Our book of the month is The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. We give you our Big Review below.
***Our Big Reviews are written from the point of view that you have read the book. If this is not yet you, bookmark the page and come back once you have***
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?
They always burn the books
Why in so many Orwellian dystopias are books so often burned?
The book does indeed start off very Orwellian in style. Certain things disappear and those that refuse to forget are taken away by The Memory Police. I have recently read 1984 and could easily see the comparisons to it (and Fahrenheit 451). The questions raised are very similar, the leadership style very totalitarian.
The book at times felt like you were reading a World War Two story. People ‘lucky’ enough to remember were hidden in basements or forced to pound the pavements in an effort to remain undetected. The public ‘willing’ went along with it all – burning the books themselves and reporting on neighbours suspicious activity. It all felt very like the Nazis pursuing the Jews.
Where it did go off-piste however was when body parts started disappearing. We firmly left Orwellian territory and traveled into the realms of science fiction. Ogawa did somehow manage to make this work, skimming details where necessary. And I loved the link to the book the novelist was writing which felt very Stephen King like, especially the ending.
What makes us…us
Which brings us to the ending of The Memory Police. No answers are given, many questions are raised. Whether you liked the book I suspect hinged on whether you could accept the fact body parts were disappearing. It certainly questions hard the importance of memories, how important they are to us as human beings, as individuals. If we don’t have memories what are we?
The sense of losing oneself was also reflected in the lack of character names. The setting too was vague. As well as adding to the sense of confusion it also made it feel less Japanese. Perhaps this was deliberate by Ogawa but R and The Old Man on an island savouring pancakes could easily be off the coast of America, in Scandinavia, a stones throw from New Zealand.
It’s an original concept that questions more than it answers and it makes a brilliant book club book.
Get Involved
If you would like to get involved with our Book Of The Month try answering our Book Club questions published every month. Just search in our footnotes section for the ‘Get Involved’ articles. We review a new book every month so keep your eyes peeled for the Lowdown on March’s book of the month soon.
