Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - La Policía de la Memoria

“My memories don’t feel as though they’ve been pulled up by the root. Even if they fade, something remains. Like tiny seeds that might germinate again if the rain falls. And even if a memory disappears completely, the heart retains something. A slight tremor or pain, some bit of joy, a tear.”

“His soul is too dense. If he comes out, he’ll dissolve into pieces, like a deep-sea fish pulled to the surface too quickly. I suppose my job is to go on holding him here at the bottom of the sea.”

“People—and I’m no exception—seem capable of forgetting almost anything, much as if our island were unable to float in anything but an expanse of totally empty sea.”

This novel, in its Orwellian decent, presents a surveillance-state dystopian island, where collective loss is enforced, and those who remember are systematically destroyed by The Memory Police. This a highly personal and profound type of apocalypse. The plot is reminiscent of The Diary of Anne Frank, and other real life histories of safe houses in the face or persecution; it concerns a woman’s efforts to hide one of the people who remembers, someone she cares for, in a purpose-built annex under her floorboards.

While it is, in many ways, set up like a typical dystopian novel that deftly illustrates the insidious, dehumanizing claw of totalitarianism, the true power of this novel is how it moves past the political implications of a dystopia to the very real horrors of forgetting and the destruction to society and the self this causes. There’s a quiet tension that stalks the pages of the novel. The fear, claustrophobia and struggle feel real.

If you want to read a sci-fi book that explores the effects on the individual, then definitely pick this up.

rating: ★★★★

🗺️ Reading Around the World 2024: Japan 🇯🇵

Content Warnings

thecolouryes's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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bucklace27's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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headliner's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Kehilangan menjadi satu hal yang paling aku takuti. Jika aku menjadi salah satu karakter dalam buku ini atau paling tidak berada di universe-nya, aku rasa gak akan sanggup. Barang, orang, suara, dan diri - perlahan menghilang dan entah apa yang akan terjadi.

Bagiku bacaan ini terasa suram, kelam, dan gelisah. Aku juga dibuat penasaran dengan asal muasal Polisi Kenangan. Tindakan bengis mereka juga membuatku muak. Satu hal yang aku sadari saat membaca ini adalah bagaimana "distopia" menjadi genre yang aku hindari.

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kalyaniwarrier's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Reflective of modern-day dictatorships and much aligned themes of 1984, The Memory Police dives into the world of tyranny and oppression by a government that wipes away things (and words) as time progresses.

In the novel, the unnamed protagonist fights in silence against the cruel regime by hiding the missing objects that her mother left in her basement, and by hiding a fugitive (someone the government is trying to get a hold of) in her house.

A classic case of dystopian literature, where the plot revolves around the oppressive rules of the government as people throw away their priced belongings as they are ordered to disappear.

As people of the island lose their body parts, they soon come to cope with their missing anatomy and eventually disappear into nothingness.

The novel is postmodern in nature as it features metafiction; story within a story that reflects themes of the novel itself. The novel reflects the reality of power and control to manipulate citizens to intimidate and garner fear among people.

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