The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (Book Review)

hi everyone Helen blundon here I hope you're happy healthy and well it is time for a new book review where I share some of my life lessons gleaned from books that I have been reading now this book that I want to talk about today is a brilliant book I really enjoyed it the writing sucked me right in it was beautiful writing and it was from Japanese author Yoko agawa who has written so many books and she has won a lot of literary PR es in Japan 2023 was a year where I have discovered a lot of authors from countries that are non-anglo-saxon speaking and I have read a lot of authors who come from Japan who I Lov Yoko agawa is an award winner she wrote this book in 1994 and this translation by Steven Snider is brilliant it is such beautiful writing that I would say highly recommended now you might say what is this book about I would say that it is a dystopian novel I wouldn't say it is kind of true that it might happen there are elements of this book that we already see in today's society especially around surveillance and authoritarianism although there are some elements that are just completely kind of like magical realism the things that struck out for me here were the themes of memory storytelling loss identity surveillance authoritarianism memory connections with our past it is a story about an island and we assumed it is a Japanese island somewhere this island has a group of people on it and these people go about their normal everyday lives but at certain odd times they wake up one day and something has disappeared from their world and these somethings could be anything little Trinkets and some time later in this book body parts in the beginning it was small things like fruit things like novels Maps spring summer they all start to disappear but what happens is these people come to accept it it's kind of like they know that things will slowly disappear and they yet they somehow make do a lot later on the book the things that start to disappear are things like your left leg your right leg arms go but again these people seem to accept it and they kind of make do with the loss of Limbs the protagonist in this book is a young girl and we don't know her name and in fact there are no names in this book we're just known as the r who is her editor because she writes novels for for a living until novels are disappeared there's also the old man and he's known as the old man who is someone who helps her so there's no names in here and I think that also is an element that makes it seem a bit more unreal that's the magical realism to it and the fact that these people seem to kind of go on their lives they don't have identities as such no one really stands out no one really fights anything the only fighters in this book other people who can hold Memories the rest of society cannot hold memories so as things disappear they seem to think they seem to accept it they seem to recall that yeah you know I remember that but I can't can't really place my finger on why that was important so these people seem to lose their memory quite quickly there are other people in the society who don't who can hold on to the memories and the memory police are chasing these people they round them up in trucks at the middle of the night and we don't know where they go what they do we don't even know much about the memory police except that they don't like people holding on to Memories it's kind of like the memory police is out to erase the entire world and their entire existence because soon humans is kind of slowly disappearing soon there won't be a world soon there won't be any humans I mentioned is a a writer and she's writing a novel and this novel is a story within a story and we get to read her novel in this book and she talks about this young girl who is a typist who can only communicate through typing on paper but she's held hostage by her typing teacher in a tower and her typing teacher takes away the typewriter and she can't communicate at all but in that Tower she kind of loses herself she loses her voice she disappears herself at the same time in this book R her editor who's someone who can hold onto memories and the author of this book in this book basically creates this little tiny room in between the floors of her house he chooses out of his own accord to go in hiding because the memory police is after him he can hold on to his memories and he stays in this tiny room just waiting it out for a day where he can actually leave that room he doesn't see the sunlight he doesn't have the wind on his face he can only hear the stories through the girl or through the old man and he stays in this room for however long and that in itself is quite frightening as I was reading this book I thought to myself man imagine she would wake up and then her memory's gone as well so she doesn't know that she's keeping someone in the room there are elements where you know I thought in this book it reminded me of the Diary of Anne Frank where she was holed up to escape the the Nazis in this tiny tiny room for years on end with her family I don't know how she did it and similarly in this book I don't know how the guy stayed in this tiny room after going through a period of Co we're here in Victoria we had about 263 days where we're in lockdown in in our house and that made me mad even though at some point we still had an opportunity to escape to get out of our houses to walk around the block even though it was within the 5K radius at least we had that in the book they had none of that in real life in di in the Diary of an Frank she didn't have that either very interesting very interesting read with big big themes and themes within themes so the story of what she was writing about the young typist who had lost her voice and lost her ability to communicate in this room in the tower was very similar to the story of her editor R being in that room and getting to the point where that room room was then chock a block filled with all the Trinkets and the things that had been disappearing and an actual fact this little tiny room became I would call it a memory room A Memory Palace a place where all the hidden things that weren't allowed in that Society was there in that tiny room and stayed for I guess for prosperity to be remembered down the track even though it was hidden if they were caught by the memory police he was definitely probably going to be killed this there's a little twist here where as you started to read you began to think my God if she wakes up and she can't recall that she's got this man in Hidden Away in the room he's going to die what an awful awful death but Yoko gagawa takes us on a little twisty turn at the end of it that then was I guess I didn't expect it but it gave me hope towards the end it it is a beautiful read it is such lovely writing it makes you think long and hard about what memory is in our lives when I started to think about the stuff that I've had in my life and the memories that I recall these memories with age are disappearing on me as well and I don't like that I think one of the big things in recent years there was this big push and I think it was from this lady by the name of Marie condo who encouraged us to get rid of stuff in our lives that didn't hold some kind of purpose and I can understand that I was never a Marie condo fan I didn't do the Deep big decluttering I didn't never really understood the decluttering because a lot of things in my life and what I hold dear the books I can't get rid of because they give me good memories they allow me to think about about the stories or they allow me an opportunity to reread some books that I want to read again in this day and age as more and more of Our Lives go online our lives are under surveillance by the big platform capitalists in this world things seem to have lesser value for us physical things have less value for us and so as they have less value for us we to them out without without a thought but what we're doing then is we're probably then removing those memories that they hold dear for us as well what are we left with in the future there's a really good clip that I remembered online I some years back I did a Muk which is short for a massive open online course these are the free courses that we do through edex and corsera and a whole heap of other platforms out there udem is another one so I did this Muk about I guess future societies and one clip that I remembered was a set in the near future where people were effectively in their homes but their homes were empty devoid of any personality simply four walls pristine ground nice and clean bench space all clean and instead we used our screens whether these screens were on our faces or whe they on our helmets that or where whether they were in our glasses that we we would immerse ourselves into different worlds and while around us was all empty and devoid of Personality devoid of any character because we didn't have our things around us we're immersed instead in a virtual world that could be anywhere any time when we removed our glasses and looked around in a space there was nothing to show what was all about our lives what were the things around us that made our life ours in some way I remembered that because of the starkness that it made me feel that you know what so what if I have photos if I have CDs if I have uh little trinkets that remind me of times that I spent with friends so what if I hold on to my books these things these things all hold some kind of memory and connection to our past so very very good book I love this book I think would be one of the best books I've read so far it is the memory place by Yoko agawa I highly recommend this book if you've read this book or any of her other books please let me know thank you for listening and thank you for watching bye for now

Channel: Life Lessons From Books

Views: 547

Keywords: activatemylearning, Activate Learning Solutions, Books, Book Reviews, BookTuber, BookTube, Life Lessons, Booklover, Bookworm, Bookclub, Literature, Reading, Bibliophile, Bookshelf, Reader, japanese authors, japanese fiction, yoko ogawa, the memory police, Book recommendations, Book lists

Id: MgG5cHFU26U

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2024