Unabridged Audiobook
Just finished this exceptional book The Memory Police by Japanese author Yoko Ogawa, which as luck should have it is being adapted into a film by Charlie Kaufman (i.e. Being John Malkovich). Instead of writing a typical plot driven narrative with fully fleshed out characters, Ogawa defies all writers’ rules with her multilayered nuanced novel replete with philosophical themes (warning: this isn’t just another dystopian book)— how do we cope with inter-generational trauma and loss, how does art sustain and even transcend memory and vice versa, who would we be as individuals or as part of a collective without memory and history, how does one hold on to the concept of self while being shaped by said collective, how does one live with compassion for others in the midst of so much tragedy, how can the human spirit rise above mundaneness and how do we come to terms with our human condition (and with it the ultimate loss of our bodies and our consciousness)?
Oh so very, VERY slow. I kept waiting for something exciting to happen... it never did. That's $15 and 8 hours of my life I'll never get back.
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