Uncomfortable, Slow, and Strangely Good for Me – The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

I have conflicting thoughts about this book. Did I like it? Did I not like it? I genuinely don’t know.

The ending definitely left me dissatisfied — there’s no denying that. But the overall reading experience? I’m certain I’m better for it.

The story takes place on a strange island where things begin to disappear. It starts with small objects like hats and roses and slowly moves to bigger, more vital things — even parts of one’s body. When something disappears, the islanders are left with only a vague sense that something is gone, but they can’t identify what it was. They don’t mourn these things, and they don’t miss them. Except, there are a few people who do remember. And if the Memory Police find anyone immune to the disappearances, they take them away. It’s an intriguing (and rather risky) premise.

As I read, I kept drawing parallels. The Memory Police’s oppression reminded me of how the public is often suppressed by those in power. And the islanders’ fear of speaking out felt exactly like the silent fear people feel today when resisting authority. The novel-within-the-novel which is written by the narrator had some interesting parallels too. The narrator’s character loses her voice, just like the islanders have lost theirs. She becomes convinced she can’t survive outside the room she is imprisoned by the lover — just like the islanders who limit themselves to the restrictions placed on them.

The islanders not missing the things they lose, and being brainwashed into adjusting their wants and needs can be realted to how easily we accept popular trends and convince ourselves that they’re exactly what we want. And then there is R (the person the narrator hides in a safe room to protect from The Memory Police), becoming thin and pale as he adjusts to his tiny surroundings. That struck something personal — how we confine ourselves to small environments, settle into comfort zones, and slowly let our minds and bodies shrink to fit them. R didn’t choose to be trapped, but I often get complacent where I am, and that made me think.

It seemed fairly clear that some kind of experimentation was going on — something along the lines or genetic research or genome sequencing was mentioned — and I think that the Memory Police were trying to develop a weapon or technology that could make people forget. The memory glitches, the sudden triggers that bring forgotten things back, the way memories leave “holes in the heart” — all of that felt like the side effects of an imperfect, still-developing technique. But the fact that the author did not feel the need to explain this part, makes me think that her intention is to focus on the emotional part of it all. She isolated us from the logic and the facts — she didn't even gives us names of people or places — and all we had to go on, were thoughts and memories (or lack thereof).

It also seems deliberare that the book is painstakingly slow. Nothing significant happened for a long time, and the story felt very repetitive. I almost left it halfway but I picked it back up because I had to know what the author possibly intended to do with this story. And when I was done with it, I thought "Couldn't this have been finished in 10-15 pages? Why did it have to dragged out so long?"

But looking back, I think the slowness was intentional. It forces you into the same waiting, the same uncertainty, the same dull frustration the islanders live with every day. It transports you into that world. How else can one relate to such a bizarre concept?

All in all, I wouldn't say I throughly enjoyed the book. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who isn't an avid reader. But I suppose I needed it — like eating a healthy vegetable that you don't necessarily like.

And I certainly feel like a little kid fishing for candy, trying to find different people's interpretations of the book. What was you interpretation? I'd love to hear.