Best for:
Those who enjoy contemplative stories.

In a nutshell:
The main character of this book is a novelist whose name we never learn. She lives alone in a world where anything can disappear. But not for everyone.

Worth quoting:
The writing is the book is lovely, but I didn’t find myself underlining anything specific.

Why I chose it:
This was a birthday gift from friends.

Review:
I’m feeling a bit melancholy after reading this book, but I’m not sad, and I’m not disappointed that I read it. I love that not every book is meant to leave the reader feeling happy.

In the world of this book, things disappear. And not in a ‘oh no, Bob lost his laptop’ kind of way. Categories of items just disappear. First they start to disappear from memory, and then everyone takes what they have left of the items and disposes of them, never to be seen again. So, for example, apples. One day, people have apples, and apple trees, applesauce. But then apples disappear, and so all remaining apples just rot away, and people forget the word and what it represented. If they come across, say, an image of an apple, it will look like nothing they’ve seen before; just an abstract object.

But not everyone forgets, and that’s where the Memory Police come in. Their job is to interrogate anyone who appears to not be able to forget things that have disappeared, and if they do retain memories, they themselves are removed from the town.

The main character is a novelist, and the novel she is writing is interspersed throughout the book. Her mother was someone who could remember, and was taken away years ago. She hid items that had disappeared all over the house, showing them to the novelist when she was a child, even though the novelist had no memory and no point of reference to it. Her editor is also someone who can remember, and she is determined to protect him from the memory police. I think only one person in the book has a name that is shared with the reader; everyone else is known by their job, or perhaps an initial, or their demographics - her best friend is the old man.

What stands out most for me is how people can come to adjust to things that from the outside are just unacceptable. How, as more and more things disappear, the people of the town don’t question things (likely for fear of a visit from the Memory Police), and instead figure out ways to adapt and continue living their lives. Some might call it resilience, but it also seems like in this town people are just living with the ongoing drone of trauma and trying to make the best of it. It seems clear that these disappearances are not happening outside of the island, but we don’t hear of many people making attempts to escape. They seem to have accepted their fate, for the most part, and are just interested in living the lives they can.

What’s next for this book:
Keep, recommend to others. ( )

This is really depressing, so it feels strange to say I enjoyed my time with it, but it is beautifully written and captivating. Dystopian, what is left of a person when all their memories of things are gone? The world keeps shrinking until they are gone. I enjoyed the story within the story as well. ( )

I'm not normally a fan of dystopian fiction, but I found this a powerful and unsettling read. Simply yet lyrically written , the writer - this is told in the first person - lives on an island in thrall to the Memory Police. Things comprehensively disappear: in the early days, simple things like roses, and the inhabitants soon lose any memories of the things that have vanished. Those unfortunate people who find they do not forget - and the writer's parents seem to have been among them - simply are removed by the Memory Police and never seen again. The 'writer' of this book is herself a novelist, and we are privy to her latest effort, involving a young typist whose story in some ways moves in parallel to the story the author is living through. She hides her editor in her house, because his memories do not fade, and he is therefore in danger... We never find out more about the Memory Police, or know to whom they are answerable. But we are left with a lot to think about - totalitarian regimes, life, death and the process of letting go and of dying. I'll go on thinking about his book. ( )

2.5 at best. Normally I love surrealism in literature and art, and the first half of this book was no exception, but by the end I was left with the same unanswered questions as the beginning, and ended up strongly disliking the narrator to boot. Though I understand there's supposed to be a deeper meaning symbolized by the surreal events happening on the island, I would've appreciated some hints on how the Memory Police came about, how the "disappearances" happen and are chosen... something! Instead, we just get a bunch of idle speculation. The time and setting are unclear, though the characters live similarly to how we do today, which gave me the impression that more details/worldbuilding were to follow. Grounding the story further might have driven its message home a little better, instead of the nebulous way it's delivered here.

Also, I was absolutely done with the main character when she risked everything for no reason by walking into the Memory Police headquarters (apparently without suffering any consequences though, so it's all excused I guess?) and somehow managed to ignore the repeated signs of an oncoming stroke in her friend the old man until the day he died of one (for context/contrast, she took the dog to the vet at the first sign of illness). I can understand unlikeable characters, but I cannot abide inconsistent or stupid ones, and the unnamed narrator of this book unfortunately happens to be both. In fact, she hardly qualifies as a main character for me because she takes a backseat in almost all the events that matter - she tells us what happens to her, what other people are doing (the old man does pretty much everything, for instance, when it comes to their rescue operation) carries on an icky affair with a married man she's hiding (contributing nothing whatsoever to the plot), and then just kind of fades away at the end. Good riddance, honestly. ( )

Another beyond weird translated book with an interesting concept! Though I feel this book holds the reader at a distance, for example, none of the characters have names. A novelist lives in a place where occasionally things disappear from the island. One day it's birds. One day it's roses... Interspersed with a bit of a novel that the character was writing makes it a bit more interesting. I don't regret reading it, but wish I had liked the execution better. ( )