Memory Police, The Paperback – 1 January 2020

BOOK REVIEWTHE MEMORY POLICEBY~ YOKO OGAWA⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐______________________🍂The memory Police written by Yoko Ogawa and translated by Stephen Snyder is an exemplary work of translated fiction. The text was haunting, heavy-hearted, thought-provoking & beautiful. I'm grateful to the people who took the initiative to make this amazing piece of work available to us in the English language.🍂I could care less about the plot as the writing itself had all my attention. But our protagonist here is A writer. Her memories are hindered by the losses of things that have disappeared from the island. And those who are in charge of making the disappearances possible were 'the memory police', robot-like people with measured & sure movements. After losing her parents to this plague, she didn't care much about the frequent unannounced visits and summons from the memory police, until she decides to do something to save the few people left in her life whom she loved and was her only mean to cling to any kind of hope so that her heart doesn't forget the things that no more exist. even though the meaning and emotions attached to them were long gone from her memory.

Nice book but somehow a little dragged within the pages. The story has a good beginning and the end, but in the middle it could not invoke strong thrill or emotions. May be not as per my expectations.Come what may, it can be picked up.

To be very brief,it follows the life of three people in an isolated island that are ruled by 'memory police'that can make things,memories, living or non-living disappear from time to time .The protagonist is a young girl who is dealing with this constant loss of things and her attachment to those ,the old man who has seen a lot of disappearances and has taken it as a way of life and the last but not least,the editor (R) who does'nt forget anything at all.The pacing might be slow but hold on till the end because it's worth your read.I really enjoyed it.It shows the complexities of society that a single power head can bring and horrors of not losong your memory as the process follows.

I was stuck to the book like a glue. You wouldn't be able to keep it down after a point. One of the top tier dystopian books out there.

Although after first reading the blurb I thought this was a very unique plot, and I was anticipating a dramatic end. But the whole thing was just too gentle and bland and directionless for my liking. At the end of it, I felt like the whole thing was very vague.The strength of the writing was I think, the theme of loss and control that was asserted over and over in subtle ways.But there were questions that bothered me– why? Why do things disappear on the island- there had to be some explanation? What did the government benefit from such an arrangement? Now the Gilead Republic in Handmaid’s Tale – another dystopian world – did what they did to have babies because their wives were infertile. What was the purpose here?Also, there was no explanation as to why certain people remembered. I wouldn’t have minded even if there was a philosophical logic to the whole thing. But nothing at all was mentioned.Nevertheless, I did manage to keep reading the whole book, so it’s hypnotic in a way. And it did do pretty well on the haunting and magical realism themes, which is what I was looking for, so I will not rate it anything less than 3 stars.

It is a painfully beautiful, dreamlike nightmare. It will hollow you out and you would not be able to resist It.

Such a unique concept and so nicely written. A must read.

The story follows 5he protagonist who is herself an author and how the story unfolds in an island where things disappear without any explanation. The memory police is a military group who are incharge of putting away anybody who can keep the Memory alive.A very captivating story based in dystopian society.It shows the pain of losing things ,your live ones and how we must cherish the small thing in life.