I'm not sure where to start with this book. The entire thing has a sort of distant, haunted quality that draws you in and refuses to let you go. And, god, those last fifty-ish pages! There is something so simple and human about the desperation with which our protagonist clings to the the connections she has with others—the old man, R, and Don—long after everything else has faded away. The lengths that our three main characters would go to just to be in the presence of others even as the world fades around them make abundantly clear Ogawa's message about the importance of human conection even in times of incredible grief and loss.

Our protagonist's slow, agonizing degeneration and eventual disappearance is absolutely heartbreaking to read. The loss of herself—first through small disappearances like the roses, and eventually through biggers ones like novels and even parts of the body—is horrific, and yet there's something peaceful about it. She feels no pain; only a sense of resignation. In reality, our protagonist lost herself the moment she acquiesced to the disappearances. By letting go of what had tethered her to the world, she lost herself and faded away. When I started reading, I had assumed that our protagonist was the one destined to be severed from the rest of the world, unable to cope with the loss prevading the island, but it was actually R who was left behind in the wake of her disappearance.

And yet, in another sense, R is the only one capable of moving forward. While the rest of the island fades into obscurity and disuse, he clings stubbornly to the memories that his companions have cast aside. In having R do so, Ogawa portrays two different ways of coping with loss. When we try to forget and ignore what we no longer have like our protagonist, the old man, and the rest of the island, we lose pieces of ourselves and eventually fade away. It was only through the bond that the protagonist, the old man, and R shared, that they found the strength to carry on for as long as they did. On the other hand, when we do as R had done—when we stubbornly cling to and cherish the memories of what is no longer with us—we find a path forward. He accepts the losses graciously, but does not ignore their affect on him. It is only by holding on to what we love, by acknowledging it and carrying it with us, that we remain human.

The Memory Police is a stunning, painful work that forces us to ask ourselves: What are we without a voice, writen or spoken? What remains when the context of our lives—our loves, our hates, our losses and our gains—is removed? Perhaps it is only what we have left behind for those that survive us, like our protagonist's novel to R.