Our Book Of The Month for February is The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. For our online Book Clubbers we have some questions below for you to get involved with. Either answer in the comments section or use as discussion points at your next Book Club. If you haven’t read the book check out our Lowdown all about it here.
The Memory Police – the blurb
Hat, ribbon, bird, rose.
To the people on the island, a disappeared thing no longer has any meaning. It can be burned in the garden, thrown in the river or handed over to the Memory Police. Soon enough, the island forgets it ever existed.
When a young novelist discovers that her editor is in danger of being taken away by the Memory Police, she desperately wants to save him. For some reason, he doesn’t forget, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide his memories. Who knows what will vanish next?
Discussion Points
The following are written with the presumption you have read The Memory Police. If you haven’t, bookmark the post and come back to answer the questions later.
- The character’s names in the book are very vague – ‘R’, ‘The Old Man’, ‘The Hat Maker’ – why is this?
- The setting of the book is not specified. Do you think it felt very Japanese? Did the vague character names help you imagine the Island being elsewhere in the world?
- What period do you think the book is set in? Why?
- Who were The Memory Police? Why do you think they were unaffected by the vanishings?
- Why was voice the last thing to vanish when arguably a voice was the one thing they never had? Was there any significance that voice was the first thing to be lost by the character our novelist was writing about?
- What do you think happens to R at the end of the story?
Get Involved
Feel free to answer as many of the questions as you want. Post your replies below, discuss with us on social media using @BookSocialUK, or pose some questions of your own. If you enjoyed the questions, have a go at last month’s Get Involved: Hamnet.
