Hi everyone. I'm Rincey and this is Rincey
Reads. Today i'm going to do a book
review on the memory police by Yoko
Ogawa and this is translated into
English by — probably should've looked at this
beforehand — Stephen Synder. So this is
a pretty new release. I think it just
came out last month and I ended up
picking this up partially because I was
interested in it and partially because
August was women in translation month.
And so I figured perfect time to pick it
up. So this is a dystopian novel but I
feel like calling it a dystopian novel
kind of does it a disservice. Although it
technically is one. But I think calling
it a dystopian puts a very specific idea
into a reader's head, or at least it put a
very specific idea into my head. So this
story takes place on this unknown,
unnamed Island. The residents of this
island live in a world where things are
slowly disappearing. For example, at the
beginning of the story,
roses are no longer a thing. So the
people on this island start to forget
what roses are. They forget the word.
They forget like what the physical
object is, what it meant to them. If they
had memories of roses at all, it starts
to disappear. And then they're all forced
to get rid of any roses. So there are
these people called the memory police
who go through and destroy any versions
of that object that might exist anywhere
on this island. So if you have pictures
of that thing or you have that thing or
anything along those lines, the memory
police will come and take it all away. So
a number of things have started to-- have
disappeared over time. But there are a
handful of people on this island who for
some reason still remember all of the
objects that have gone missing and those
people usually end up getting arrested
and taken away by the memory police. And
no one is really sure why this is
happening. So the main character that
you're following in this story is an
author and she is writing a book. And it
turns out that her editor is someone who
is wanted by the memory police. And when
she was younger, her mother actually got
taken away by the memory police. And so
in order to make sure that she doesn't
lose her editor, she ends up basically
hiding him away in this
makeshift room that she makes in her
house in order to hide him from the
memory police. And you kind of follow the
story along as more objects start
disappearing. And slowly you see how this
starts to impact everything around them.
So yeah, that's basically all I'm gonna
do in terms of synopsis. Going back to
kind of what I was saying before, the way
this book is being kind of marketed is
like very Orwellian in nature and stuff
like that. And I think because there are
these things called the memory police,
it's giving off kind of a 1984-esque vibe in
terms of like the marketing. But that's
not really what this book is about or
like. This is really a book about trauma
and loss, and you can take it to the
level of like dictatorships and
oppressive governments and things like
that and removing stuff like that. But
it's kind of this like quiet rumination
on memories and what memories mean to a
person and sort of what you do when
those small little things that meant so
much in your life start to disappear.
It's also like rumination on community
and support and kind of the friendships
and bonds that are formed in these types
of environments. So if you go into this
like having read a lot of dystopians and
specifically a lot of dystopian that are
written in like a Western perspective,
you're gonna want this book to explain
sort of the whys and how's a lot more, or
at least that's how I felt. I went into
this wanting to know sort of like why
were things disappearing and how does
this world function and how does the
memory police sort of operate and sort
of what happens to these people who are
disappearing. And you have a lot of
whys and hows, but those are not the
questions that this book is trying to
answer. It's more about the what happens
next or what happens around those
situations. And so it's less about the
environment and more about the people
reacting in those situations, which is a
really interesting concept, and it took
me a second for my brain to sort of
shift into that. And once my brain
shifted into that, I really, really
enjoyed this book a lot. But I kind of want to
like do this book review partially to
talk about this book because I enjoyed
it, but partially also because I think
people are gonna go into this expecting
something and this book isn't meant to
be that thing. The writing in here is
really, really beautiful. I think that
this is a really fantastic translation.
Like a lot of Japanese literature that
I've read at least, it's again very quiet
and very surreal at times and it has
like this slight existential nature,
which might just be a sort of side
effect from being a dystopian novel
that's asking all these questions.
I think that this is a book that, at least
for me, made me think a lot about sort of
death and sort of more apocalyptic
situations where things are slowly
disappearing. I think that especially
like reading it with recent news events
about like the Amazon burning and like
things disappearing from our environment
at a really high rate because of you
know climate change, this book makes me
think a lot about the things that we
have in this world that we take
advantage of that might be gone sooner
than we think and sort of what the
impacts of that are. It also made me
think a lot about sort of legacies and
things like that. There's a lot of things
in this book about sort of the memories
of people and the stories we tell around
people and things and how that sort of
keeps them going beyond them or it
disappearing and stuff like that. And so
I feel like it's a book that you're
meant to ruminate over and you're meant
to just sort of like think in a broader
sense than just have this like sort of
potentially action-packed dystopian
novel or anything like that. So yeah, this
is not a book that I necessarily like
adored with all of my heart or anything
like that. But I think that this is a
really good book to make you think about
things that you otherwise might not
think about. And I think for that alone
this is worth picking up. So yeah, I think
I gave this like a three and a half out
of five stars. I think the adjustment
period unfortunately like played a toll
in terms of how much I ended up enjoying
this book. But, again, the questions that
it makes you think about are really
fantastic. So those are all of my
thoughts on the memory police. Let me
know down in the comments below if
you've read this book.
Or if you have any questions about this
book at all, feel free to leave that down
in the comments as well. So yeah, that's
all I have for now and thanks for watching.
