From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

The Memory Police

Yōko Ogawa

Start date: April 15, 2021

Finish date: May 1, 2021

Discussion: AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

Discussion leader: Gertie

Why we're reading this: Read anytime, discussion opens May 1st.
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What Members Thought

Apr 27, 2021 Amy rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-club-pick, speculative-fiction, japan, 2021-read

It seems like 4 stars is the standard rating for this book. I think that perhaps it's because there's never an explanation about why people (and even animals) on the island start "forgetting" things.

The rules for forgetting are kind of strange. One day, the whole island wakes up and realizes that something should be erased. Perhaps it's boats, fruit, or calendars. Whatever it is either disappears or people have to get rid of it. If they don't, the Memory Police punish them. Later, when the peopl It seems like 4 stars is the standard rating for this book. I think that perhaps it's because there's never an explanation about why people (and even animals) on the island start "forgetting" things.

The rules for forgetting are kind of strange. One day, the whole island wakes up and realizes that something should be erased. Perhaps it's boats, fruit, or calendars. Whatever it is either disappears or people have to get rid of it. If they don't, the Memory Police punish them. Later, when the people see an erased object, like an emerald, they don't recognize it. Boats have been erased, yet the old man in the book lives on a decommissioned ferry, which they call a boat.

Only, for some genetic reason perhaps, the memory erase event doesn't affect everyone. And those people go into hiding. It's hard for them to understand how people can forget about the missing items and go through life without missing them.

I'm not sure exactly what metaphor the author had in mind when she was writing the book. But, since I was reading a book about extinction at the same time, I read it through that lens. Animals and plants go extinct, and we go through our day like nothing has happened.

Here are some quotable parallels:

I mean, things are disappearing more quickly than they are being created, right?

If it goes on like this and we can’t compensate for the things that get lost, the island will soon be nothing but absences and holes, and when it’s completely hollowed out, we’ll all disappear without a trace. Don’t you ever feel that way?

I’ve lived here three times longer than you have, which means I’ve lost three times as many things. But I’ve never really been frightened or particularly missed any of them when they were gone.

I think, though, that this is perhaps my favorite passage that touches on human extinction:

But what if human beings themselves disappear?” I asked. This was the question that had been on my mind. The old man swallowed and blinked again. “You have to stop worrying about things like that. The disappearances are beyond our control. They have nothing to do with us. We’re all going to die anyway, someday, so what’s the difference? We simply have to leave things to fate."

Oh, yeah. All those species are going to die anyway one day. Why care if they go extinct? Nobody will miss them.

Anyhow, that's my takeaway. I'm sure there are other ways to read this book.

I feel like I could have given the book 5 stars if I were sure of the message the book was trying to give, without adding my own spin to it. The book is really a work of art and deserves reading. ...more

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Dec 03, 2019 Julie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I think Japanese novels are not for me. This book had such a weird premise, which could have been good, but there was no explanation for it. It never made sense and it just kept getting weirder. I almost gave up on it but by the time I realized how much I didn’t like it, I was 70% of the way through and it’s a short book so I just finished it.

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Dec 04, 2023 Hectaizani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-sf-science-fiction, fiction-sf-dystopia, fiction-world-literature, bookbox-mytbr-co, tbr-pile

A quiet dystopian novel where things and the memories of those things are disappearing from an unnamed island. The residents never know what might disappear and the few who are immune are hunted by the Memory Police.

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