Post #2128093

2026-04-14 16:25 UTC

Review: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa &quot;The Memory Police was technically fine. It did a more than adequate job of portraying a bleak dystopian world with its plot and character interactions. However, its use of unnamed characters and occasionally sterile prose left me feeling disconnected from the overarching narrative and at the end of it I didn’t come away feeling particular strongly about any of it.&quot; https://nullrouted.space/2026/04/14/review-the-memory-police-by-yoko-ogawa/ If you enjoyed reading this book review, please boost this post and perhaps consider buying me a book. https://donate.stripe.com/fZu9ATbaA6ukbIEcVIe3e01 #books #bookstodon

Replies (1)

@lapis@elekk.xyz 2026-04-15 16:31

@packetcat@tenforward.social I haven't read the memory police (Basically not in the mood to read dystopian) but Ogawa is one of my favorite Japanese authors. A lot of people Like "The Housekeeper and the Professor" (I think the title in many languages including Japanese is closer to "The Professor's Beloved Formula/Equation") which is basically about a housekeeper who has to clean / aid a former math professor who has memory issues due to iirc a head injury. It's a very nice book Personally though my favorite from her is Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales (my brother's best guess when asked to give "the gist" of the title is "Silent remains, obscene mourning." which I get why that's not the english title but I also personally don't think the English title is fitting) which are short stories but they're all interconnected. I might be wrong but I believe this was a serialized work? which always impresses me, especially since I'm not the best at planning / outlining works (Ran into a lot of trouble with that writing fanfiction as a youth) If you do want to read JP translated fiction (that isn't Haruki Murakami, no offense to that guy I'm glad he's found success but I don't really care for 99% of his fiction, I think he's better at non-fiction) I can suggest other stuff too. I'm trying to get into Korean stuff, but I feel really uncomfortable after Han Kang won that award (for the Vegetarian) and people who actually knew Korean were saying the translation wasn't remotely accurate in carrying the voice. IDK Maybe I can learn korean instead. I'm trying to learn to pronounce it as I get into some stuff like Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint as I try to pronounce character names in my head (and this may SHOCK!!!! you who I'm pretty sure knows several languages? But Latin Alphabet? Dogshit at communicating how something should be pronounced. Just look at the letter J) I haven't really read many, but I know if you like Fair Play Mysteries, there's a genre of Japanese Mysteries (I think something like "Japanese Orthodox Mysteries? I don't remember and wikipedia isn't helping right now) that are supposed to be a fun read and they're starting to get translated. but anyway thanks I will not read the memory police unless I get the urge to read everything of Ogawa's that's in English

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