Let's talk about The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monae

 

I won’t lie, for the longest while, I had no idea what this book was even about. I saw that Janelle Monae was releasing a book, and I’m a fan of their music and I think they’re definitely a really strong lyricist, I was interested in what a book from them would be. And if I haven’t made it clear yet, I’m talking about The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae. Now, at first, I wondered whether this was an autobiography of some kind, or something to that effect, because that’s what the title suggested to me, but it’s not.

What I would consider the blurb says a lot, so I’m going to try and cut it down. But in The Memory Librarian, Janelle Monae brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of their critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of liberation – queerness, race, gender plurality and love – become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in suck a totalitarian landscape… and what the costs might be when trying to unravel and weave them into freedoms. It is a collection of five short stories, with collaborators, that serves tales to the readers that dissect the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, reaching through to the worlds of memory and time, and the stakes and power that pulse there.

So, I’m not really going to be able to write this post like how I normally do, because, obviously, the books I tend to read are all one thing, not smaller stories. What I’m doing is that I’ll give a brief overview of each of the five stories and talk about them towards the end. I don’t want to go too in depth, as I don’t want this post to be too long.

The Memory Librarian by Monae & Alaya Dawn Johnson sees Seshet, the Director Librarian of the Little Delta Repository – the “queen” of the city. Something has been wrong for weeks. Seshet’s protégé, Jordan, comes into her office and tells her that he wants her to get out of the office, and actually into the city. He wants her to experience it, because even though she’s pretty much in charge of the running, she doesn’t really know what’s going on. I think the vibe was that Jordan wanted Seshet to gain a little more humanity and experience life, so she goes out, gets drunk and sleeps with another woman, Alethia, who she feels this intense connection to.

In Seshet’s position, she has the memories of pretty much everyone in the city in her head – which was a wild concept. There was a point where a man calls out to her, and then this woman that Seshet had never met defends her. And even though they’d never met, Seshet knew all about her, since Seshet had her memories. She also mentions how she’s kept the centre of the city in a tight mould, but basically ignored the outskirts and because of that, the outskirts that had become a bit of a problem for her.

Nevermind by Monae & Danny Lore follows Jane. Now, before I even mention the story, I believe Jane was, or is, a character, or alter-ego, that Monae created for, I’m not sure how long it lasted, but I know it was definitely involved in her Electric Lady era. I believe Jane was android 57821. But Nevermind follows Jane, who is a resident of the Pynk Hotel, who heads to a place called the Cave with a friend, Neer, and she goes to this Cave in order to try and recall a memory. Jane had also been labelled a “dirty computer” by New Dawn, the city or area, that Seshet from the prior story is in. The kind of clothes we’re told they wear is written as “castoff couture and salvaged streetwear”, and it seemed like the people of the Pynk hotel were basically living a free life outside the clutches of the city.

The Pynk hotel, we then find out they have this festival every year that’s a celebration of creativity in all forms. But some wires get cut, and we’re introduced to something called Blushounds – scouts from New Dawn. Essentially, the conflict of this story is that something happens that impedes on the freedom that the Pynk hotel is supposed to offer everyone. The world from the first story gets expanded on in this one. Like, explanations of things mentioned in other stories.

However, from reading these first two stories, one criticism I have of them I suppose would be the length. They’re about 80 pages each, and if you have a regular novel, that’s a good chunk, maybe a good quarter, of it. So, with these first two being 80 pages, you get into them, but then they end, and I, personally, would have loved a whole novel based on the first story. The other three stories are shorter, between 40-60 pages.

Timebox by Monae & Eve L. Ewing opens on Raven and Akilah in their first apartment together. This whole story seemed a whole lot more domestic than the first two. This one felt more like a “things just happen” kind of thing. Raven is just going about her life as a young adult, living her life. Also, DJ Crash Crash pops up in this story – someone who turned up on one of Monae’s first two albums. Still, in their apartment, they discover that their pantry, the Timebox, is a room where time moves differently, slower. It’s the gig of how that will affect their relationship, and what they each want to do with it. This one is more about the relationship between time and freedom.

Save Changes by Monae & Yohanca Delgado. Amber is our main character, who is coming home from grocery shopping. She has this thing of when it comes to choosing battles, she chooses none. Her mother, Diana, is on house arrest from being a subversive, like Jane 57821. The only difference between Diana and Jane was that Jane escaped. But basically, because of Diana, Amber and her sister, Larry, are constantly being watched, making it hard for them to have much of a life. Amber has this stone, a larimar, that her father gave to her, that, I believe, it could turn back time. However, only the larimar itself knows how powerful it will be. This was one of those that started off, and for a while, I thought it was going nowhere, but the longer it went on, the more I understood the more mundane aspects that happened in the early parts of the story. If anything, I think this one could have benefitted from being a few pages longer.

Timebox Altar(ed) by Monae & Sheree Renee Thomas. Given the name, I immediately expected it to be related to Timebox in some way. But it follows Bug, Artis, Ola and Trell, four kids who live outside of New Dawn, I don’t remember exactly where, but I know Sectors Seven and Nine were referenced. Still, the four end up making this Altar, because Bug believes that their mother had left a present for them to find, and they believed that the materials they found to make the Altar was the present. The completed Altar ends up being a timebox, but this one showed the kids different futures, instead of having a different flow of time from the real world, like the one in Timebox.

That’s all five of the stories, and here’s the point where I rank them, because I love a list. I’ll go from my least favourite to favourite. And remember, this is just my opinion.

So, fifth, for me, is Timebox Altar(ed). Was it bad? No. It just didn’t do anything for me personally. I feel bad saying this, but this is the one that, if I read this book again, I would skip. Fourth, I think would be Nevermind. I will say, I had a very difficult time placing fourth and third, so it does kind of hurt putting Nevermind here, but I enjoyed third more. Speaking of third, Save Changes. This one slayed, but like I mentioned, could have benefitted from maybe being a few pages longer, especially towards the end, just so that the conclusion to the story would have been a little smoother. Then second, we have Timebox. It was very simplistic compared to the others. It stayed in its lane and did what it needed to do really well. And that means that my favourite was The Memory Librarian. Simply put, The Memory Librarian was the closest to the kind of book that I would pick up read for myself.

To close this out, I don’t normally read short story collections, I personally prefer longer and singular stories, and I think, realistically, I only read this because it has Janelle’s name attached to it. Still, I’m glad that I read it, and I’d definitely recommend giving it a go yourself.

Okay, bye!