The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa - Review
"I remembered. The pages of the book had opened and fluttered through the air just the way birds had once spread their wings and flown off to distant places. But this memory, too, was soon erased by the flames, leaving nothing but the burning night."
The Memory Police is a surreal and deeply unsettling novel. While it may not be horror in the traditional sense, it evoked such a strong sense of dread that I found myself struggling to put it down. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion. I knew what was inevitably coming; however, I could not look away.
While the story is one of loss, pain, and dread it is told through the lens of an apathetic unnamed narrator. She experiences the loss directly. Her past fades. Key memories are taken from her, but she struggles to find the urge to resist, to care. Her career is lost. Stories themselves are taken from the world. The nature that surrounds her is stripped bare. Her friends and family are stolen and forgotten.
Even when, ultimately, every last thing is taken from her, she has only found a sliver of resistance within herself. When body, limb, and mind fade she appears to only go through the motions of resistance. She feels that she fundamentally cannot fight what is happening to herself and the others of the island.
Her struggle is seen through a character named R who is unaffected by the memories being lost. He sees the 'truth' of her loss being within her own mind, but he cannot stop the slow sloughing away of what makes the narrator herself.
This is the sort of story that poses more questions than answers. Some may find it frustrating for its lack of clarity, but I think the story would be done a disservice by having some of the burning questions being answered. Knowing the purpose of the memory police, the people in charge of it, the reason for the loss, etc would be akin to peeling away the curtain of Lovecraftian horror and showing the true nature of it. Knowing these things would tell a different story entirely.
To me, this story shows how much we can adapt to. No matter what is taken from the narrator and those around her, she finds a way to find purpose. She is a novelist. When stories are taken away from the collective conscious, she finds purpose in a new job. There is a danger in accepting normalcy. Injustice is abound in the narrator's story, but she only wants to continue and avoid causing trouble. It is better to keep her head down and stay out of the way.
And yet, she finds herself acting the rebel even if she would not acknowledge her acts as such directly. She hides away R from the memory police. She communicates with those in hiding and gives aid to others who seek refuge. Her actions often stand in direct contrast with her narration. Given her memory loss, she is by nature unreliable. She describes herself as this uncaring subject, but she cares deeply for everyone around her. Even beyond what the memory police take from her, she sacrifices what remains of herself to keep these people she cares for safe.
The side plot of her novel within the novel speaks to this directly. She is locked away, her true voice taken from her. It gives an antagonist to the ephemeral, formless memory loss happening to her in her own world.
Her story isn't one of a leader, a fighter, or some grandiose tale of rebellion. It hones in on this microcosm, to an individual in an impossible scenario. In the world offered by The Memory Police, most of us would find ourselves living similar, tragic lives.
I'd like to think I would be the R of this story, rallying against the norm and fighting for the truth. But if I woke to find my world slowly slipping from my grasp, I don't know if I would act differently than our unnamed protagonist. We aren't all born to lead the fight, but we can make changes within the constraints of our situation. Our narrator does what she can with the impossible hand that she has been dealt.
I found myself sympathizing with her more as the story continued. There is a place for hope, for fighting what is coming. But when you are stripped down to nothing and have no more left to give, what is there left to cling to?
The prose is simple with the occasional flourish of striking imagery. The matter-of-fact nature in which the story is told only goes further to emphasize the inevitability and resignation of the narrator's situation.
If you are a fan of dystopian stories or weird lit, this one is well worth the read. If you have already given it a read, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
