Rawr Reader,
While I failed my reading goal last year, I'm glad that I am having such a good start to 2022. Two books in just over two weeks? When in all honesty I really feel like I haven't spent any time reading? I'm feeling good about this year ya'll.
When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.
A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning
new work from one of the most exciting contemporary
authors writing in any language.
Reference:
A little—okay maybe a lot ironic, but I don't remember where I first saw this. All I know is I added this to read on Goodreads in March 2020, around the time I really feel like time stopped for the world.
Review:
Something I want to commit myself to doing more this year is reading non-American authors. Reading authors from other countries not only introduces you to obvious cultural differences in conversation and plots but also the contrasts and uniqueness of tones and structures. It's very refreshing. While stories that have been translated may lose some of its meaning, Ogawa and her translator Stephen Snyder handled a melancholy subject with grace and gentleness. Memories in this world are treasured by few and hunted by a faceless government whose greatest weapon seems to be of having no apparent goal. When we meet our unnamed narrator, there are no immediate national pressures for war, there are no internal politics, there are simply phenomena running parallel to magical realism in the sense things disappear from people's memories and the easy acceptance that follows in those losses in day-to-day life.
One thing that pulled me into the story that I loved was its simplicity. Reminiscent of a children's story in worldbuilding and character casting, yet still heavy with the weight of its themes. Never once did I find the narrative an imposition. It's handled with the respect and carefulness it deserves. There are few named characters, no geographical markers in the formal sense of city or country names, so apart from few expository things being mentioned like kimonos and ramune, you could place this regimented, borderline fascist society anywhere in the world, anytime in the future. This is dystopian, without the sensation I normally characterize dystopian novels with.
Not to say this is about a writer simply rolling with the punches, she takes action and sets out to save her editor with a cape of heroism not seen in others in her community. The most heart-warming twist is that the man she saves in turn sets out to save her. They work on her novel together as they endeavor to survive this troubling time and the increasing loss of items and her memories attached to those items.
The novel the writer and her editor work on dances with the main narrative. While I won't go in depth about the details, I love how Ogawa has the unnamed writer explore the writing process, the theme of forgetting and powerlessness against it, and the struggle to want to remember when others seem to almost own the memories more than you who lived them.
Nearing the end you begin to see how things disappearing can worsen. In fact it's hard to believe what those extremes are, but stepping back, looking at what Ogawa is examining, the subject matter and its relation to the people in our lives, it seems natural that it would come to that conclusion. The ending is as gentle as the pacing of the storyline, like a leaf falling from its stem. Without rush. Without purpose. Life is lived in the fall and for me that's the beauty of The Memory Police.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Quote:
"I thought I could hear the sound of my memory burning that night."
"When the surface of your soul begins to stir, I imagine you want to capture the sensation in writing."
-Yōko Ogawa, The Memory Police
My Goodreads:
Next To Read:
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
Spoilers:
It was near the end but I was ruined by Squid Games (spoiler ahead for the show!!!) (seriously don't read on if you haven't seen the show and plan to) (LAST last chance friends, okay continue at your own risk) but I believed that the old man was going to have something to do with the Memory Police. Or that there would be a man behind the curtain of it all. But this assessment is heavily influenced by Western storytelling and the need for action and death and an evil genius with an enviable laugh and a tangible reason behind the destruction and withering elements of a plot. Which I'm glad there wasn't since the story is literally about something you can't hold and see disappearing from your eyes but not necessarily from all others.
The ending is rough for me. I needed to ruminate on it because of my conditioning to needing that man behind the curtain, but upon reading others' reviews and reflecting on the passing of time in the story, I am satisfied with this ending. It's not as open as I was led to believe nearing its final pages, but there is a delicate silence left remaining. The hidden man R finding the courage to leave his hidden space (although it was less courage than more means to survive as his source of food and other necessities had "disappeared") could be interpreted as either a physical release of colorful memories into the world that had become gray and lifeless, and also the spirit of the unnamed writer, whose main character had lost her voice had found freedom and escape. Did the unnamed writer find the escape her voiceless typist character couldn't? The unnamed writer's memories lived on in R and while her body may not continue on in life, his memories of her did.
One of my favorite moments, the most visually appealing, which was also one of the saddest moments in my eyes was the disappearance and "funeral" of roses. I could picture the town watching as the river of shades of red flowed into the ocean for days until the last of the petals were gone. Such a beautiful scene, and an omen for what would come.
A heartwarming series of events was the realization that the unnamed writer wasn't the only one hiding someone who retained their memories. Who knows how many more people did it in fear of others finding out the truth. It's likely that there were more people hiding and sheltering these memory retainers than not. Which brings me to the real shining message (of people not necessarily about memories and TMP), that more people are decent in the face of injustice and confusion and will risk themselves to help someone else than not. We see it over and over again with the unnamed writer and the old man. We see it in unnamed townsfolk. It's sad that our protagonists both fade and pass on without us ever getting to know their names. But maybe that's what Ogawa wants. Us to remember their spirits more than their names. It's about how we feel about the memories, about how we feel about the people we made memories with, not specifics, not names.
Man what a story. I'm going to need to reread this soon.
Until Next Time,
Nicole Ciel