Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder, 小川洋子: Memory Police (2019, Penguin Random House)
288 pages
English language
Published Oct. 29, 2019 by Penguin Random House.
**2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.**
On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.
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 …
**2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.**
On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.
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.
Even at its darkest, you can still find a glimmer of hope in the strangest of places when you've given up looking. Grasping onto things as if they won't change is so painful. Floating on the wave, allows you to survive albeit in a different way than expected.
Sem condição de escrever uma resenha agora, mas pelo amor de deus, leiam esse livro. Vai sair em português pela editora Estação Liberdade, e já tá em pré-venda.
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 …
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 strange book. Good characters, but in the end the story is so abstract and lacking any explanation that it was kind of a frustrating read. I appreciated the message (at least that I took away), though: the default/actionless path can be more dangerous than activism.
3 (rounded up to 4) stars. I loved the first half of the book, but it lost me a bit by the end.
Haunting and beautiful. I really enjoyed this, despite the persistent anxiety it caused me. The path the story took from curiosity, to resistance, to resigning acceptance was tragic. It's been a long time since I have felt this way about a story.
After being underwhelmed by Ogawa's collection of short stories, [b:Revenge|16032127|Revenge|Yōko Ogawa|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349818757l/16032127.SY75.jpg|6316882], I expected to feel the same about this one, though the premise intrigued me. The first half of this novel felt completely on the nose and I wasn't very impressed. Fortunately, Ogawa wrote a whole novel so I got to experience this one's back half which I found provocative and moving and delightfully shocking. I really liked it and I see where Ogawa gets her fans.
The premise may feel familiar but how the author goes about expressing the metaphysical problems of historical revisionism and state propaganda are effective and cunning. What felt like an extremely simplistic novel at first is only building a stable structure to leap from in the back half of the novel and I admit I needed the opening in order to take in what she has to offer as her authorial conclusion.
Dragging too long and bored as hell.
Haunting
