piilottaa kustannustoimittajan kotiinsa suojaan muistipoliisilta. Kun muistot rapistuvat ympärillä ja elämä käy yhä vaikeammaksi, kirjailija ja kustannustoimittaja samalla lähentyvät toisiaan ja etääntyvät toisistaan, kun toinen muistaa ja toinen ei.
Muistipoliisi on tunnelmaltaan rauhallinen, mutta hyytävä romaani. Tapahtumat etenevät vääjäämättömästi kohti kadotusta. Romaanissa piirtyy kuva totalitaarisesta dystopiasta, jossa kansalaisten ajatuksia kontrolloidaan ja elinpiiri kutistuu jatkuvasti rajallisemmaksi. Toisaalta sen voinee lukea myös kuvauksena etenevästä muistisairaudesta; eräänlainen mielen dystopiahan sekin on.
Got me feeling all type of emotions, mostly anxiety & left me empty.
Literally don't know how to feel about the ending, there's a hint of sadness, melancholy but a whole lot of nothingness, as if my soul got emptied.
Definitely recommend !
Got me feeling all type of emotions, mostly anxiety & left me empty.
Literally don't know how to feel about the ending, there's a hint of sadness, melancholy but a whole lot of nothingness, as if my soul got emptied.
Definitely recommend !
Another example of a book's premise being far more interesting than the book itself. You live on an island where you wake up one day and something from your life has just vanished. The first incident in the book involves birds, so everyone woke up and suddenly the concept of “bird” holds no meaning. You don't remember what a bird was, you don't know what a bird is, all knowledge of “bird” is removed by the Memory Police. Holding onto past concepts like birds, flowers, calendars, is forbidden, and it's considered taboo to reminisce or talk about items that have been “disappeared”. As the book progresses, the disappeared items take the form of increasingly important and valuable things, and while disoriented and discomfited, the people are expected and encouraged to take it in stride and move on.
Certain people are immune to this, where they retain all memories and knowledge of things that have been disappeared, and if discovered by the Memory Police, these people are taken away and never seen again. Our main character is not one of these people, but does hide away her editor as he is one of these people. Romance blooms as romance does in books like these, and the editors tries his best to make the main character remember things that had been lost and realize how awful things truly are.
It's a very dystopian novel, and one without any real satisfying answers or conclusion. We never find out who or what the Memory Police act on behalf of, or why these things are being removed. I gather the novel is about how complacency is a creeping, insidious beast (the things disappeared start out innocuous and easily missed and slowly ramp up in importance and meaning as the story progresses), and that people should never just accept things as they are, but honestly the book came off boring and incomplete. This would've had more meaning if we had more reason to care about the people and their fate.
Really liked this one. I'll put in content warnings later.
Deeply sad, lonely, depressing. Encompasses a mood or idea I think about a lot.
The Memory Police is a haunting dystopian story where the citizens of an island suffer en mass from items in their lives “disappearing” both from the world around them and their own memories. I loved the world, the tone, and the characters in the novel.
There were some inconsistencies in the book that I can only imagine were mistakes (disappeared items pop up in the story again as if they haven't disappeared) and loose ends that really diminished the level of storytelling for me.
The first half of the book is super compelling, then it just sort of trails off and doesn't explain enough to be satisfying or thought-provoking.
There's a lot to say about this book. I went from enjoying it to not enjoying before landing on very much liking it.
Throughout reading this, I couldn't separate it from the atmosphere of the Pedro Costa film, Casa de Lava, which was also about an isolated island, death and isolation. While they were both very different, they align mood-wise quite well.
I noticed a lot of western talk about the book centered on it being “Orwellian,” a term I've grown to loathe in its overuse. I'm not sure this book was about big, sweeping statements or warnings about society as much as it was about the concept and process of creating art and coping with trauma.
Focusing on the “memory police” themselves doesn't quite connect the book's main narrative with the sub-narrative of the novel the main character was writing.
The novel was a woman who was defined by her typing and relationship with her abusive, controlling typing teacher until she lost herself completely. The main narrative was a woman living on a dystopian island who's entire existence was tethered to two men; the first an old man that was a family friend and a father figure, the second her editor, who ran away from his family to live in her basement to avoid this “memory police.” The relationship is different but... Sort of isn't, too. She's disassociating from the world around her but he's the “captive” of her fading memories who seems to legitimately care for her and wants her to be what she was before, which she cannot do. He's living in a small, hidden room in her home, while the character in her book was living in a hidden room above a church without her voice.
The main character's last remaining thing is her voice after the old man is gone.
These relationships with men seem to be the binding threads to me, moreso than jackboots taking things away. R won't let her move on, the typing instructor only wanted to violate her until he found a new toy. It's easy to read the typing teacher as a part of the publishing industry, elevating a “fresh, young female voice,” controlling it until there's nothing left, then replacing her voice with another to repeat the cycle.
The role of the protag's mother can't be discounted, either. R wishes her to explore that relationship and the loss of her mother, who left behind memories meant just for her, but had to be interpreted by R. After they find the last of her mother's gifts and she gives the lemon candies to the old man, it sort of seals off a part of her history.
Yeah, like I said, lots to think about.