I’d been meaning to read this one for awhile, as I had heard only good things. Ogawa’s story lived up to the hype. It’s actually not a new book, having been published in 1994. That being said, it was only recently translated into English.
Firstly, the premise of the novel is incredibly inventive. The main character, a young novelist, lives on an unnamed island off an unnamed coast where things just… disappear. Ribbons, candies, emeralds, etc. They simply vanish from the minds of the inhabitants and from the physical world. The memory police ensure that no one is holding on to anything that has disappeared. It is the surveillance state to an extreme.
Ogawa’s prose is quiet and subtle, basking in the subtext of what is left unsaid. I finished it in a single night, as I couldn’t put it down. The book is moody, atmospheric, and contemplative, but without getting ensnared in the melodramatic. It situates itself firmly in a dystopian realm of repression, but there is a novelty to the story that shirks the typical trappings of the genre.
People describe it as ‘orwellian’ but I have never been able to finish 1984. And trust me, I’ve tried on several occasions. This story felt more relatable than 1984. Perhaps because I imagined her to be close to my age, perhaps because of the dreaminess of the prose. The Memory Police has a subtlety that 1984 has always lacked for me.
Some recommend Ogawa for fans of Murakami’s work. In my mind, this feels like an odd comparison as all I can think of them having in common is the flair for magical realism and the fact that they are both Japanese. And don’t get me wrong, I love Murakami, I just don’t think that the two are comparable. The sensation of reading Murakami always feels to me massively disorienting, a little absurd, a little manic. But this was more subtle and gentler, yet still distinct in its own way. It still imparted that feeling of being a little mixed up, the taste of something bittersweet left long after its conclusion.
