The Memory Police

[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to How to Win the Lottery, season 21, Unadaptable, book number seven, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder.

I'm Joey Lewandowski.

I'm Shreds.

It's cold.

It's cold forever

... we also don't know one way or the other if this exists, if the memory police are out there beyond this island.

You sort of assume that they would be.

That's true.

Now, you are a fan of Murakami and the book Kafka on the Shore.

But you've been reading also The Memory Police by Yoko Agawa.

And there is a line there which says, men who burn books eventually burn other men.

Now, this I saw from what you put up on your Instagram story.

I'm always trying to ruthlessly connect dots.

And that's kind of like back to the whole point of like, what does it mean to be a generalist? It's like connecting dots in places where random things, you know.

I read this quote in this book, The Memory Police, men who burn books end by burning other men.

And The Memory Police is a dystopic novel.

Um, but yeah, it's, it's not my sort of utopianism, but it does f- sort of shame me into thinking I should be doing more of that kind of work myself.

Um, I mean, going back to, to television, I think seeing people being oppressed on screen should probably make you angry, right? You know, that there's a great moment in the novel, um, The Memory Police.

I don't know if you're familiar with this novel.

I have recommended it before, but it's, uh, a novel, uh, from the 1990s by Yoko Ogawa, but it was recently-ish translated into English, and it's a, a really special dystopian novel.

yeah

Our next episode is The Memory Police, which by title feels like it should be unadaptable, but is becoming adapted, which is a Charlie Kaufman adaptation.

Adapted by Charlie Kaufman.

Maybe difficult, maybe sort of straddles the line between the two.

That is just so perfect.

I have come across people that are like, have you read The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa? I have

not.

I have not.

I probably read more fiction and essays than memoir per se.

You know, one of the books that I keep thinking about recently is called The Memory Police.

And it's a fictional book about things disappearing.

And it's very relevant to things right now that are going on.