Characterised as a science-fiction novel reminiscent of Orwell’s classic Nineteen Eighty Four, but with a dreamlike Kafka-esque quality of the fantastic, Yoko Ogawa’s newest English-translated novel, The Memory Police, embodies the sheer horror of loss and the inevitability of preventing it. The novel was originally published in Japan in 1994 and has been beautifully translated into English by Stephen Snyder. 
The novel is set in a fictional and unnamed island (one can’t help but presume it uncannily brings Japan itself to mind), where different things such as hats, ribbons, birds, fruit and later on even certain body parts start disappearing from people’s memories. Having no recollection of those things whatsoever, the people are then required to destroy all remnants of the thing that has disappeared from their memories, something that the Memory Police of title is there to supervise.
However, some people are unable to forget and they try to preserve not only their memories of what has disappeared for everyone else, but also some mementos of the things themselves. The Memory Police, as a ruthless invigilator, stricly punishes whoever does not destroy every trace of the things that have disappeared, and they often take the people that cannot forget away, never to be seen again.
Our protagonist is a young writer whose parents have both passed away and she is left with an old family friend and her typing teacher, with whom she also maintains an intimate relationship. When her teacher is forced to go into hiding lest he be taken by the Memory Police, our protaginst does everything she can to protect him and keep him as close to her as possible. How can a person stay the same, though, when their memories and experiences associated with certain things are in danger of fading away from one day to another?
“People… seem capable of forgetting almost anything.”
-The Memory Police, location 96
As usual, Ogawa’s prose is stark and clear and creates an eerie atmosphere befitting of her novel’s theme. Although there is a very vivid plot throughout the novel, it does feel at times like the story does not move forward at all, but it instead focuses on the feelings and musings of the characters. The totalitarian-like regime that is described is terrifying, presenting a society on the verge of collapse and almost famished. Although the disappearances are never really explained, leaving this fantastic element aloft, they do seem to rather represent a disappearance of culture, of the self, of one’s identity.
Ogawa’s apocalyptic magical realism is exactly my cup of tea, and so I devoured this book is just a few days. I loved the tranquil and stark writing style, I loved the world and character building, (I disaggreed with some relationships between characters, but that’s a personal issue) but at some points, the story felt a little lacking. Like it had become absorbed in its own created universe a little too much, or like it was itself a fragment of a memory unable to be forgotten.
The taste the ending leaves is bittersweet, just like the theme it explores. Memories are fickle yet precious, they are proof that some things and experiences have truly existed, they are what makes us, us. Without our memories, can we still remain the same people, or are we bound to disappear and dissolve into nothingness like our very own memories?
The Memory Police is a wonderful and terrifying book that certainly provides its readers with plenty of food for thought. I wholeheartedly recommend it to lovers of the fantastic and literary fiction alike, as I’m sure both groups will find something to relish in between its pages.
A copy of this book was very kindly provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley.
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