“And what will happen if words disappear?”
This tale almost feels like a contrasting narrative to the short story “History of a Disturbance” in terms of the importance that words have in what each author is trying to convey. Ogawa relies heavily on word-building to recount and express what has been lost. (It just seems fitting that the protagonist would be a writer.) She is faced with a challenge in describing the forgotten and relies heavily on precise definitions, on detailed and meticulous elucidations. Her words are how she leads us through a story centered around the concept of not knowing. She employs clever strategies to combat this opposition, tactics to allow readers to comprehend what has been lost and to utilize the concept of forgetting.
“What lovely roses,” I told her. Anything I had ever felt about these flowers had already vanished from my heart, but she was plucking the petals from her own blooms with such tenderness that I’d wanted to say something to her. This was the first thing that came to mind.
“Thank you. They won the gold medal at last year’s fair, you know.” My comment seemed to have pleased her. “They are the last most beautiful memento I have of my late father.” But there was no regret in her voice as she tore apart the petals and sent them fluttering into the water. The polish on her fingernails was nearly the same shade as the flowers. Once her work was done, she turned and, without a glance at the stream, gave me the sort of graceful bow typical of people of her class and left.
In three days’ time, the river had returned to normal with no visible change the color or level of the water.”
While melancholy, there’s also a feeling of peacefulness. Even as these objects, along with all memories correlating with them, disperse, it’s an eerily calm affair. We can’t quite comprehend this strange emptiness that the inhabitants of this island endure, yet we are given some idea when we are introduced to the other woman. That unfeeling-ness. While these roses meant a great deal to her at some point, even going as far as to compare their color to her fingernails – and in doing so, convey that they had become a physical part of her – the connection is broken. As readers, we are made to sense this circumstance of detachment after being given a glimpse into the connection of the flowers and the woman.
However, there is no regret in her action, no hesitation in disregarding an item so vital to her emotional state. There is 
no longer a deeper meaning in this subject matter, and it no longer exists to her mind. There is an absence that is perfectly expressed. The feelings of the reader contrast heavily with the feelings of both the woman and the narrator – for we know what is supposed to be there, what is supposed to be felt. There should be remorse, or sadness, or sorrow, or guilt.
And even the lack of words helps to build this scene. As the reader understands this loss, actively feels this dissipation, there are no words on the page to support these sensations. There is a purposeful emptiness in the descriptions we expect.
Excellent. I love this observation: “The feelings of the reader contrast heavily with the feelings of both the women and the narrator – for we know what is supposed to be there, what is supposed to be felt. There should be remorse, or sadness, or sorrow, or guilt.”