Yoko Ogawa is a Japanese writer. She's won several awards for her work and several of her novels are available in English translation. She cites American author Paul Auster and The Diary of Anne Frank as major influences.
In The Memory Police an island of people, seemingly cut off from the rest of the world by more than geography, slowly forget the facts of their existence. One day everyone forgets what teapots are, and then, discovering these now mysterious objects in their midst, they set about destroying all of them, effectively erasing these objects from their daily lives. On another day everyone forgets that they have left ears, and even though they're unwilling to physically part with these ears, their minds close to the very idea of left ears, leaving everyone unaware that they possess such things as left ears or even what left ears might be used for.
All of this "partially involuntary forgetfulness" occurs around a local author engaged in the writing of a novel, and as both her novel and the larger story progress we see the toll these "disappearances" take on the people of the island. These people are all, without exception, a rather meek population of unaspiring people who hope, however unrealistically, that their collective amnesia and the Memory Police who enforce it will somehow fade from the scene.
With regard to style and tone there are two easy comparisons to make here: one being George Orwell's 1984 and the other being the works of Franz Kafka. But unlike 1984 The Memory Police is an apolitical novel, and although it shares the same surrealism with Kafka's stories The Memory Police is a distinctly Japanese creation, suffused with a sort of quiet fortitude that Kafka's stories lack.
While reading The Memory Police I was often also reminded of Junji Ito's manga Uzumaki, another story which engages in generous amounts of dream logic. Both The Memory Police and Uzumaki are works that you feel your way through, and applying too much logic to what their respective characters say and do would be a frustrating experience for the reader.
On the whole I enjoyed The Memory Police and I never found it dull. At the same time I have to say that it's not an especially deep novel, its intimations of Stockholm Syndrome and collective paranoia aside.
A film adaption is on the way, with Lily Gladstone in the lead role. Charlie Kaufman is writing the script, so expect something weird.
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