The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is a dystopian novel set on a remote island off the coast of Japan where objects – hats, roses, birds, boats – disappear at the hand of an unknown power. The disappearances are reinforced by the Memory Police, and the island population’s memories of the objects fade until they can’t remember their existence at all. Disappearances escalate, and one morning people wake up and their left legs have disappeared – their very essence is thinning. Even nature submits and seasons disappears. The world of the island inhabitants gradually shrinks and loses meaning, but there are a small number of people who retain memories. The Memory Police seek them out, round them up, and take them away.
People—and I’m no exception—seem capable of forgetting almost anything, much as if our island were unable to float in anything but an expanse of totally empty sea.
The characters are unnamed. The narrator is an author, and she and an old man who is a family friend decide to hide the author’s friend and editor, R, beneath her floorboards in a hidden room when they realise he has memories and is at risk. The room also accumulates what can be salvaged of the things that are disappearing.
I suppose memories live here and there in the body. But they’re invisible, aren’t they? And no matter how wonderful the memory, it vanishes if you leave it alone. If no one pays attention to it. They leave no trace, no evidence that they ever existed.
There is also a story with the story – excerpts from a manuscript that the narrator has been writing about a typist who can only communicate through typing as she has lost her voice. She’s held hostage by her typing teacher and lover in a tower. When novels disappear, R encourages the author to keep writing as a means of preservation.
Men who start by burning books end by burning other men
Beautifully written in quiet poetic prose with the slow creep of tension, the novel explores memory and its role in identity, connection, loss and isolation, as well as the perils of authoritarianism and the power of art and storytelling as a vehicle for resistance. The story asks us to consider our identity and our relationship to the world around us. It also made me consider mortality as the novel reminded me a little of what happens when we start to die and parts of our bodies succumb to illness or old age, memories fade and friends disappear.
My Japan trip with two long term friends is a logistical extravaganza with 20 stops in 36 days using every means of transport available. Our first week was made up of several days in Tokyo then a night in Narai-juka before walking part of the Nakasendo postal route then heading to Kyoto for a few days. What follows are the moments that stuck with me. I have also added a book review at the end
TOKYO
We had a soft landing in Tokyo. It was a Saturday night yet the airport felt empty and we glided through customs and onto a Shinkansen (bullet rain) to Tokyo with Japanese efficiency. The train systems are a labyrinth of efficiency, logically organised if you can understand the colour coded system and extraordinary feats of engineering. Getting lost in subways is standard for tourists (and some locals) and we did spend sometime wandering the underground in Tokyo and Kyoto until we got our bearings.
Tips: download the Suica app before you leave and load some funds on it for easy train ticketing, to book on Shinkansen and the Narita AirPort Express. You can also use it in some convenience stores. Download google maps – it uses the subway colour coding and is invaluable to find the right subway entries and train connections, and always allow time to find your platform – it can take a while. Try and avoid catching trains at peak hour as they can be extremely crowded and stuffy (one of my friends actually fainted).
We visited Oedo Antique Market overflowing with treasures including ornaments, tea ceremony bowls, kimonos, clothing made from beautiful hand sewn silks, indigo dyed denim and assorted nick-nacks. The Japanese are generally quite reserved so I was surprised when an elderly lady stopped us and wanted to chat about what we had purchased and show us her items, but I had a sense she was lonely and saw us as a safe way to connect.
Later that day we walked around Ueno Park which had a lovely community feel with musicians and young creatives selling their wares, a massive lotus pond, the Kaneiji Temple and several museums. Then we wandered around the old neighbourhood of Yanaka, one of the few areas still containing traditional buildings as it was spared from bombing during WWII.
We stayed in the quiet residential neighbourhood of Arakawa at TokyoNEST Nippori hotel near the train station, and conveniently across the road from the Saito onsen, a public bath. At the end of a long day’s walking we crossed for a soak. The bath was fabulous but we did experience our first real cross cultural challenges. Understanding the towel vending machine was confusing, we didn’t have enough coins for the lockers (a kind old lady lent us one) and I had to be shown how to make the hairdryer work. Luckily the local ladies were extremely gracious with us clumsy foreigners though I am pretty sure there was an undisclosed inner dialogue behind those polite facades.
Oedo Antique Market
Ueno Park
Yanaka
Sky Garden, Nakameguro
Rikugien garden, Nagaracho
Jumbocho Book town
Hot and cold vending machines
Tips: the public baths are generally tattoo friendly, while many private ones are not. Arrive with a good handful of 100 yen coins to hire towels and use lockers and hairdryers.
Other Tokyo highlights included Jumbocho book town and the cherry blossom tree lined Meguro river in Nakameguro, the centre of cool and Japanese hipsters where we had lunch at a funky Thai restaurant called Krung Siam. This area also has a large Sky Garden – a massive colosseum type structure with vines growing up the outside and an entire garden in the roof overlooking the city. It’s a great spot to escape for a quiet moment. A short train ride will take you to the poetic Rikugien garden in Nagaracho which is lovely to walk around too.
Tip: If you are there during spring cherry blossoms or autumn foliage time, the Rikugien gardens are lit up and kept open until 9 p.m
KISO VALLEY
We made our way via three trains to Narai-juka past narrow pointy mountain peaks covered in dense green jungle pushing up from the earth to reach into the clouds. We passed valleys dotted with villages and cemeteries and farmlets growing vegetables, the outbuildings being consumed by the forest. Narai-juka is a beautifully preserved post town on the old walking route that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) with Kyoto during the Edo period (1600 – 1868). The trail is 540 km long and has post towns dotted along the way for travelers to rest and recover. Walking around Narai to check out the historical buildings, shrines, and a beautiful wooden bridge was around 7km all up.
We planned to walk a couple of sections of the trail from Narai to Yabuhara Station over the Torii Pass, then from Nagiso to Tsumago and Magome. Most people walk south to north, we did the opposite and set out early. This meant we did not get caught up with other walkers much and mainly encountered them toward the end of each day – most importantly going in the opposite direction so we didn’t get stuck with the constant chatter of other walkers.
In Narai-juka we stayed at the Iya Kankou Ryokan situated in a 200 year old building with an internal garden where we had delicious traditional Japanese meals. We headed out early on the Torii Pass which has and some magnificent views and we caught the first signs of autumn colours (no bears). This part of the walk is only about 7km but it’s an uphill and downhill and took about 3 hours.
Narai-juka main street
Shizume Shrine, Narai-juku
Kiso-no-Ohashi Bridge, Narai-juka
Narai-juka
Torii Pass
Ontake Shrine
View toward Yabuhara
From Yabuhara we caught a train to Nagiso and had lunch at Cocono Cafe. It was run by very elderly women and had a vibe of Japan fused with an English tea house. I can recommend the soba and yam soup, a local specialty. After lunch we walked on to our next stopover just past Tsumago along narrow winding roads through old villages. Our total walk that day was around 15km.
Tip: if staying around Tsumago order dinner and breakfast with your accommodation as other options are limited.
The next morning we ended up having a hamburger from a vending machine heated in a microwave for breakfast which was surprisingly palatable and fortifying. On vending machines – they are everywhere. Particularly good to get a coffee – hot or cold.
Tsumago
Waterwheel, Tsumago
Grass horse, Tsumago
Araragi River
Bamboo forest on the road to Tsumago
The final leg of our walk to Magome was around 12km along cobbled paths and dirt trails, past waterfalls, through cedar forests and bamboo copses alongside the ghosts of Samarai. We stayed at the beautifully restored and generously provisioned Magome guesthouse with an outdoor hot tub and plenty of hammocks to relax in while we watched the sun set and ate a meal ordered in by our host.
On the road to Magome
On the road to Magome
On the road to Magome
Magome sunset
Tanuki statue for luck and prosperity
Magome-juku is a pretty mountainous historic town. Streets are lined with traditional buildings and there are a number of places to eat – I can recommend the oyaki (steamed dumplings) filled with pickled vegetables or marinated eggplant or sweet chestnut and steamed in what looked like a system of 19th century hinoki cedar drawers.
After a fond farewell to our very generous host we boarded a bullet train that took us to the big smoke of Kyoto at 275km/h where we had a sunset wander along the Kamogawa river and a picnic from 7-11 at the close of our first week.
Tip: you can get a really good take away meal from a 7-11 in Japan for when you can’t be bothered looking for a restaurant.
Book review: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
After marvelling at the 7-11’s in Tokyo and Kyoto it was fitting that I read Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata during our many train journeys in between gazing out the window. This is a story about a woman called Keiko who does not fit into Japanese societal expectations as she does not get the strict social mores and says and does things she should not.
The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of.
As a child Keiko kept getting into trouble for her literal approach to life – on one occasion pulling the teachers skit and pants down as her shouting was disturbing the children and she’d seen it done on TV and make women quiet. Her family worry about her and she does not have friends and when she tires of always getting into trouble she decides to stop talking outside the home.
At eighteen she gets a job in a local convenience store. Here she finds a place where she fits as they provide extensive training and a manual on how to behave and what to say – it’s the first time she feels like she understands how to be human. The job provides a sense of being a useful member of society.
So the manual for life already existed. It was just that it was already ingrained in everyone’s heads, and there wasn’t any need to put it in writing. The specific form of what is considered an “ordinary person” had been there all along, unchanged since prehistoric times I finally realised.
But Kaikos family still worry, she is now 36, childless, and never had a boyfriend. Her family still want to fix her. Enter Shiraha, a hopeless unlikeable man who wants a wife to support him so he can just stay home and breathe. Keiko sees an opportunity and asks him to move in – she will provide what he wants, keeping him like a pet, and his presence will make her appear more normal.
I am one of those cogs, going round and round. I have become a functioning part of the world, rotating in the time of day called morning.
Convenience Store Woman is a story about an autistic woman in a society that has strict conformist social rules that do not make any sense to her. Keiko tells her story in a classic pragmatic, deadpan way, explaining how she learns to be just to fit in as it makes life easier, not because she cares.
When I hear stars whispering at night I feel part of the eternal flow of time.
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste
When I travel I like to read literature and watch movies from the place I am visiting to promote immersion in the culture and deepen my understanding of a place through the creative lens of local artists. On the plane on the way to Japan I watched Sakura, a mystery-thriller about an investigation into the death of two young woman, one a journalist whose friend Izumi works in the police PR department and believes she may be responsible for her friend’s death after revealing some insider information.
All experience adds up to a life lived as only you could. I feel sure the day will come when you can say: this is my life.
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste
In keeping with the genre Sakura was tense with a twisting puzzle like plot. But the thing that most fascinated me about the film was the language and dialogue. People were softly spoken and there were many silences and pauses in conversation that left empty space. I love that silence is valued as a meaningful part of dialogue in Japanese culture. The spaces in conversation also contributed to the film’s tension and made me wonder about what was not said.
I began to understand that we were born in order to see and listen to the world. And that’s all this world wants of us.
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste
The trip also allowed time to read Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa. The novel follows the development of a friendship between a mysterious old woman named Tokue and a man called Sentaro after his release from jail when he is running a dorayaki shop. They bond over perfecting the making of bean paste, and that represents their growing connection.
If all you ever see is reality, you just want to die. The only way to get over barriers, she said, is to live in the spirit of already being over them.
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste
In Japan people with leprosy were forcibly isolated in sanatoriums up until 1996, preventing them from participation in society. The Sweet Bean Paste reflects on stigmatisation and prejudice in Japan, and the importance of having a purpose in order to be a useful member of society. What happens when societal prejudice prevents you from purpose?
People’s lives never stay the same colour forever. There are times when the colour of life changes completely.
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste
In keeping with other Japanese literature I have read, the story focussed in on the day to day and the pace of Sweet Bean Paste was laconic.
It’s my belief that everything in this world has its own language. We have the ability to open up our ears and minds to anything and everything. That could be someone walking down the street, or it could be the sunshine or the wind.
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste
The reverence of silence was prominent again, however in the written form we also gain insight into what is not said by the narrator – his prejudices, desires, insecurities and hopes. So overall my transit left me contemplating the idea of what is said and what is not said, a theme that I suspect will accompany my entire journey.
If I were not here, this full moon would not be here. Neither would the trees. Or the wind. If my view of the world disappears, then everything that I see disappears too. It’s as simple as that.
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste
You may have guessed by now that my blog for the next few weeks will be reflections on my travels. If this is not of interest to you, come back at the beginning of December when I will return to my regular reviews, otherwise follow along on my journey through Japan.
She said that was the only way for us to live, to be like the poets.
China Rich Girlfriend is Kevin Kwan’s sequel to Crazy Rich Asians where old money meets new in the jet setting, excessive consumerist wild lives of Hong Kong and Shanghai’s elite.
People are messy. Life gets messy. Things are not always going to work out perfectly just because you want them to.
Just when you start to tire of the tantrums and shopping trips to buy clothing worth more than the average persons house, there’s a plot twist and a mystery, intrigue, drama and romance.
I’m so glad I can always count on you to have some sort of ulterior motive that involves money.
Nick Young and Rachel Chu are on the cusp of getting married when Rachel discovers her unknown father is Bao Shaoyen, a wealthy and influential politician from mainland China. The couple fly to Shanghai to meet her family including her half brother Carlton and his socialite girlfriend Colette Bing and find themselves caught up in the highlife.
I don’t understand. How can a credit card ever be rejected? It’s not like it’s a kidney!
Other characters include Kitty Pony, former sex-tape star trying to break into A list, tech entrepreneur and social climbing, mean spirited Michael Teo, his wife, Astrid, and Charlie who is keen on Astrid, all of whom crave a spot in the social pages while being careful to appear as if they don’t care.
Beauty fades, but wit will keep you on the invitation lists to all the most exclusive parties.
China Rich Girlfriend is like an over the top Chinese soap opera. A silly fun quick read.
Note: I am off on holidays to Japan tomorrow for five weeks – yeah! I will do my best to continue my weekly posts, but it may turn into a travel blog for a few weeks.
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein was a totally random pick for me. I did not expect reading it to leave me in tears! The story is written from the view point a dog called Enzo.
I’ve always felt almost human. I’ve always known that there’s something about me that’s different than other dogs.
Enzo is sensitive, introspective and funny and takes his role of looking after his humans very seriously. He learns a lot by watching the television when his humans are at work, but his lack of thumbs is frustrating and he plans to come back in his next life as a human.
People are always worried about what’s happening next. They often find it difficult to stand still, to occupy the now without worrying about the future. People are generally not satisfied with what they have; they are very concerned with what they are going to have.
Enzo was picked out from a litter of puppies by his human, Denny. Denny is a race car driver who works in a Seattle car-repair shop to fund his racing. Enzo soon discovers he loves car racing as well. The tale takes us Enzo and Denny’s single life together through to the adjustment to a human woman called Eve who comes into Denny’s life. Enzo isn’t sure about Eve to begin with but they do bond. Then the humans have a baby called Zoe and Enzo is smitten.
Somewhere, the zebra is dancing.
Things take a turn when Eve becomes unwell and Denny’s life spirals through a sequence of bad luck, well meaning but misplaced intentions, and nastiness. Enzo sticks by his man as his life unravels, but has to contend with a demon zebra.
He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave.
The Art of Racing in the Rain is a tale about family, love, loyalty and hope. It’s a bit cheesy at times, but I’m a total sucker for a dog story.
Miles Franklin Literary Award winner Ghost Cities by Siang Lu is a unique and wacky novel inspired by China’s uninhabited megacities. The story spans dual timelines – Imperial China and Modern day China and Sydney.
where no matter what I try I can’t remember the details – only it was important and now I have lost it maybe forever – then I am dismembered. I have lost a part of myself. Violently so. That is actually how I feel. A dismemberment. Is that strange?
Xiang Lu, a Chinese Australian is fired from his job at the Chinese consulate in Sydney when it’s discovered he’s been using Google Translate for his work as he doesn’t speak Chinese. #BadChinese goes viral on social media and Chinese film director Baby Boa engages Xiang Lu to attract attention for his latest film. Boa has turned one of China’s ghost cities into a 24/7 film set, where all the population are actors.
In the ancient timeline an Imperial Emperor who rules with an iron fist at a time of concubines, Royal decrees and official tasters, has 1000 doubles because he is afraid of being assassinated. They all start making Royal decisions.
Word travelled fast. By the time of His coronation, rumour was already circulating the courts that young Lu Huang Du had conspired to usurp His father’s throne. Well, he certainly had not planned it that way, but He was nothing if not an opportunist. When whispers of patricide and regicide spread through the Imperial Court, He uttered not denials.
Ghost Cities is a wild ride – part historical and part contemporary fiction, urban fantasy and satire all rolled into one. An imaginative tale about power, superstition, corruption, and how illusion and reality intersect. There is even a love story in there amongst all the chaos.
I met an old friend from high school once who had experienced a traumatic head injury – we rode horses at the same place. She had almost photographic recall of long term memories from high school, but almost no short memory. Every time we encountered each other it was as if we were meeting for the first time after many years, and we would often cover the same territory in discussion – remembering our highs school days. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa reminded me of that time. The story is a sweet domestic drama set in Japan.
A problem isn’t finished just because you’ve found the right answer.
A housekeeper who is single mother to a young boy is placed by an employment agency with a new client. He is an old man who lives in a two room apartment at the back of his sister-in-laws house. The professor is a brilliant mathematician who’s short term memory only lasts 80 minutes after a traumatic head injury in a car accident. Pinned all over his suit are reminder notes he has written to himself to try and remember things that matter. The disability has not interfered with his ability to solve complex mathematical problems.
Solving a problem for which you know there’s an answer is like climbing a mountain with a guide, along a trail someone else has laid. In mathematics, the truth is somewhere out there in a place no one knows, beyond all the beaten paths. And it’s not always at the top of the mountain. It might be in a crack on the smoothest cliff or somewhere deep in the valley.
The professor asks the housekeeper for her phone number and shoe size and explains the significant of those numbers, then draws a picture of her and pins it to his jacket.
Soon after I began working for the Professor, I realized that he talked about numbers whenever he was unsure of what to say or do. Numbers were also his way of reaching out to the world. They were safe, a source of comfort.
One day the housekeeper has to take her son to work with her and he and the professor become friends. He calls the boy Root, after the square root sign, because the top of his head is flat. They bond over baseball and maths homework.
He treated Root exactly as he treated prime numbers. For him, primes were the base on which all other natural numbers relied; and children were the foundation of everything worthwhile in the adult world
The Housekeeper and the Professor is an study of number theory – prime numbers, triangular numbers, amicable numbers – and a gentle exploration of relationships without memory.
All Fours by Miranda July is a novel about what happens when creativity, peri-menopause, lingering trauma from a premature birth, and an emotionally and sexually distant marriage collide in an existential crisis.
All of the hormones that made me want to seem approachable so I could breed are gone and replaced by hormones that are fiercely protective of my autonomy and freedom
The 45 year old narrator (unnamed) is an artist who became mildly famous at a young age and works in several mediums. She lives in California with her husband Harris and their non-binary child Sam. After getting an unexpected windfall from a piece of work she completed, and dealing with a creative block, she decides to take a solo road trip across the country to New York. Her best friend Jordi encourages her to spent the windfall on beauty. The trip will give her time to think and reevaluate life and a stay in the Carlye will be luxurious. Much of the story is relayed via phone calls between our narrator and Jordi with whom she shares everything.
Each person does the amount of lying that is right for them. You have to know yourself and fulfill the amount of untruth that your constitution requires.
Twenty minutes from home she has an encounter with a young man, Davey, who cleans her windscreen and they meet again at the place she stops to eat. She books overnight in a motel in the town. Then she decides to stay there rather than drive to New York and spends twenty thousand dollars commissioning Davey’s wife Claire to redesign the motel room. Over the next three weeks she has an intense emotional liaison with Davey.
A lot of women destroy their lives in their forties and then one day they wake up with no periods and no partner and only themselves to blame
When she returns home she cannot shake her obsession with Davey, dissatisfaction with her marriage, and her changing hormones.
The women I dated were often my age, that was fine. But the men always had to be older than me because if they were my same age then it became too obvious how much more powerful I was and this was a turnoff for both of us. Men needed a head start for it to be even.
I loved the strange idiosyncratic subversion of this novel and the naked examination of the narrators interiority and fantasies. Skilfully crafted and brimming with funny one liners All Fours is a novel about women questioning in mid-life. A must read for women of a certain age.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne is a fable-like children’s story about the Holocaust told from the perspective of a nine year old boy. Bruno does not know he is growing up in the middle of what would become one of humanities great tragedies.
The thing about exploring is that you have to know whether the thing you’ve found is worth finding. Some things are just sitting there, minding their own business, waiting to be discovered. Like America. And other things are probably better off left alone. Like a dead mouse at the back of the cupboard.
Bruno comes home from school one day to find the maid packing up his belongings. His family are moving from Berlin to an isolated location in the country. His father is a soldier, and his boss the Fury (Fuhrer) has given Bruno’s dad a special assignment.
Just because a man glances up at the sky at night does not make him an astronomer, you know.
The new house, called Out With (Auschwitz), is smaller and less interesting than the one in Berlin and Bruno thinks that moving was a mistake. He misses his friends and grandparents. There is no one for Bruno to play with at the new house, but through his bedroom window he can see people in the distance in a large fenced off area with squat buildings where everyone wears striped pyjamas. The adults in Bruno’s life are a bit evasive when he asks them questions.
What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?
Out exploring one day Bruno meets a skinny boy called Shmuel on the other side of the fence and the two become friends after discovering they share a birthday. They meet on the same spot every day for a year and Bruno brings food for Shmuel. Shmuel tells his new friend that the soldiers hate him and everyone else in the striped pyjamas because they are Jews. Bruno doesn’t believe this would apply to his own father – he is a nice man.
We’re not supposed to be friends, you and me. We’re meant to be enemies. Did you know that?
When Bruno’s parents decide that he, his sister and their mother should move back to Berlin, Bruno no longer wants to go. Too much time has passed and he has adjusted to his new life and made a good friend – though his family do not know about Shmuel.
He looked the boy up and down as if he had never seen a child before and wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do with one: eat it, ignore it or kick it down the stairs.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has received polarised reviews. It is criticised for its historical inaccuracies and simplistic depiction of the horror of the time. It has also been lauded as a beautifully written fable, well crafted to introduce children to a difficult topic. And both those viewpoints can be true simultaneously. How do we introduce difficult, violent, traumatic, but important topics to young people in appropriate ways except by leaving out details?
. . .only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.
My own youthful introduction to this period of history was a book called I Am David by Anne Holm which was also criticised for its simplicity, inaccuracies and improbabilities. Despite this it was a story that left an impression. It made me aware of this particular point in history and engendered a sense of compassion and empathy for those who were subject to the cruelties of war and concentration camps.
Educated by Tara Westover is a memoir set in an isolated community with views of striking mountains. Geographically Idaho in the USA has large tracts of rugged, beautiful wilderness. The state also has a significant Mormon population. Educated is about growing up in a large family of seven children with fundamentalist Mormon survivalist parents. But it is not a story primarily about religion.
An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.
Tara did not set foot in a classroom till she was seventeen, receiving what little education she did from her mother and through self-learning. The family did not visit doctors or hospitals. Even life threatening injuries were treated by Tara’s mother, a kind of healer who used herbs and tinctures and the will of god to mend people. The children did not have birth certificates, education or medical records until they were teenagers.
But sometimes I think we choose our illnesses, because they benefit us in some way.
The children worked in their father’s scrap yard without protective equipment. He was a man who believed in grand conspiracies, hoarded food and guns, and avoided contact with bureaucracy.
I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness. Praise was a poison to me; I choked on it.
Tara’s desire for an education motivated her to break away from family ties, eventually earning a Doctorate at Cambridge University. When a lecturer described the profile of bipolar in a psychology class, Tara recognised her father in it. The cost of leaving the small community was estrangement from her family, but the decision probably saved her. It also enabled her to learn to trust her own views of the world.
My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.
As the narrative unfolds, it becomes evident that the key themes of Educated are mental illness, loyalty, family violence and how those issues can pervert people’s views of the world – in this case in a framework of religion and conspiracy theories about the end of the world. Tara’s story is also about identity, the reliability of memory and how education can lift one up and offer freedom from a life that seemed predestined .
The decisions I made after that moment were not the ones she would have made. They were the choices of a changed person, a new self. You could call this selfhood many things. Transformation. Metamorphosis. Falsity. Betrayal. I call it an education
Educated if beautifully written but difficult to read. I was mesmerised and left with the sense that sometimes life really is stranger than fiction. It is a wonder that Tara survived to tell the tale.
R L Smith 