Her intent is to analyze not only memory but the creative process. We are used to the American style of science fiction, while Ogawa is playing with another deck. At times the result is something hauntingly sad, and at others it felt like my feet were being glued to the ground. Her intent is to analyze not only memory but the creative process - we read parts of a novel in progress which the protagonist is tackling - using very precise language. If anything, the book clearly shows the contrast between two different types of writing.

The overall feeling is like staring at falling snow over long stretches of time, which, frankly, will make those people with more literary proclivities quite happy, and those who want commercial science fiction quite frustrated. She watches everything with a certain detachment which is not cynical indifference, but merely a deep-rooted passivity.īook Reviews 'Summer Of Ellen' Builds Lyrical, Sunny SuspenseĪt one point the narrator decides to build a secret room in her house to hide her editor, who is in danger of being caught by the police - but even this action, which in another novel might be deemed heroic, here is also laced with that delicate passivity. The protagonist of this tale, translated by Stephen Snyder, is a young writer who endures - and endures seems to be too hard a term, she hardly seems to mind - an increasingly stifling world where goods are scarce, the police arrest citizens in the middle of the night and memories are torn from people's minds. One can even envision a high-paid Hollywood actor starring in the Netflix adaptation: They're coming for your memories, but she's got a plan to stop them!īut this is a Japanese novel - so for anyone looking for thrills, I'd like to warn you that despite the tagline 'Orwellian' on the back cover of the book, this reads much more like a surrealist drama. It would be something akin to The Handmaid's Tale, or the movie version of Minority Report.

It seems like a metaphor for state surveillance if The Memory Police were an American novel, it might yield a contrarian hero determined to fight off the tyranny of the police. On a small island, objects disappear - perfume, boats, roses, photographs - and the memory police monitor the inhabitants, ensuring these things will be eternally forgotten. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Memory Police Author Yoko Ogawa

Yōko ogawa the memory police