Reddit review calls Yoko Ogawa's 'The Memory Police' a good idea, badly executed
A book-club style review criticizing pacing and flat characters sparks a debate over whether the novel's vagueness is a flaw or the point.
What to know
- A reader review praising the novel's premise but calling its execution boring and its characters flat drew a wave of comments defending and echoing the critique.
- Defenders argue the flat characters and unexplained rules are deliberate, reflecting an unreliable narrator in a society unable to retain memory.
- Critics, including a reader who came to the book via a planned Charlie Kaufman film adaptation, say the dystopia and its themes of memory and identity felt too vague to land.
- No new plot facts or official statements are at issue; this is a reader-review debate rather than a breaking news event.
The dispute Whether the novel's flat characters and unexplained rules are a genuine writing weakness or a deliberate effect of its unreliable, memory-erased narrator. · positions read across 6 posts and comments
The book is genuinely slow, vague, and underwhelming, especially given its premise.
-
“I was so excited that Charlie Kaufman was supposed to adapt this that I read it, and couldn’t agree more, big disappointment. The dystopia was so vague and generic”
peaceblaster68 · r/books ↗
The flatness and vagueness are deliberate, tied to the unreliable narrator and the premise of erased memory.
-
“Instead of thinking of the characters as flat, ask yourself how it would be possible to have a unique and interesting personality in a society where no-one can retain what is needed to express individuality.”
DrDragonQueen · r/books ↗
The disappointment stems from mismatched expectations about genre and pacing, not a flawed book.
-
“I think you wanted this book to be something it isn’t, which can happen sometime. I enjoyed it because I like meandering novels with magical realism.”
Liefst- · r/books ↗
Yoko Ogawa Author of 'The Memory Police'lexiebeef Reddit user / reviewerCharlie Kaufman Filmmaker mentioned as a planned adapter of the novel
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump postscomments
-
2
Commenters split over whether flat characters are a flaw or intentional
Several readers reply defending the book, arguing the flatness and lack of explanation reflect an unreliable narrator in a society that cannot retain memory, while others agree the pacing and vague dystopia fell flat for them.
“Instead of thinking of the characters as flat, ask yourself how it would be possible to have a unique and interesting personality in a society where no-one can retain what is needed to express individuality.”
— DrDragonQueen -
This, and the fact that the narrative is coming from a fundamentally unreliable narrator. You wont get explanations because the truth is that no-one has them; you can only know what the characters know, and they know very little. Instead of thinking of the characters as flat, ask yourself how it would be possible to have a unique and interesting…
2 more of the top 3 · 5 posts in this stretch
-
I generally agree with you that I expected more from this book and it missed the mark for me, but I disagree that R's wife and newborn were pointless.....Throughout the story, R is the champion of remembering things, and he keeps trying to force MC and the old man to remember things by showing them objects and insisting that remembering these…
-
I think you wanted this book to be something it isn’t, which can happen sometime. I enjoyed it because I like meandering novels with magical realism. If you were hoping for a fast paced dystopian novel with a plot that leaves you on the edge of your seat, then I can understand why this fell flat for you.
-
-
1
Reader posts critical review of 'The Memory Police' to r/books
User lexiebeef publishes a review praising the novel's premise and its novel-within-a-novel but criticizing its slow pacing, flat characters, and unexplained worldbuilding; the same text is mirrored shortly after on a Mastodon-linked blog (booksns.com).
“So why did I dislike this book so much?”
— lexiebeef -
B
https://www. booksns.com/227927/ “The Memory Police” (Yoko Ogawa): The definition of great idea, terrible execution # books First of all, let me say that I absolutely love the idea of this book. I love a dystopia, I love books about humans adapting to dystopian scenarios (Blindness, Cat’s Cradle, Piranesi…). So why did I dislike this book so much?…
-
What people are saying 2 voices from 1 site · best of 6 · verbatim
- Sep 20
-
I didn't really like the book and didn't finish - but I tend not to enjoy slow, melancholic books. However, I loved The Housekeeper and The Professor, and Revenge. So I was a bit surprised to find Memory Police just never grabbed my attention.
-
I was so excited that Charlie Kaufman was supposed to adapt this that I read it, and couldn’t agree more, big disappointment. The dystopia was so vague and generic, and it was supposed to be more about memory and identity but those themes weren’t interesting either