Review of The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
guest post by DJ Dycus
One of the things I most appreciate in a novel is a story that helps me better understand human nature, whether it provides insights about myself, others in my life, or the world around me. The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, although originally published in 1994 in Japanese and released in English in 2019, is prescient in the perspective that it offers us in today’s cultural climate.
The premise of the story concerns a group of people living in isolation on an island. With the appearance of the Memory Police, objects – as well as the associated memories of them – begin to disappear, one–by–one. The narrator recalls a conversation that she had with her mother as a young girl:
“Is it scary?” I asked her, suddenly anxious.
“No, don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt, and you won’t even be particularly sad. One morning you’ll simply wake up and it will be over, before you’ve even realized. Lying still, eyes closed, ears pricked, trying to sense the flow of the morning air, you’ll feel that something has changed from the night before, and you’ll know that you’ve lost something, that something has been disappeared from the island.”
And that’s just how it happens. The first disappearance that the reader witnesses within the present timeframe of the novel is birds, which the narrator had enjoyed studying with her father, an ornithologist: “I realized that everything I knew about them had disappeared from inside me: my memories of them, my feelings about them, the very meaning of the word ‘bird’—everything.” If an object that the people have in their possession has been disappeared, like photographs, everyone gathers outside to burn them. But, strangely, there’s no sense of remorse or anger. Nearly everyone in the story simply accepts this forfeiture as a normal part of the course of their lives.
guest post by DJ Dycus
One of the things I most appreciate in a novel is a story that helps me better understand human nature, whether it provides insights about myself, others in my life, or the world around me. The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, although originally published in 1994 in Japanese and released in English in 2019, is prescient in the perspective that it offers us in today’s cultural climate.
The premise of the story concerns a group of people living in isolation on an island. With the appearance of the Memory Police, objects – as well as the associated memories of them – begin to disappear, one–by–one. The narrator recalls a conversation that she had with her mother as a young girl:
“Is it scary?” I asked her, suddenly anxious.
“No, don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt, and you won’t even be particularly sad. One morning you’ll simply wake up and it will be over, before you’ve even realized. Lying still, eyes closed, ears pricked, trying to sense the flow of the morning air, you’ll feel that something has changed from the night before, and you’ll know that you’ve lost something, that something has been disappeared from the island.”
And that’s just how it happens. The first disappearance that the reader witnesses within the present timeframe of the novel is birds, which the narrator had enjoyed studying with her father, an ornithologist: “I realized that everything I knew about them had disappeared from inside me: my memories of them, my feelings about them, the very meaning of the word ‘bird’—everything.” If an object that the people have in their possession has been disappeared, like photographs, everyone gathers outside to burn them. But, strangely, there’s no sense of remorse or anger. Nearly everyone in the story simply accepts this forfeiture as a normal part of the course of their lives.
It won’t come as a surprise to hear that Ogawa is exploring loss in her novel. This experience is a universal part of being human. Her narrator states that “People--and I’m no exception—seem capable of forgetting almost anything.” We don’t witness grief or suffering, however. Like so many of us who repress our emotions, Ogawa’s characters go on about their lives that deteriorate ever so slowly, but they never confront or come to terms with their losses. They simply push on, living in an ever–bleaker, diminished, colder world.
Ogawa relates early in the novel that a variety of objects have disappeared in the past: ribbons, bells, hats, emeralds, stamps, perfume, boats. And the narrator is able to know about these disappearances because some of the citizens on the island, like the narrator’s mother, don’t forget about the objects that have been disappeared – unlike the vast majority of islanders. When the Memory Police learn about these people with intact memories, this branch of law enforcement gathers them up and carts them off, never to be seen again. None of the characters in the novel knows where the Memory Police take them, much less what happens to them after they disappear.
And, as with inanimate objects, people take this loss in stride. They do, however, worry about the Memory Police taking people they care about who are still with them; there is a network of safehouses akin to those in Europe during the Nazi regime. But, as the narrator hides a friend away in her home, she never seems to feel a heightened sense of anxiety or fear the way we would expect. While she is concerned about her friend being taken away, and that the Memory Police will discover her crime, for the reader it looks more like the stress someone would experience if she had taken money out of a parent’s wallet – worrisome, but not a crippling fear of a life–threatening discovery.
Probably Ogawa’s most remarkable accomplishment is her ability to present a horrific, nightmare scenario at arm’s length and not emotionally infect the reader. More than once I have had to set down a novel because the content was simply too troubling to keep reading due to whatever was going on in my life at the time. The tone of The Memory Police, however, is reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, where the strangest transformation imaginable is never a matter of concern or investigation.
The peculiar calm of The Memory Police lends an eerie, alienating effect to the novel. Unlike a story such as The Handmaid’s Tale, the reader doesn’t experience the same sense of pain or terror as in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian account. Instead, like the emotionally blunted characters in Ogawa’s novel, we are buffered from the harsh realities of this dysfunctional existence. The author is gifted at taking the reader along on a surrealist journey highlighting the absurdity of life, while not dragging one down into an emotional abyss. The writing creates a peculiar, mirror–reflecting–another–mirror effect. I found myself thinking, “I’m not feeling what I ought to be, which isn’t right – but they’re not reacting as they should be – so, they’re the unfeeling automatons; it’s the characters that are abnormal, not me.” Although readers don’t experience a punishing sense of terror, the tone of The Memory Police does create a distinctly jarring effect.
Maybe Ogawa wants to spark a moment of existential estrangement – a Zen–like experience of satori or kenshō, a sudden, startling awareness of our lives as they truly are. The author leaves us unmoored from the everyday normalcy of our lives. By following the narrator through her uncanny experiences of her world, I found myself more detached from and pondering the objects that I encounter. Jean–Paul Sartre referred to this experience as “the strangeness of the world,” an awareness of the absurdity of our lives.
A final element of The Memory Police that I want to highlight is the fact that Ogawa doesn’t name the narrator, as well as most of the characters in the novel. First, this strategy prevents us from developing a greater familiarity with the narrator – Ogawa keeps her at an emotional distance. We are unable to acquire this piece of information that is trivial, but also intimate. And, of course, this technique also conveys yet another type of loss – that of identity. Throughout the novel we are, essentially, traveling alongside a stranger. Ogawa follows in the footsteps of some of the greatest writers in her use of this approach: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory – just to name a few.
Ogawa’s 1994 novel speaks to our current circumstances in a couple of different ways. First, her dystopian society portrays the idealistic authoritarian state. As the Memory Police slowly disintegrates people’s lives one object or person at a time no one raises an objection. There aren’t any protests or overt expressions of dissatisfaction – each character simply carries on with her life. I haven’t had the opportunity to ask him, but I suspect that the governor of Florida would like nothing more than to rule over a population just like the one in this novel.
A second way that The Memory Police illuminates our present moment is through the peculiarities of its less–than–human characters. The reading experience feels like a journey into an Alice–In–Wonderland, topsy–turvy landscape that, while horrifying in so many aspects, allows the reader to experience nightmarish aspects of our lives from a safe distance. For example, Ogawa’s story brings to mind the ceaseless series of mass shootings that plague our country. How many times are we capable of feeling the loss of another community, and opening ourselves up to experience the horror of yet another tragedy? It’s only when you look up the number of mass shootings that you realize just how few the media are sharing with us. Those who report the news are aware that we simply don’t have the capacity to process or contemplate every single loss. I couldn’t help but question how different I am from Ogawa’s not–quite–fully–human characters.
Maybe, in order to be emotionally healthy in a harsh and violent world, that means not being fully human – not being as sensitive and open as we might be otherwise. Sometimes detachment is the healthiest option, for the sake of preventing further psychic harm to ourselves. Ogawa has guided me to a deeper insight into the absurdity of the human experience. The older I get, the less capable I feel of understanding what happens in the world – much less believing that I can contribute to a workable solution. The Memory Police presents an irrational reality, much like our own.
Ogawa offers a peculiar, unique glimpse into our lives. Are we content to pass through our experiences in the same manner as her characters? It’s hard to argue that it would be easier to turn off the news and ignore the atrocities of our everyday lives. Can a responsible person simply not participate in the daily doses of outrage? All of us are suffering from compassion fatigue. And, as Ogawa depicts in The Memory Police, I’m not entirely sure how it’s possible to do otherwise – after all, the human heart is only capable of suffering so much anger and tragedy. When I realize just how much I have in common with Ogawa’s characters, I find myself envying the ease with which they accept the state of their lives.
There’s no one–size–fits–all strategy for our different temperaments, of course. I honestly don’t know if I should allow myself to fall into a similar anaesthetized state or suffer more fully the daily news stories of Floridian fascists and mass shootings. Ogawa’s novel, however, provides an opportunity to examine ourselves as we consider the lives and choices of her characters. She illuminates universal elements of the human experience, while presenting intriguing characters, and an entertaining (if unsettling) story.
Ogawa relates early in the novel that a variety of objects have disappeared in the past: ribbons, bells, hats, emeralds, stamps, perfume, boats. And the narrator is able to know about these disappearances because some of the citizens on the island, like the narrator’s mother, don’t forget about the objects that have been disappeared – unlike the vast majority of islanders. When the Memory Police learn about these people with intact memories, this branch of law enforcement gathers them up and carts them off, never to be seen again. None of the characters in the novel knows where the Memory Police take them, much less what happens to them after they disappear.
And, as with inanimate objects, people take this loss in stride. They do, however, worry about the Memory Police taking people they care about who are still with them; there is a network of safehouses akin to those in Europe during the Nazi regime. But, as the narrator hides a friend away in her home, she never seems to feel a heightened sense of anxiety or fear the way we would expect. While she is concerned about her friend being taken away, and that the Memory Police will discover her crime, for the reader it looks more like the stress someone would experience if she had taken money out of a parent’s wallet – worrisome, but not a crippling fear of a life–threatening discovery.
Probably Ogawa’s most remarkable accomplishment is her ability to present a horrific, nightmare scenario at arm’s length and not emotionally infect the reader. More than once I have had to set down a novel because the content was simply too troubling to keep reading due to whatever was going on in my life at the time. The tone of The Memory Police, however, is reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, where the strangest transformation imaginable is never a matter of concern or investigation.
The peculiar calm of The Memory Police lends an eerie, alienating effect to the novel. Unlike a story such as The Handmaid’s Tale, the reader doesn’t experience the same sense of pain or terror as in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian account. Instead, like the emotionally blunted characters in Ogawa’s novel, we are buffered from the harsh realities of this dysfunctional existence. The author is gifted at taking the reader along on a surrealist journey highlighting the absurdity of life, while not dragging one down into an emotional abyss. The writing creates a peculiar, mirror–reflecting–another–mirror effect. I found myself thinking, “I’m not feeling what I ought to be, which isn’t right – but they’re not reacting as they should be – so, they’re the unfeeling automatons; it’s the characters that are abnormal, not me.” Although readers don’t experience a punishing sense of terror, the tone of The Memory Police does create a distinctly jarring effect.
Maybe Ogawa wants to spark a moment of existential estrangement – a Zen–like experience of satori or kenshō, a sudden, startling awareness of our lives as they truly are. The author leaves us unmoored from the everyday normalcy of our lives. By following the narrator through her uncanny experiences of her world, I found myself more detached from and pondering the objects that I encounter. Jean–Paul Sartre referred to this experience as “the strangeness of the world,” an awareness of the absurdity of our lives.
A final element of The Memory Police that I want to highlight is the fact that Ogawa doesn’t name the narrator, as well as most of the characters in the novel. First, this strategy prevents us from developing a greater familiarity with the narrator – Ogawa keeps her at an emotional distance. We are unable to acquire this piece of information that is trivial, but also intimate. And, of course, this technique also conveys yet another type of loss – that of identity. Throughout the novel we are, essentially, traveling alongside a stranger. Ogawa follows in the footsteps of some of the greatest writers in her use of this approach: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory – just to name a few.
Ogawa’s 1994 novel speaks to our current circumstances in a couple of different ways. First, her dystopian society portrays the idealistic authoritarian state. As the Memory Police slowly disintegrates people’s lives one object or person at a time no one raises an objection. There aren’t any protests or overt expressions of dissatisfaction – each character simply carries on with her life. I haven’t had the opportunity to ask him, but I suspect that the governor of Florida would like nothing more than to rule over a population just like the one in this novel.
A second way that The Memory Police illuminates our present moment is through the peculiarities of its less–than–human characters. The reading experience feels like a journey into an Alice–In–Wonderland, topsy–turvy landscape that, while horrifying in so many aspects, allows the reader to experience nightmarish aspects of our lives from a safe distance. For example, Ogawa’s story brings to mind the ceaseless series of mass shootings that plague our country. How many times are we capable of feeling the loss of another community, and opening ourselves up to experience the horror of yet another tragedy? It’s only when you look up the number of mass shootings that you realize just how few the media are sharing with us. Those who report the news are aware that we simply don’t have the capacity to process or contemplate every single loss. I couldn’t help but question how different I am from Ogawa’s not–quite–fully–human characters.
Maybe, in order to be emotionally healthy in a harsh and violent world, that means not being fully human – not being as sensitive and open as we might be otherwise. Sometimes detachment is the healthiest option, for the sake of preventing further psychic harm to ourselves. Ogawa has guided me to a deeper insight into the absurdity of the human experience. The older I get, the less capable I feel of understanding what happens in the world – much less believing that I can contribute to a workable solution. The Memory Police presents an irrational reality, much like our own.
Ogawa offers a peculiar, unique glimpse into our lives. Are we content to pass through our experiences in the same manner as her characters? It’s hard to argue that it would be easier to turn off the news and ignore the atrocities of our everyday lives. Can a responsible person simply not participate in the daily doses of outrage? All of us are suffering from compassion fatigue. And, as Ogawa depicts in The Memory Police, I’m not entirely sure how it’s possible to do otherwise – after all, the human heart is only capable of suffering so much anger and tragedy. When I realize just how much I have in common with Ogawa’s characters, I find myself envying the ease with which they accept the state of their lives.
There’s no one–size–fits–all strategy for our different temperaments, of course. I honestly don’t know if I should allow myself to fall into a similar anaesthetized state or suffer more fully the daily news stories of Floridian fascists and mass shootings. Ogawa’s novel, however, provides an opportunity to examine ourselves as we consider the lives and choices of her characters. She illuminates universal elements of the human experience, while presenting intriguing characters, and an entertaining (if unsettling) story.