The Memory Police

Yoko Ogawa
The Memory Police Cover

Strange and Quietly Tense...

ScoLgo
2/20/2021
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A quietly strange and tense little story about an island where things vanish from people's lives without explanation or anyone questioning the disappearance. The style of writing is smoothly descriptive and evocative yet somewhat detached at the same time. It's a perfect stylistic choice to deliver the strange story being told.

We also get a meta-story via a novel our narrator is writing. Both tales deal with loss of self. Of being subsumed by others. And doing so willingly. How lack of self-esteem can lead to a kind of death. I am unlikely to re-read this but it did make me think about how it is possible for people to participate in their own victim-hood by failing to stand up and be counted. Either through fear or through apathy - or both. (7/10)