THE MEMORY POLICE - YOKO OGAWA | SCI FI SURREAL DYSTOPIA BOOK REVIEW

Thanks for tuning in for this booktube review of 2020 Booker Prize shortlister THE MEMORY POLICE by YOKO OGAWA. If this book did it for you, then let me know in the comments what you liked about it? What do you think it was a metaphor for?

00:00 Intro
00:19 Plot
01:31 Review

[TheBookishMom]

I have been intrigued by this book for a while now

[VoyageThroughWorlds]

something I really enjoyed about the Memory police is that western literature so often thinks it has to give us all the answers, , which here just really isn't the case, it's not about what's happening or what it's about, , , which is also why I think the main thing I ended up saying in my own review was that if it's what you enjoy you're gonna love it, , but if not then there's not that much there in the book to latch onto

[pastelwriter]

Honestly this sounds incredibly up my alley. I don’t like reading books all the time just for the aesthetic of the language, but it’s definitely a nice “treat” here and there 😂

[ClumsyCharlott]

this book has been on my radar for a while. curious to check it out at some point!

[dylanwolf]

I was absolutely haunted by the book. It seemed to me such an insightful and beautifully delicate description (the word I really want to use here doesn't exist; describe - description, but relate - relation? what is the unclunky version of "telling"?) of what it is to experience existence, that is, to live.

We perceive the world through qualia, which carry a power of evocation (through which they purvey a meaning to us which we build internally from our previous experiences of qualia), but also are also irreparably transient (memories, as we know, are transformed, corrupted if you like, by their recollection - they only bear an untransmutable form once passing into oblivion).

To take the book as a dystopia of totalitarianism or a warning against the increasing ubiquity of surveillance in modern society I feel is to drastically undersell it. I don't think The Memory Police is at all a political novel.

[BookInvasion]

This was a really interesting read and I really enjoyed it (and by enjoyed i mean i was also completely lost at the end and had lots of questions - Who were the police and where/how did they get there?) I like the dementia 'fairy tale' angle cause that makes a lot of sense. But I felt it was maybe a 4 star for me for fans of people who like the mysterious reads.

[caleba]

I’m pretty sure I have this on my kindle, but I forget. Ba dum tiss. I’m definitely looking forward to checking it out at some point.

[penelopegough]

I love the idea of this book. Have owned it now for a while. So why haven’t I read it.? May not now although try not to be influenced by reviews. Thanks anyway.

[princeopumpkins]

I like this book u are just a bully sorry not sorry