by Emily St. John Mandel
I really enjoyed this author's first book, Station Eleven, about the aftermath of a pandemic.... again very significant considering the coronavirus pandemic we are experiencing right now.
So, I was eager to read her next book which is getting rave reviews. However, while this book was probably good I did not enjoy it.
The book is basically about a man who creates a ponzi scheme and the lives he impacts. But there is a girl and her brother who play the main roles in the book.
There are a girl and boy who are step-kids. The boy resents the girl and her life. He is a drug addict who has been kicked out of college after several rehab treatments funded by his mother. His mother has died. If I remember correctly he was in Toronto. He goes to Vancouver to see his step sister. She doesn't get along with her stepfather/father and goes to live with an aunt but is suspended from school when she etches some grafitti on a school window. She goes to live with an aunt but that doesn't work out so eventually she leaves.
The two siblings meet up again when the girl is working as a bartender on a hotel on a secluded cove on Vancouver Island. Her brother comes to see her and she gets him a job as a cleaner at the hotel.
The brother etches some words on the hotel window and is fired. The girl ends up hooking up with the owner of the hotel who wants her to be his pretend trophy wife. She agrees because she has a nice house and all the money she wants.
Her brother goes on to be a somewhat successful music/performance artist. The girl goes to one of his performances and is furious to find he has used some videos she did as a child as part of his performance. She had intended to reconnect with him but after what she has seen walks away without talking to him.
The girl doesn't realize that her wealthy "husband" is actually running a Ponzi scheme. He is eventually tried and sentenced to 170 years in prison. The books explores the impact of his deceit on some of his clients. The man himself is haunted by ghosts of some people he hurt who have died but most of the time he lives in his mind making up alternate realities. He does not accept any responsibility or seem to have any regret.
The girl goes to work on a cargo ship as a cook. She seems to like her austere life. One day while she is trying to film the ocean she falls overboard.
I had real trouble getting into this book as I disliked all three main characters, they were totally without morals, self-absorbed and un-sympathetic. I was very disappointed by this book as the first one was so fascinating and the characters so interesting.
Tuesday, 5 May 2020
The Memory Police
by Yoko Ogawa
This book is currently on the shortlist for the Booker International Prize. It was actually published 20 years ago but has only been translated recently. It is an amazing book, almost prophetic considering our current times.
The book is about a young woman, and author, who lives on an island where things start to disappear. They can be common everyday things like flowers, fruit, etc. When things disappear people forget about them and forget the word. One day the river is full of rose petals as all roses disappear. If things don't disappear on their own, the people of the island destroy them, so when books are "disappeared" the people gather for book burnings.
As a little girl the girl's mother, a sculptor, would show her things she had stored in drawers in her workshop and tell the little girl about these "disappeared" items. Her mother is taken away at some point. Other people are also taken away by the Memory Police. Her parents sculptures and her father's work as an avian expert are removed from the house by the Memory Police.
One day some people who are trying to hide from the Memory Police come to visit the girl to give her some of her mother's sculptures. The girl later discovers that her mother has been hiding disappeared objects inside these sculptures.
The young girl is friends with an old man who lives on an abandoned ferry boat, ferries no longer run and people no longer have a memory of them. The young woman's publisher seems to be one of the rare people who do not forget about things when they are "disappeared". She knows he is in danger so convinces him to leave his wife, who is pregnant with their first child, and come and live in a secret room she has built into her house. He is trapped in this tiny room, she feeds him and provides water etc. She also arranges for him to exchange messages with his wife.
Eventually people's body parts, e.g. their leg, are disappeared. People are going to cut off their legs but realize that would be deadly so instead they limp along on sticks etc as if their leg didn't exist.
Ultimately all the bodies disappear. The only person we know of who continues to exist whole is the publisher hidden in the woman's house.
This was a very dark story, but with a powerful message for today. How much are we willingly ignoring?? How far will we let the dark forces go? Will we surrender ourselves completely.
This was a book I will think about for a long time. It had a few things that were unexplained, who is doing the controlling? Why don't the memory police forget things? Or do they?
This book is currently on the shortlist for the Booker International Prize. It was actually published 20 years ago but has only been translated recently. It is an amazing book, almost prophetic considering our current times.
The book is about a young woman, and author, who lives on an island where things start to disappear. They can be common everyday things like flowers, fruit, etc. When things disappear people forget about them and forget the word. One day the river is full of rose petals as all roses disappear. If things don't disappear on their own, the people of the island destroy them, so when books are "disappeared" the people gather for book burnings.
As a little girl the girl's mother, a sculptor, would show her things she had stored in drawers in her workshop and tell the little girl about these "disappeared" items. Her mother is taken away at some point. Other people are also taken away by the Memory Police. Her parents sculptures and her father's work as an avian expert are removed from the house by the Memory Police.
One day some people who are trying to hide from the Memory Police come to visit the girl to give her some of her mother's sculptures. The girl later discovers that her mother has been hiding disappeared objects inside these sculptures.
The young girl is friends with an old man who lives on an abandoned ferry boat, ferries no longer run and people no longer have a memory of them. The young woman's publisher seems to be one of the rare people who do not forget about things when they are "disappeared". She knows he is in danger so convinces him to leave his wife, who is pregnant with their first child, and come and live in a secret room she has built into her house. He is trapped in this tiny room, she feeds him and provides water etc. She also arranges for him to exchange messages with his wife.
Eventually people's body parts, e.g. their leg, are disappeared. People are going to cut off their legs but realize that would be deadly so instead they limp along on sticks etc as if their leg didn't exist.
Ultimately all the bodies disappear. The only person we know of who continues to exist whole is the publisher hidden in the woman's house.
This was a very dark story, but with a powerful message for today. How much are we willingly ignoring?? How far will we let the dark forces go? Will we surrender ourselves completely.
This was a book I will think about for a long time. It had a few things that were unexplained, who is doing the controlling? Why don't the memory police forget things? Or do they?
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