The Memory Police

A Novel

By: Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder - translator

Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama

Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

2019 National Book Award Finalist

Longlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize and the 2020 Translated Book Award

New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.

On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses - until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.

When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.

A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.

©2019 Yoko Ogawa and Stephen Snyder (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"An elegantly spare dystopian fable.... Reading The Memory Police is like sinking into a snowdrift: lulling yet suspenseful, it tingles with dread and incipient numbness.... Ogawa’s ruminant style captures the alienation of being alive as the world’s ecosystems, ice sheets, languages, animal species and possible futures vanish more quickly than any one mind can apprehend." (The New York Times Book Review)

"The Memory Police is a masterpiece: a deep pool that can be experienced as fable or allegory, warning and illumination. It is a novel that makes us see differently, opening up its ideas in inconspicuous ways, knowing that all moments of understanding and grace are fleeting. It is political and human, it makes no promises. It is a rare work of patient and courageous vision.... [It] reaches English-language readers as if sent from the future." (The Guardian)

"A masterful work of speculative fiction.... An unforgettable literary thriller full of atmospheric horror." (Chicago Tribune)

Interesting dystopian take, not so thrilling

I feel like what I got from this was a serene depiction of a dystopian world clamping down gradually. It was a new take on the genre for me but I did not find it that interesting. I feel like the focus was more on the constant and gradual experience of decline as experienced by very very stoic characters. I didn’t get the satisfaction of learning about any of the whys of the story, though I admit that the pattern of the story is established early enough where that doesn’t come as a huge surprise.

Sad but Beautiful

I read this on a recommendation. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but it was a truly brilliant book. Even the story within the story, as parts of the book are excerpts from a novel the MC is writing throughout the book, is achingly haunting.

The main story is told from the perspective of an unnamed woman living on an island where their memories of objects are “disappeared” (so thoroughly forgotten that they cannot be recognized for what they are even when plainly visible) and there is a group called the Memory Police that hunt down people who are unaffected by the disappearance of memories. The book follows the MC as she deals with several tribulations caused by the lost memories, including trying to resist the disappearance or even recover things that were disappeared.

Though there are highs and lows, there is always a thread of sadness and growing loss throughout the book. The author is quite good at making the prose emotionally weighty and making the people in the story feel real.

The only thing I can criticize is that it took me out a bit that is that the disappearances and the memory police themselves often felt inconsistent and underexplained. It’s has a fable like quality that just kind of expects you to roll with the unrealistic aspects. The book isn’t about the disappearances and the memory police, it’s about how the MC reacts to them. The whys of how they exist are insignificant to the story being told.

Anyway, the long and short is that the book is incredibly depressing in the most beautiful way and I loved it.

Beautiful and haunting

This was a very thoughtful and sad read but well worth it. Do not go into it expecting an exciting story and you won’t be disappointed.

Underwhelming

I enjoy dystopian stories a great deal, But it was with this book that I came to realize, I enjoy having a why behind why things are the way they are in the story. Or, even if I don't get a why, I enjoy the characters exploring and unwinding the how behind the way things work in these stories. There is no how or why in this story, just a long tail of how different characters are suffering in their different ways. Mone of the characters were interested in getting out, dismantling the powers that be, or even talking about how they got there. If you like long winded tales about people who have given up, then this is the book for you.

Intriguing Read.

Creative and thought-provoking. For fans of Diary of Anne Frank. Great for book clubs. Utopian genre.

Meh

I love dystopian stories and sad endings but I felt nothing towards the characters, only Don and the old man. I don't even remember if anyone but the dog was named. I get the parallels between the novelist's story and the main story but when I would zone out I couldn't figure out which story I was listening to. It felt bland. also what happened to R's wife and kid?? I get the idea, and maybe a lot is lost in translation, but it fell flat for me.

Strange, atmospheric and deeply troubling

What if dementia was inflicted upon us through an autocratic order manipulating society using neurosciences. What if all we knew and valued in our world was gradually stolen from our memories so it no longer existed for us. WhT would we be?

Melancholy and thought provoking

I liked so much the tone. The characters move through the novel trying not to live into the dystopian future. I cannot stop thinking about the questions it raised for me.

beautiful, sad story

the book itself is very good - a great magical realism novel - but i especially enjoyed the performance and the way the novel within the novel is presented. would definitely recommend.

How to disappear completely

This one is very depressing. It was so interestingly written and I wonder how it would have read in its original language. It was really beautiful.