Stunned Book Review of The Memory Police

Normally when I finish a book, I pick up another so as not to be caught without a book on the go.  It’s kind of like a form of Abibliophobia – a fear of not being in the middle of a book. It doesnt matter how late it is, I need to pick up the next book.  But last night, when I finished Yoko Ogawa’s stunning The Memory Police, a book shortlisted for this year’s International Man Booker Prize, and one I have been trying to get my hands on for some time (thanks COVID-19 for making it harder to order books or use the library), there was no way I could start anything else until I had begun to process what I had just read.

Ogawa is a Japanese author and her works generally place there as well – although this is set on a remote island with a small population who experience disappearances on a regular basis. Mainly these disappearances are things… birds, calendars, ferries, harmonicas, roses…. small things and large things simply cease to exist.  As they awaken in the morning the citizens feel a stirring and suddenly know something has disappeared… and feel compelled to destroy any they have in their possession.  In a particularly evocative scene, our narrator, a novelist living alone, awakens to rose petals floating across the surface of the river, and the citizens dig up their every rose bush and burn them until no traces of roses ever existing remain.  All this is monitored by the sinister Memory Police, who also hunt down the few who retain their memories even whilst the rest of the population do not.  It is a real thing… our narrator cannot remember so many common items, even though her mother could and was arrested by the Memory Police as a result.

This is the second type of disappearance that goes by uncommented upon by the populace – the disappearance of those who remember.

Perhaps because of her mother’s memories,  when she discovers that her editor, known only as R. (there are few character names in this story, except for Don the dog) has the power of memory, our narrator volunteers to hide him in a secret room in her home.  Although he may appear to be totally in her power, the power of memory fills him and he tries to compel the novelist, and the dear old friend she makes her accomplice to begin remembering things, suggesting that each loss diminishes their souls.  While the novelist occasionally has a tickle of memory, more than most perhaps, she, like the others accepts each loss with equanimity.  This is not a novel of rebellion, but a warning perhaps of how such losses can become to seem routine.

Although the novel was first published in Japanese 40 years ago, these messages echo and resonate now as we find ourselves handing over so many civil liberties in the current global pandemic.

When novels themselves disappear, the book also begins to comment upon the power of stories, and our narrator is changed and limited by this part of her that goes missing.  But even then, she accepts and moves on, much to the horror of R.

The most shocking disappearance occurs 30 pages from the end of the novel and I could not put it down until I could find out how this would be handled… and I dare anyone else to do the same.  This is our first hint of how the novel will end.

Perhaps even more disturbing (and I know I am using a lot of phrases like this – but trust me – this is a thought provoker, and one I enjoyed more than Margaret Atwood’s over-rated The Testaments, another dystopian fiction that jointly won the Man Booker), are the strange reverse parallels of the book itself, and the story the narrator is writing.  This is about a typist who falls for her typing instructor but loses her voice, and in doing so, eventually fades away almost completely.  It begins as a gentle romance but turns into a nightmare.  conversely – and I’ll spoil a little here so feel free to skip the rest of this paragraph – the people of The Memory Police, disappear completely EXCEPT for their voices, which appear to be the last thing to go.  This suggests a sense of knowing in the narrator, like she knows what will happen and understands more consciously the dangers of the world she lives in, but also seems to comment to the reader on the dangers of not using our voice in times of oppression.  In one story a lack of voice leads to a fading away from existence, and in the other, having a voice and not using it, is just as dangerous for your sense of self.  In both stories evil triumphs.

This is going to stay with me for quite some time.  I haven’t read any of the other International Man Booker nominees, so perhaps quite unfairly I will be rooting for this one.  It’s one every inquiring mind should pick up.

Book Review of The Starless Sea

Those of us who read Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus were stunned by the epic nature of the adventure, and the intricately detailed, colourful world she created.  This makes her latest novel, The Starless Sea eagerly awaited. And the fact that it is about books makes us all just that little bit more excited.

Most of this I loved – when the main character Zachary Rawlins becomes drawn into the mysterious world of book stories and murder and mayhem after finding a book called Sweet Sorrows in his library and finally opening a door to a magical book land that was first presented to him in his childhood.  Most of it is magical, mysterious and wonderful, a land run by the symbols of bees, swords, feathers and more.  There are fascinating characters like Mirabel the doormaker and Dorian the eventual love interest who are already in this strange world Zach has just entered  There are even multiple storylines running, and extracts from key texts spread throughout.

And then it all went a little strange – when Zachary goes fully into this strange bookish landscape, and on audio I found some of these more surreal elements hard to follow.  The purpose of the book and the mystery itself became more and more murky.  I am wondering if there were some missed opportunities here to take the story in a clearer direction – but then again, perhaps that is not at all what Morgenstern was going for. 

This is surely worth a look to readers and fans of The Night Circus – and maybe one too detailed for me to have attacked on audio.  I’d be keen to start a conversation with someone who really loved it to see if the written work was the missing component here.

Book Review of Before the Coffee Gets Cold

I picked this one up on a whim at Readings the last time I was in Carlton, inspired by my love of the understated beauty of Japanese literature. But thís one wont be on my list of favourites… a little too obscure and directionless, a series of connected vignettes without the building power of a novel.

It starts in a cafe Funiculi Funicular, in which legend has it you can travel to the past. But there are many many rules…. you must go back to another time you have visited the cafe. You must not reveal you are from the future. You must sit in a particular chair which is inhabited by a ghostly figure who didn’t follow the rules – and only leaves the chair once a day. And you may only stay until the coffee gets cold, lest you take her place.

The clientele of the cafe try to change the past even though the rules tell them they cant. But sometimes they can change the future. A woman buys herself the hope of a reconciliation with the boyfriend who leaves for America. A husband and wife separated by illness find a way to reconnect, as do two estranged sisters. And a daughter finds a way to visit the mother she will lose one day.

Some touching moments, but pick up a Murakami instead.

Amazed Book Review of The World That We Knew

This is my read of the year so far – although admittedly I have not finished The Testaments yet. Its the kind of book that makes you gasp audibly towards the end, and that you look forward to the moments in each day that you can slot in a good read.

Alice Hoffman takes well-worn paths – the Holocaust and the plight of the Jews and turns it into something new and unexpected in this stunningly beautiful novel.

At its heart, The World That We Knew is a love story – in fact it is many love stories in one.  It starts with the love between mother and daughter.  It’s Berlin in 1941, and German Jews are living in fear. Hanni Kohn knows she needs to get her daughter Lea out of Berlin before things get even worse, but she cannot leave her aging mother.  Instead, she seeks a renowned rabbi and begs him to make a golem, a mythical Jewish creature to protect the child in her place.  But it is the rabbi’s daughter Ettie who does what is forbidden as a woman – she makes the golem herself in exchange for assistance for her and her sister to leave and travel with Lea.  They call the golem Ava, and like a newborn child she learns – but oh so very quickly.

Disaster strikes Ettie at the beginning of the journey, and while their paths take them in different directions, her destiny is always tied to her creation and the girl she protects.

Lea seeks refuge with distant relatives in Vichy France where she meets her soulmate Julien.  The two fall in love, much to Ava’s disapporval.  Sometimes Ava sees inklings of the future – and she feels this connection will endanger Lea.

Julien too cannot leave aging parents when the Nazis come, and the and Ava are separated.  Lea travels on with only Ava, a creature her mother told her to destroy once she reaches safety – golem are known to kill to seek their freedom.

But far from the soulless creature her mother promised, Ava is real, warm and genuine.  Hoffman suggests that this is perhaps due to her remarkable female creator. She has her own love story – and a beautiful connection to a heron who follows the girls across the country, delivering messages and dancing with Ava in the evenings.  She also comes to love Lea as a mother would.

There are no happy endings in this period of history – how could there be?  Loss is the currency of the Holocaust. But the ending Hoffman presents us with is both stunning and unexpected.  I remember literally gasping as I read silently amongst my students. You cannot miss this.

Book Review of The Ten Loves of Nishino

I picked this up at a tiny mobile bookstore in Times Square called The Strand, a haven of quiet reading amidst the lights and crowds.  When the front cover said it was a perfect pick for lover of Haruki Murakami, I couldn”t resist.

It has that lovely slow Japanese sense of longing and desire, a sprawling exploration of a man called Nishino, who can never seem to love.  He is desirable, mysterious, and compelling = and both a heartbreaker and the heart broken. Each of his relationships has him at a slight distance – women who love him that who he cannot love fully in return, or women who cannot commit to him.  It’s a sad life in many ways – one full of longing for each of the narrators – and for Nishino himself, who in the first story returns as a ghost to haunt a former lover.  We know from the outset that even in death, Nishino will be unfulfilled.

A lovely read by Hiromi Kawakami, an author I will no doubt revisit again.

Book Review of Lily and the Octopus

I had this saved on my Audible wishlist and when it came on sale I thought I might give it a try.  I’d obviously marked it some time last year as an interesting reading possibility.  The result was both beautiful and devastating. This is a book both for, and not for dog lovers.

Lily is a much-loved dachshund, and one day her owner notices an octopus on her head.  It seems to be attached there and not coming off.  After several minutes of confusion it becomes clear to the reader that the octopus is some form of tumour or cancer that the narrator, Lily’s owner, does not want to confront.

What follows is a blend of the realistic and the fanciful – the magical realism of battling an ‘octopus’ for mastery of Lily’s body (including a bizarre scene set at sea) and the hauntingly real scenes of love and loss as the narrator realises nothing he does can save Lily from her fate.  The novel talks about their whole life together, including their weekly routines of watching TV and gossiping about boys (the narrator is gay and Lily can speak to him).  Lily was his first real love in so many ways.

As a dog person, I both loved and wanted to switch this off in so many ways.  I cried at the difficult moments and loved the relationship Steven Rowley portrayed so painstakingly between the man and his dog.  Definitely worth a look.

Book Review of Killing Commendatore

I’ve seen reviews describe Haruki Murakami’s latest opus as ‘rambling’, and I would have to agree.  Killing Commendatore is a slow-paced and lengthy odyssey into a traditionally mysterious and unresolved Murakami wonderland.  This time, I struggled to keep my eyes open for long sections in the early and middle sections of the book. But this is just something you have to accept about a Murakami novel – he spends painstaking time creating both the ordinary and the extraordinary worlds his characters inhabit.  But I’d suggest this is one for the fans only – his earlier works are a little punchier.

Isolation is a key theme of many of Murakami’s novels, and the unnamed protagonist here is a portrait painter unceremoniously rejected by his wife.  Seeking refuge and solitude, he ends up living in the remote mountains of Odawarra, in the home of a once famous painter, Tomohiko Amada.  There he uncovers a painting that was never made public.  It depicts a Japanese portrayal of a murder in Don Giovanni (opera being another key element in many of Murakami’s works).  The discovery of the painting sets off a chain of unusual events that are never really brought completely into the light.  he befriends a rich stranger , who encourages him to paint the portrait of a young girl – a girl he believes may be his daughter.  Alongside this, a mysterious bell chiming in the middle of the night leads him to a tomb and a mysterious little figure, an ‘Idea’ personified in the form of the Commendatore of the picture.

While the painter is inspired anew and begins several new works, yet each disturbs him somehow.  He senses he is being drawn into a mystery that ties together Amada’s piece, Amada himself and the young girl he befriends. Eventually he must quest to save her when she disappears from the world to a place only he can enter.

The painter likes to keep many of his portraits unfinished – a reflection of Murakami’s own desire not to tie up the ends of his narrative neatly. Once again this is a lyrical, strange and beautiful novel, but one that may have been more satisfying.

Book Review of Rose Madder

I decided to fill in one of my Stephen King gaps by listening to Rose Madder, a title that hadn’t caused a lot of interest in the past.

Rose Madder differs from many other Stephen King novels in two ways; firstly, it is largely set in an um-magical world.  The focus is on Rose, a woman who escapes her abusive husband a corrupt and violent policeman.  Secondly, the supernatural element is closely connected to Greek Mythology which isn’t a clear direction for much of King’s work.  This is brought about through a visit to a pawn shop to sell her engagement ring (which turns out to be cubic zirconia), where Rosie encounters a painting of a woman wearing Greek dress.  She is drawn to the power and self-possession of the figure and takes the painting home.  She is later drawn into the landscape the painting depicts and sent on a mission to rescue a baby from the maze of the bull Erinyes.

Eventually the two worlds collide and Rosie’s husband Norman becomes Erinyes and must be confronted and destroyed in the world of the painting to protect those Rosie loves in the read world.

Readable, dark and mildly disturbing, this isn’t one of King’s best (apparently he agrees) but it is a reasonably good way to spend a few hours.

Book Review of Audrey Niffenegger’s Raven Girl

I found this short book in a library sale. Picking it up for our book nooks, I could not resist reading it myself first.  After all, The Time Traveller’s Wife was a pretty great read, I even if I didn’t enjoy Her Fearful Symmetry.

Raven Girl is a lot of things.  Niffenegger says she wanted to create a Fairy Tale for our times, and in many ways she has.  It has the slightly disturbing nature of those real Grimm’s fairy tales – this probably isn’t a tale that Disney will make into a movie.  It’s definitely not for small children either – despite being shaped much like a children’s book and full of illustrations.

It begins with a postman, who falls in love with a Raven.  After some time, they have a child, who is human in shape, but Raven in mind and speech.  As she grows older, she comes to realise that she must take steps – radical ones even – to make the exterior match the interior.

This is an unsettling story in an era of body dysmorphia, But I guess at it’s heart, it is about being different and embracing your differences.  And the illustrations are beautiful.  I’m not sure this is for the younger boys at school, but might be an interesting short read for a more mature student who might find much to ponder in this.

 

Book Review of Elevation

Stephen King’s latest novella, Elevation is a short read or short listen if like me, you’re a fan of audio books.

It’s a touching rather than scary story of a strange affliction – and how it works to actually bring people together.

Scott is a fairly lonely man living in a small town after the break-down of his marriage.  Then he notices something strange – he’s losing weight.  But only on the scales – his large frame remains unchanged.  And even more puzzling – is that no matter what Scott carries on the scale, his weight remains the same as it does when carrying nothing.

But with this lightness also seems to come a lightness of being.  Although concerned about what happens when the scales hit zero, he still takes the time to befriend a gay couple who move into the town and open a restaurant, supporting the two women to be accepted amongst the townsfolk who have fairly traditional views.  His actions change their lives and secure their future.

It’s a beautiful little story and on audio comes with an even shorter story about the power of animals to heal.  Worth a look.