Memory Police

The concept of the book fascinated me the moment I read about it for the first time. People living in fear of an authoritarian regime as memories are being forcibly taken away from them? There was certainly a great potential, but sadly, I feel that even though the prose and the general vibe of the novel itself does not disappoint as it kept me hooked all the way to the end, the story, the characters and the many tropes that appeared and then had been left abandoned keep the book down at its core.

I made an entire list of issues I have with the novel, but I want to start things off with some well-deserved praise. “The Memory Police” is written beautifully. I’ll forever remember the scene of the disappearance of the roses. The river coloured red, white and pink as millions of petals had flown down into the sea. How the protagonist felt about it, how she looked at the bare stems of the rose bushes and tried to fill the gap that this disappearance have left. There are many moments like that throughout the book – beautiful and nostalgic. Another trope that I found quite clever is that the protagonist is a writer. While such a thing is often considered cliché, here is serves an important and valid purpose. Because writers are people that make up stories, fill the pages with words that are, in a way, a twisted reflection of the real world, they are also the most effected by things disappearing. There is another novel present within “The Memory Police”, one written by the protagonist that ties very well with the plot of the book and it’s just so satisfying of how the main plot and the plot of that fictional novel converge together at the end.

Now I can finally mention the aspects of the novel that grind my gears and ultimately make it fall short.

The trio of the protagonist, the old man and R works fine in my opinion, and there certainly some moving and memorable lines spoken between them, but it’s quite frustrating just how static they are. It’s blatantly obvious that they exist in the novel only as means to tell the story, not as beings that evolve, develop and feel real.

Next, it is impossible not to draw parallels between “The Memory Police” and “1984” with their dystopian theme. However, in my opinion “The Memory Police” pales in that comparison. Despite being much shorter, “1984” manages to explore the world in detail, flesh out the characters and tell a horrifying, yet compelling story. “The Memory Police” doesn’t really do any of that. We don’t ever get even a remote explanation or a theory of what the motives of the titular organization may be. Why are they making all of these disappearances? Is it because they simply want control? Is there some ideology attached to it? What do they gain from it? Yoko Ogawa never elaborates on that. What’s particularly frustrating in the context is that, for example, at the beginning of the book we get to hear about that secret program of The Memory Police where they put effort into decoding human genome in a way that would allow them to target people who are immune to the disappearances. The protagonist’s neighbour is a researcher working on that program. This could be a good hook worth pursuing, I thought. Eventually though, the man himself is targeted by the authorities, disappears, and we never ever hear about this plot point again. It’s really a minor thing, but there are plenty of such instances, only piling up as the plot continues, so when the book ultimately ended without tying any of them I was left rather disappointed. That is not to say I don’t enjoy any mystery in novels, on the contrary, but “The Memory Police” simply doesn’t provide any base upon which the reader can build a solution, no pieces to assemble the puzzle, so all that remains is confusion.

It wasn't for me, but I'm still glad I read it. Ogawa's greyscale, slowly grinding dystopia gives the mind's eye a view of a world where epistemic injustice is extremely unsubtle, and still the people oppressed are unable to give voice to this, in fact directly because of it. The mechanics of the world don't quite make sense -maybe something lost in translation- but once you move past the small things that you think need answers and look at the bigger picture, things begin to take shape. Interesting questions about the setting and happenings of the narrative are left unanswered intentionally, and left as exercises to the reader. I was reminded throughout my reading of Yokohama Kaidashi Kiko- that being a 90s reaction to climate change and this a piece of dystopic literature, but the comparison seems apt to me because of the slow creep of impending doom. The eponymous Memory Police almost seem more like a force of nature run amok than anything human. A great book club read that generates lots of discussion regardless of whether you like it or not. I don't think I'll be returning to it, though.