Varieties of The Fantastic in Fiction

The point of view is first person, and the narrator is telling the story by looking back at her memories. When the story uses first person, it puts me into the story as I am reading so I am the one that is experiencing everything in the story. It takes place at Devil’s Throat, which is a retreat for artist to work on their projects without extirpations. The plot is a woman got acceptance letter to Devils’ Throat and once she gets there, she meets other artists such as a painter, sculptor and photographer.

The climax happens when she remembers when she was in Girl Scout camp and how the other campers moved her outside at night. She looks up at the night sky and sees the galaxy and realizes that she small compared to the galaxy, she is small like atom. The resolution came when drove back home and looks at the trees and realize that have not change. She goes back to her neighborhood and looks at her neighbors and wonders if they are new or not and if the woman that she saw is her wife.

The story made me think that the author was dead, and she went to hell. But she died a day earlier than what was planned and that was why everyone was shocked to see her. It made me think that all artists can be crazy about their own but sometimes they need to step back and join the reality of the world. It did not make me feel anything, I just read the story.

“The Resident” follows an author who has been accepted into an artists’ residency in the mountains where she used to go to girl scout camp. At the beginning, she is elated, but as time passes she becomes increasingly uneasy. For much of this story, and even to an extent still, I was unsure of the exact fantastic element. The most explicitly “fantastic” event, to me, was the appearance on her doorstep of the other half of the rabbit, but even this is not unexplainable. I think that the fantastic element of this story is stored in the way it is written. The writing gives off the impression that the residency contains some vague but malevolent presence, causing the narrator’s unsettling experiences and the progressive loss of her sanity. This was achieved using a variety of horror tropes: The last-stop at the gas station with a strange, unfamiliar program on the tv and a cashier who freezes up at the mention of the narrator’s destination; the expectation that a hand will shoot out from under the bed; the recurring bad weather; the unexplained illnesses; the sudden darkness in the woods; the portrait of the narrator in which she appears utterly dead; the appearance of the rabbit. The narrator herself is aware of the tropes that she is experiencing, and the fact that they are cliché. This ties into my second topic of analysis. 

Throughout the story, certain proper nouns are cut off, such as the location of the camp and a few names, including the narrator’s own. This is a literary convention common in older works and can be done for a few reasons, one of which is to imply that the narrator of the story is choosing to censor names out of a desire for privacy or courtesy for other characters, lending a sense of realism. We do not learn the narrator’s name, only that her initials are C—— M——, but I believe we are meant to infer the rest. The narrator is an author whose novel follows someone she considers to be a reflection of herself, saying: “She’s me.” She defends her writing against Lydia, who criticizes her use of tropes (the “madwoman in the attic,” the “mad lesbian”) and her egotistical self-insertion. C—— M—— defends her right to write “concealed autobiography,” which is what this story itself is.

At the end, C—— M—— addresses the reader directly. She says: “Perhaps you’re thinking that I’m a cliché— a weak, trembling thing with a silly root of adolescent trauma, right out of a gothic novel. But I ask you, readers: Thus far in your jury deliberations, have you encountered any others who have truly met themselves?” Here and throughout the novel, Machado defends her use of “tropes” which are really just aspects of her life, and her habit of writing “concealed autobiography” as a form of introspection. After all, a story with no trace of its author is impossible anyway, and if it did exist it would be soulless.

The memory Police is a novel about a novelist who lives on an island that things often disappear from. These things are often random like perfume, roses, and photos but are also main staples in people’s lives that “disappear” and then are forgotten. This book shows how people often deal with the sudden loss of once important things.

I found this story interesting because we are brought into this world where something magically “disappears” and then people all go out and destroy what is left of that item. When the birds disappeared off the island everyone went out and released all of their birds without a second thought or a protest. I think the most sinister thing that was made to disappear was the photos. Photos are people’s memories and are often one of the few physical items that we have of our love ones so when these were destroyed that further messes with their sense of memory.

Because we never know who is deciding what disappears or how they do it; this book makes me think of the systematic stripping of people’s cultures and their lives. When Africans were being brought over through the slave trade they were stripped of their native names like in Roots when Kunta was tortured into taking is master’s name, Toby. They were also stripped of their religion, their languages, and removed from their families. They were not allowed to have anything that reminded them of where the came from and forced to take on new ways of thinking and living. Further down the line, what remained of their culture was completely forgotten. This is similar to what happened in Memory Police, one by one important pieces of them and their bodies disappear until they are completely gone. This makes it seem like this was a slow but deliberate genocide.

Real Women Have Bodies is a story about the unnamed Main Character and her girlfriend,Petra. In the story we learn that there is a strange plague that is making women fade. MC  works at a dress shop called Glam and that is where she meets Petra, they soon hook up at Petra’s mother’s inn. At the inn, she learns that the faded women are being sewn into the dresses that they sell at Glam. No one knows why they do this but they stay there regardless. Soon Petra also starts to fade. At the end when Petra is fully faded the MC goes back to the dress shop and tries to free all of the women in the dresses but they refused to leave.

This story kept me thinking because we never find out why these women are fading or what happens to them after, literally no explanation is given. But I think this plague is being used to push a more modern approach to femininity. For example, the young woman who came in to try the red dress she said she loved it but “didn’t want to get a reputation” this kind of thinking is deeply embedded in women to not stand out in a certain way or look “slutty” which the color red is often associated with. Women often have to consider what we look like to the outside world (especially men) in order to be respected.  So maybe the women are being sewn into the dresses as an act of rebellion to show that they can wear what they want without being seen in any negative way.Later on, Petra says that the faded women are performing acts of “terrorism” by destroying ATMs and voting machines. This was their way of protesting and since the women started fading during the height of the ressesion it makes since they would try to mess with systems like that especially when historically women were not allowed to have their own money or vote.

Petra is an interesting character to have fade because she is not the most feminine character and her name literally means solid. There is an irony in having someone’s name literally mean solid and then them just fade away. In the beginning of the story Petra is just what her name means, she is a woman who is about her business and comes off as tough but as the story goes on she begins to become a  distraught and soft. This is due to her fading. The part when she stabs her hand at the bar I think represents her last attempt to try to be herself again and try to regain her wholeness.

Side note: I really like how Machado put little details like Petra having a smoky quartz necklace which is a smoky and transparent stone that is supposed to help with getting rid of negative energy and detoxify the body. I also liked when they went to the chapel and found that alter of Santa Rita who was a widow nun known for her mortification of flesh. Little details like this make the story feel more real and interesting.

“Eight Bites” was a difficult story to read. The narrator experiences so much pain mentally and emotionally that I found it hard to continue. I think this is due to the fact that even though the point of view is in first person, we can understand the conflicts and struggles of the other characters (Or, rather, the main character understands the conflicts of the other characters and doesn’t want to admit it). For example, the main character is the mother of Cal, her distant daughter who is described as “furious constantly” and “all accusation.” (158) Her daughter is angry at her for wanting the surgery, which she sees as an attack against her own body, and the main character cannot understand why the daughter can’t accept her body as flawed.

This conflict reflects back to the first scene of the story. At first, I couldn’t place why the introduction was so extremely sexual when the rest of the story didn’t seem to pertain to any issues about sex or relationships that would cause that anxiety, but now I understand it as having to do with ownership of the body. Sex is normally written as a process of two bodies becoming one, and though I realize conflating pregnancy and sex might seem gross, having a child inside of you is also about blurring the line between what is your body and what is your child’s body, and there is clearly that disconnect between the main character and Cal. This is exacerbated by the fact that the main character also marks her “point of no return” into weight gain as after she had Cal. On the one hand, it’s like Cal caused her body to betray her, and on the other hand, it’s not like Cal had any say in the matter.

In the end, it also seems like the main character betrays herself. After going through with the surgery, she finds the remnants of her left-behind fat in the basement. After beating up the part of her that she cannot accept, she leaves her down there, but there is the understanding that she will have to face her eventually, as on page 166 she says, “If you’re brave, you’ll turn your body over to this water that is practically an animal, and so much larger than yourself.” I think that the ending scene of the story gives shape to the unhealed grief and anger that has been passed from her to Cal, and will continue to be passed down through other families: “She will outlive my daughter, and my daughter’s daughter, and the earth will teem with her and her kind, their inscrutable forms and unknowable destinies.” (167) However, I also think that the last few lines gesture towards acceptance and that the main character can finally rest within her own body.

The fifth story in “Her Body & Other Parties,” “Real Women Have Bodies,” is a vividly described, genuinely distressing narrative that showed how harsh speculative fiction can be. The story is told from the point of view of a young woman whose name or identity is never given. The imagery is as striking as the message, which is unapologetically harsh.

The story talks about a plague that takes over America. No one knows how this plague is spread or why it makes the women affected go from the solid human form, to slowly fading away. The first time the narrator comes in contact with these women she realizes that “…the room is full of women. Women like the one in the viral video, see-through and glowing faintly, like afterthoughts.”

The meaning of the faded but not completely gone woman can be interpreted in a multitude of ways.  They seem to be driven into seclusion in part by a society that respects them only when they are associated with items of beauty. To me, it appears to be a form of rejection that is intensified. Overall, it seems that women are lost, which leads me to believe that this is a parallel to America’s rape culture and normalization for misogyny. While everyone is aware of the plague in general, they refuse to consider the truth until it affects them or someone they know.

“Eight Bites” by Carmen Maria Machado is a depressing read. It focuses on the narrator’s struggle with her weight/appearance and her difficult relationship with her daughter. I noticed that the reader doesn’t receive much information on the narrator that isn’t related to either or both of these topics. They’re both such negative topics, and even the happiness that she feels after her surgery doesn’t feel legitimate. 

“I wasn’t a fat child or teenager,” she explains, later adding, “But then I had a baby.” It sets up the underlying small amount of contempt she seems to hold for Cal, the baby in question. The narrator compares Cal to a “heavy-metal rocker trashing a hotel room before departing.” With short stories, every detail and every comparison become more important. The narrator describing her daughter in such a way as soon as the daughter as a character is introduced says a lot about the narrator’s true feelings. I get the sense that the narrator blames her daughter for the way she looks and that the daughter picked up on it through the years. It’s a tragic but fairly basic scenario: mom hates kid for ruining a part of her life, kid hates mom for being a terrible mom.

After the narrator gets her surgery and the body she wants, she’s in pain, and then she’s happy. As aforementioned, the happiness seems fake in a way. Her daughter does not contact her, and she mentions a feeling of emptiness. She’s told that she’s beautiful by her sisters, whom the readers only know as first sister, second sister, and third sister, but no satisfaction is tied to it. Eventually, a “thing” starts haunting the narrator’s home. It manifests itself as a dark entity in the rough shape of the narrator’s daughter. The first time the narrator sees it, it is crying, and the narrator kicks her and hits her with a broom and otherwise violently assaults her. Tying back to the narrator’s secret hatred for her daughter, her reaction to this entity is all the more awful.

By the end of the story, leaving off with the narrator’s death, I’m not sure how I feel about her. I sympathize with the fact that she did something drastic to change her appearance, but she was so absorbed with it that she neglected her own child. It is briefly mentioned that Cal has a kid of her own now, and the two of them only visited once a year. This story demonstrates how an extremely negative self-image can affect someone, but it also shows that actions have consequences. If you only focus on the bad about yourself, how can you expect others to do anything but the same?

Carmen Machado’s “Real Women Have Bodies” is a beautifully written, deeply disturbing story. The story is told to us by a protagonist that never is identified with a name, which is an interesting choice. I feel as if this made the protagonist feel slightly more intangible and slippery  to me, as if she too was not completely solid. The story progresses to the point in which an incurable disease is discovered, which is making women disappear for no particular reason. The disease starts as a one hit wonder in the internet to escalate to news in a major outlet, which is an interesting way to give the disease relevance, since it is so close to what could happen in the real world. This disease that affects people is something which is never explained, and does not have to be explained. The way in which Machado describes these women, “ see-through and glowing faintly, like afterthoughts,” illustrates perfectly many of the reasons why these women are becoming invisible but sentient. From normalized misogamy, rape, society, expectations on women, and silencing of women are all possible reasons, but that does not matter in the face that the women are disappearing which makes the reason inconsequential to the actual act of disappearing.  Furthermore, the protagonist reaction to the disappearing’s ties the story together nicely. The protagonist is horrified and scared and empathetic. However, she is also frustrated by other women and their reactions, and fustrated at her own helplessness and powerlessness to help and fight the plague.

“Real Women Have Bodies”: A mysterious occurrence has caused physical women to fade into simple oracles in this world, with some opting to remain current by sewing themselves into the fabric of garments. As her new lover begins to fade into the air, a boutique salesgirl romances the daughter of a big clothing supplier, resulting in a quick, bittersweet affair. A strong commentary on body image and the intrusion of the fashion industry, which encourages and capitalizes on the “existential crises” brought on by unrealistic and ephemeral beauty standards, appears amid the narrator’s emotional breakdown. The story has a layer of fascinating immediacy beneath which flows a very scary idea, told from the point of view of a young woman whose name we never learn. The imagery is as stunning as the message, which is unapologetically cruel. Machado utilized this story to say something controversial: persons who do not dress femininely as ladies are invisible to the world, thus they are removed from the title. Dresses are a symbol of womanhood, thus their souls would cling to it because it represented who they have been: a female.

No one understands how the epidemic spreads or how the women are afflicted, but those who are infected eventually deteriorate from real bodies to nearly invisible skin. When our protagonist originally interacts with these women, she notices that:

“…the room is full of women. Women like the one in the viral video, see-through and glowing faintly, like afterthoughts.”

The meaning of the decayed woman can be interpreted in a variety of ways. They appear to be pushed into obscurity in part by a society that appreciates them only when they are associated with items of beauty. In part, it seems to be an incomprehension that is worsened by the tragic boredom of the women it affects. Generally, it appears that women are doomed, which leads me to believe that this is a metaphor for America’s rape myths and acceptance of misogyny.

This week we were given two stories to read by Carmen Maria Machado. I have chosen to write about the story “Real Women Have Bodies”. I feel like this story can have multiple messages and meanings, but this story for me represents how women’s bodies are viewed in modern society today. We are often judged, prodded, and harassed over the image of our bodies which is something that we cannot control. We are also judged, prodded and harassed  for changing things on our bodies that we may not like ourselves. This story makes me think of how things have developed during the age of social media. Men in particular trying to decide what is real on a woman and only valuing a woman based on what she has on her body. There were some lines on page 129 that really stood out for me in regards to this.

“All I’m saying is,” says Chris, “if I want to fuck mist, I’ll just wait for a foggy night and pull my dick out.” I pinch the muscle between my shoulder and neck. “Apparently some guys like that.” “Who? No one I know,” Chris says. He reaches out and presses his thumb into my collarbone, quickly. “You’re like stone.” “Thanks?” I knock his hand away. “I mean, you’re solid.” “Okay.” “Those other girls—“ Chris begins.”

Women have started to disappear and the reasoning is unknown. They start to fade and become unreal, tied to objects in the world. I did not quite understand why the women started to disappear. Was it because they felt unworthy, not beautiful, or was it just some fantastic force with no explanation? Eventually would all women disappear? This too can have multiple meanings for the interpretation of the disappearances and who they are happening to.

The end of the story also holds meaning to me. Even though the narrator’s lover was disappearing herself, that love never changed. She still loved her body endlessly and remained loyal to her. The narrator eventually breaks at the end of the story and tries to release all the unseen women from the dresses in the shop. The narrator is someone who has compassion for these women and since her lover has turned into one, I think it breaks her and pushes her to the brink. It makes me wonder how things will progress and how the author could have continued the story. What does this story really represent and what does this mean for the women in this story?

The stories “Real Women Have Bodies” and “Eight Bites” both contain central themes of bodies, specifically a woman’s body, and the practical and emotional implication of having a body. The voices of the stories are distinct, and the route in which they touch upon bodily issues differ while leaving reader’s with introspection towards their own relationship with their body.

“Real Women Have Bodies” is cleverly placed prior to “Eight Bites”, as women’s bodies are fading, they cling to the physical, tangible vessel of their womanhood, whereas in “Eight Bites” there is a goal to diminish this vessel, make it as small as possible. 

I would not be surprised if the majority of women, and people, have experienced at least some of the sentiments expressed in “Eight Bites”, whether fueled from familial judgment, societal expectations, or self-hatred. The interaction between the narrator and the ghost of herself, the pieces of her body she excavated, was a gut-wrenching interaction. Insecurities and unhappiness are complicated, diluted feelings; a way to manage these feelings, these intangible, ugly and confusing feelings, is to direct it towards something tangible: the physical. The unfortunate reality about directing the complicated relationship with self into a physical, often harmful outlet, is that any “goal” achieved, or perceived progress will never be enough. It will never satiate the root of what drives the issue. The apparent control is just a coverup for underlying chaos. In the midst of that chaos, that desire for control, the narrator cut away a piece of herself, never having reconciled her own insecurities and at the end of the story remains alone and isolated. In hindsight, we look back at the parts of ourselves we once beat up with pitiful sympathy. 

(Side note: What a relevant read during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week)

“Real Women Have Bodies” by Carmen Maria Machado is a haunting story about a woman working at a high end dress store who lives through a strange epidemic of women becoming incorporeal. She enters a relationship with another woman named Petra, who is the daughter of the seamstress who makes many of the store’s dresses. Petra shows the narrator that many women who have faded have gathered and are allowing themselves to be stitched into the dresses that her mother makes. The narrator is disturbed by this and quits her job. Later, after the relationship between the narrator and Petra has advanced, Petra begins to fade. In the end, Petra is gone completely, and the narrator breaks into the dress store to tear apart dresses, freeing the women inside them. She implores them to leave, but they don’t.

This story reminded me of Julia Armfield’s “The Great Awake” in that it explores an individual’s experience of a large-scale supernatural event, while giving no clear explanation of the cause or meaning of the events. We do not learn exactly why the event is happening, but we hear a few popular theories (in “The Great Awake,” the separation of Sleep from peoples’ bodies was blamed on phones and social media, among other things, and in this story, the increasing incorporeality of women is blamed on everything from the fashion industry to the water). I enjoy the ambiguity of these stories because it allows the reader to interpret the meaning of the events in whatever way resonates with them, as well as because it adds a layer of realism to a fantastic premise. In real life, we don’t usually get answers.

I interpreted the fading in this story as a statement on a few women’s issues. First, I thought it could be about dehumanization of women by men. At one point, the two men who work at the photography studio, Chris and Casey, objectify women and judge them based on their sexual appeal even as they are suffering from something as horrific as watching their bodies disappear. Additionally, women are accused of lying and deceiving by becoming incorporeal, as if they had a choice in the matter and as though this were a desirable outcome for them. This is reminiscent of how victims of sexual assault are treated by many men. I also thought that women’s fading actually did have something to do with the fashion industry, or more largely the expectation that women be beautiful. A sizable paragraph in the text is dedicated just to describing the beauty of the dresses, which we later learn that many women who have disappeared want desperately to be physically stitched into. They do not choose to “cook [themselves] into the mustard” at the condiment factory, they choose beautiful things to embody. I think this idea also fits with the line: “they were fading younger and younger, weren’t they?” as a reference to how girls are expected to grow up quicker, and seem to no longer be allowed to look like children.

In “The Goodman of Wastness” and “Selkie Stories are for Losers” both of the authors talked about transformation from a seal to a human and sometimes a human back to a seal. Both men in the stories was walking around and found naked women swimming near the sea and in the pool and decides to take their skin. The women have to get married to the men and they have children with the men, but after some time they find their skin that the men have hidden and go back to the sea to never return.

When the man in “The Goodman of Wastness” saw the naked ladies, instead of turning around and giving them privacy, he watched and crept closer and took one of the lady’s seal skin. This part of the story reminds me of a peeping tom who took clothes away from the woman, so she has no choice but to run around naked or be with him and have her clothes back. Sometimes that could be a joke but only with your friends, not with strangers, because then it is not funny.

In the “Selkie Stories are for Losers,” the daughter of a selkie works at a diner to help pay bills because her mom left when she found her skin. One night the daughter forgets her car keys inside the diner, but it is closed. She runs into the niece of the owner, and they break into the diner to get her keys and drink wine. We find out that the niece, Mona, has a strange relationship with her mom because her mom just cries, which makes Mona upset and she takes off to get some fresh air.

I can relate to this because I have a strange relationship with my mom and when she starts crying in her misery I just want to leave and never return. I find peace by being around and in water and if I was mermaid I would live in the sea. I feel like my mom left me even though she is still here physically, and I know when gets the chance to run she will and won’t look back because she only cares about her feeling and her freedom.

I read the last 10 chapters of “The Memory Police” and there was a lot of details in those 10 chapters. The novel that the narrative is writing about gets a weird and dark turn. When the order from the memory police to get rid of the books, it was hard for the narrative to let go of the books. It was hard for me to read what they did to the books because I love books and I have my own library of different kinds of books. Reading what they did to the books and read how no one really cared was hard.

This story reminds me of Nazis in Germany when they were trying to get rid of Jews and their history. The Jews would go hiding and find a safe place to hide but they were found by the Nazis and taken away. The Nazis were trying to erase the presence of the memory of Jews. And in this book the Memory Police was trying to erase the memories that they decided that they did not need anymore.

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is a beautifully written political dystopian novel. To me this novel was reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Lois Lowry’s The Giver. All these works of literature take place in a dystopia in which the government has taken complete control of particular aspects of life or life itself. All of these works focus on a character that is attempting to disobey the order, and attempt to find a way of life that is different from what their governments have forced upon them. However, The Memory Police has unique characteristic that distinguishes it from the rest.

The way the The Memory Police distinguishes itself from other political dystopian novels is that the motives of the memory police is never clear to the reader. Throughout the novel, Yoko Ogawa never attempts to specify the motives or the details of the organization which has taken control over the lives of the people. Furthermore, the way in which the world is set up to follow the restrictions placed by memory police allows for the readers to understand the power that the government institution has on their lives. Once something disappears from the island, no one can remember the function. Hence, even though items like boats have not completely disappeared, it will never be used because the function of the object has become obsolete to the people that live there. Additionally, the correlation between political institutions and the physical world are intertwined in a way that allows for the disappearance of things to become more concrete. When the roses disappeared they never grew again. Similarly, when calendars cease to exist, so do the seasons that accompany them. All these ways in which the author creates this world makes it immensely distinguishable from other dystopian novels.

Another way in which this book is masterful is in its world building. Yoko Ogawa never overexplains the situation in which the characters are in, but she never leaves the readers in the dark. The explanations that she provides are enough for the reader to get the grasp of the situation without being spewed out to the reader at the beginning. Additionally, the way in which the details expand over the course of the novel set a feeling of credibility that allows for the reader to immerse themselves into the story. This is because the story starts with small disappearances that grow to things which cause real effects on the lives of people. Additionally, her pragmatic tone allows for the story to have a sense of uncanniness and eeriness. Furthermore, as the novel moves forward the sense of desperation, fear, and tension grows. It also allows for the reader be more attentive to the occurrences and have a sense of belief in the events unfolding in the novel. Also, the choice of not naming many of the characters caught my attention. It could illustrate that these people are losing their identity. Hence, there is no need to differentiate them by names as their identity is lost amid the mass of people. It could also emphasize the feeling of surrealism in this world, as we are never given a clear name to identify these characters.

Another literary device that I thought brought context to the novel was that the narrator was writing. The novel inside The Memory Police runs parallel to the main story, but what truly caught my attention was the similarity between the characters. Apart from the story being tied to her life, it also made me think of how as people disappear, so do archetypes of people, so I found the idea that the characters she writes are so similar to her to be interesting. It could also imply that people who disappear are gone from her memory, so she cannot think of or remember the differences between people. This also emphasizes the idea that the people are becoming empty shells of themselves, and their “sleeping souls” are actually gone. Additionally, as she writes about things which she has forgotten, it foreshadows her own disappearance.

“The Memory Police” by Yoko Ogawa is a dreamy dystopian narrative set on an unidentified island that’s enveloped by a forgetting pandemic. The cognitive burden of forgetting is depicted in physical reality in the novel: when objects vanish from recollection, they vanish from real existence. It’s a dreamy dystopian narrative set on an unidentified island that’s enveloped by a forgetting pandemic. The cognitive burden of forgetting is depicted in physical reality in the novel: when objects vanish from recollection, they vanish from real existence. They try to respect the disappearances by convening in the street and debating how much they’ve sacrificed. As roses wither away, a covering of rainbow petals forms in the river, as though in a fairy tale. People unlock their birdcages and liberate their bewildered pets into the skies when birds go missing. Less artistic objects, such as stamps and green beans, vanish as well. No one can leave or truly comprehend where they are because the ships and charts have vanished. Each absence is followed by a moment of foggy limbo. There are several stages to forgetting: the object vanishes, the memory of the object vanishes, and finally the memory of failing to mention the object vanishes. In that the plot addresses the calm, daily outcomes of scientific experimentation, the novel’s approach is close to magical realism.

The disturbing feel of the story is compounded by Ogawa’s simple and direct, realistic demonstration, with her narrator leading a more or less normal life, as more and more absences take hold, the world severely limits yet people continue to go about their status quo, embracing whatever befalls them and soldiering on. It’s a bizarre twist on the standard authoritarian dystopia, with people in charge controlling the globe from afar, manifesting only in the piecemeal emptying of the world.This is a more complex scenario, one that goes beyond depicting severe repression by a police-like force in a remote location. At first glance, Ogawa’s novel appears to be small, because it is limited to this narrator and her very modest life — which is becoming increasingly confining around her — and written in such a straightforward manner, yet it is actually a tremendously broad dark picture she portrays.

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa starts off with a strong, intriguing first line that introduces the fantastical element of the story right away:

“I sometimes wonder what was disappeared first—among all the things that have vanished from the island.”

Right away, the reader is given the point of view, the tense, the basic setting, the idea that things are being “disappeared,” and the information that the disappearances have been happening since before the narrator was born. Very quickly, a more in-depth explanation is given about the disappearances and how they affected the narrator and the narrator’s family. It set a solid baseline for the rest of the story to operate off of.

In contrast, I felt that the ending was less strong. The narrator goes through her whole arc of losing her ability to write, trying to write again, failing, and then very suddenly gaining her ability back. The fact that she can continue her novel can leave the reader with a sense of hope, but there was no prior indication that she would be able to. In fact, all of her previous attempts to write were so unproductive that I assumed she would have to spend years to be able to write again. 

The fate of the narrator’s body and mind in the last chapter helped to redeem the ending. The heartbreak that accompanies not only the narrator’s fate but the fate of most of the islanders makes a beautifully sad ending. The question isn’t always “What is this story about?” Sometimes you have to consider, “What can I learn from this story?” I believe that the plot and ending specifically offer a bit of life advice that you should cherish what you have as if you could lose it overnight. This is a fairly basic piece of advice, but far too often is it ignored. Paired with the multitude of losses throughout the story– loss of items, loss of memory, loss of life– remembering to appreciate what you have becomes much more real. It’s raw, it’s evocative. 

I enjoyed the way Ogawa handled her characters. She broke them down bit by bit before erasing them completely. The old man showed signs of breaking down physically before his death, and the narrator lost herself slowly before becoming lost to the universe. It’s not the same as losing something overnight, but it still provides the same advice to not take advantage of what brings you joy in life.

I appreciated what I was able to take away from The Memory Police. I was expecting it to go a typical dystopian route with more information on why disappearances are happening, who is causing them, and what happens after the story ends. However, the finality of the narrator simply slipping away, leaving behind her love, was stronger than a drawn-out explanation would have been. It isn’t about “Why?” It’s about “This is what happens, what will you make of it?”

“The Memory Police,” is a thrilling novel by Yoko Ogawa. The unidentified narrator is a novelist who lives on an unidentified island off the coast of another large island with her mother, a sculptress. As the physical reality around her fades away (birds, ribbon, emeralds, candy, etc.) so do the people who can recall the vanished objects. Anyone who exhibits evidence of being able to recall these objects as well as anyone who keeps the items that disappear is apprehended by the Memory Police. When the nameless narrator discovers that her editor is one of the few people whose memories are undisturbed by the disappearances, she decides to hide him in a room between the first and second floors of her home.

Despite the fact that the novel was written over 30 years ago, it nevertheless delves into the worries and concerns of today’s readers. It’s difficult to read this without being reminded of the numerous reports of cops carrying out no-knock warrants and killing unarmed black people. The Memory Police make what may be construed as a political argument. “What political argument does it primarily address?” is my key question.