One of the first expectations I had when reading The Memory Police was that the narrator would be the one with the “special powers,” AKA not forgetting things. In most books, especially YA novels, the main character is the one who is different from the others. Honestly, it took me a little while to realize that the narrator is part of the “normal people” and doesn’t have any special ability. I think the author did this for two different reasons.
The first reason is to make it easier to understand the sensation of losing a memory. If we weren’t able to understand the actual mechanics of something disappearing, it would be hard for us to understand the novel itself. Being able to get the first-hand experience of what it is like to forget a thing, the emotional impact it has, and how the process of actually discarding it feels and is carried out helps us understand the story. All of us naturally identify with the character R because we are experiencing the struggle from the outside. We can feel people forgetting and the desperation to have them remember. Like him, we are unable to forget, so we naturally see the story from his viewpoint. But telling it from her point of view gives a whole new experience.
The second reason is the emotional impact we are able to experience. We are able to understand and feel thenarrator’s loss and confusion; we can feel her struggle to keep her memories and revive her love for writing. We slowly feel the loss of her limbs and consciousness as if it were our own. We get to see the world’s strange apathy as everything they know disappears.
I agree with this in every way. I thought the exact same thing when I found out some people were “special.” The emotional impact is much stronger when the narrator forgets; it helps us fully grasp what is happening in their world.
I also thought it was strange that the narrator lacked the “special” ability to remember, especially because her mother had it. Usually, the protagonist is the character in who “solves” the issue or has the ability to see through the plans of others, like Katniss and Peeta in The Hunger Games. I loved how the author placed that role upon her for it felt real, as a reader, to go through the same emotional detachment/circumstances as the rest of the people were on the island. It also makes the people who still have their memories seem like an outsider even more.
I agree that the reader has to release themselves of what they do know and accept the societal standards that this novel presents. It was difficult to step outside of what I know to be true and accept the alternative while reading.