Generally, when it comes to the fantastic in fiction, the outlier is the main character; they possess some kind of unique ability that sets them apart from the rest, even if everyone else around them is fantastical as well. I was fully expecting to be the narrator to be the exceptional one in this story, the one whose memories do not disappear, but once it turned out to be R instead, I began to think more about point of view and how it’s not about what happens in the story but rather who the story is happening to.
The narrator’s own mother possessed the ability to remember disappeared things and kept a secret stash of disappeared objects; the narrator holds onto these keepsakes after her mother’s death but is unable to understand them herself since she does not possess her mother’s gift. In the present, as more things begin to disappear, the narrator forgets them along with everyone else. This helps us to become fully immersed in the world of this story, living every moment of confusion alongside the narrator. To view this story from R’s perspective would make us mere observers of the fantastic; as the narrator, however, we are thrust into each of these fantastic experiences. As R, we would not know what it means to forget the birds and the calendars and all the rest, but as the narrator, these feelings are described to us in great detail:
A chilly sensation lingered in my hands from where I’d touched whatever it was that was attached to me a moment earlier. Had I come down with some sort of disease? Perhaps an enormous tumor had developed overnight? How could I get to the hospital with this sort of affliction? I glanced down again at my body, which was still stretched out in the same position on the bed. (246)
By telling the story from the narrator’s point of view, we can see the effect of these losses, heightening the tension of the story. It shows us just how high the stakes are and how urgent it is that our narrator retains her memories so that she can record them for future generations. It also shows us why R’s character is so integral; soon, he might just be the only one left to remember anything at all. It also helps the story to reach a much more natural conclusion; by the end, there is nothing left of our narrator. She can no longer continue to tell us her story, and it is time for us to leave her.
I also found the point of view in this story very interesting. Ogawa certainly flipped genre expectations by having the narrator be one of the “normal” characters. I was very intrigued by the use of the first-person when I reached the end of the novel and discovered the narrator disappeared. Since it’s written in past tense, we know that she’s telling the story after the events, but how is she doing so if she no longer exists?
I found with the point of view from the narrators eyes as one that would keep the reader interested. I think Ogawa did this to show what people what an more or less outsider saw. The point of view she wrote from was someone whose parents were smart and had found things and had them memorized but she didn’t have anything memorized like that. The point of view was able to show that she went through something terrible and was willing to help those who were going to put their family in a similar situation.
I believe that if the narrator would have been able to retain her memories, the story would have lost its point. Losing memories left “cavities in her heart” and showed how we can lose ourselves. I never thought she was eager to hold on to her memories, but although she tried to remember, I felt that it was to please R.