Her only consolation is that she is sealed in a tiny room where she will lie undisturbed with objects that hold memories. In the end, our female protagonist succumbs to her fate. All compliant ones are swallowed up by the evil and loss of identity. Too many took these events in stride, accepting their fate, and hoping if they kept their heads down and their mouths shut, they’d be safe. His other body parts are missing, so when he lies down, realizing his back paws are no longer there, he gets up and gets a blanket upon which to rest his head. Don, a rescued dog, is reduced to a front left leg, jaw, ears and his tail. Only those who can hold on to memories are spared.
Many necessities of life are no longer available.ĭisappeared: birds, roses, emeralds, photographs, the ferry, maps, harmonicas, novels, everyone’s left leg, everyone’s right arm, then other body parts one-by-one. The un-named female novelist main character lives alone in her now deceased parents’ house until she hides her editor ( R) from certain arrest and takes in a kindly old man ( the old man) who helps create the hiding place for R after the boat on which he sought shelter was destroyed by a tsunami. Food is scarce. The eerie tone is magnified by the lack of names. Anyone could be an agent of the Memory Police who suddenly showed up fifteen years earlier without explanation. People are afraid to form relationships, help neighbors, engage in conversations. Compound this horror with the sudden disappearance of people who desperately try to hang on to memories that are now forbidden and attempt to escape or hide, but are never heard from again. Now transfer this sensation to an authoritarian society on a remote island where everyday objects suddenly disappear, and no one can remember what they were called, how to pronounce or spell their names or what they were even used for. Think about how you feel when you pass an empty storefront and for the life of you, you can’t remember what was once there. Look at what we’ve already been putting up with. This dystopian society is not as far-fetched as it first appears.
Violent reactions to opinions that differ.
Shades of Covid-19 restrictions and the 2020 Presidential Election? Loss of liberties. Book Review: The Memory Police: A Novel by Yoko Ogawa (1997 Japanese, 2019 English) (Dystopian Fiction) (Adult) (Young Adult) 4 Stars ****
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