Summary:

Content Warning: Violence/Strong Language/Suicide/Major Character Death

“Memories are fragile. They are butterflies with burning wings. They are light refracted from broken glass. They are the rainbow on the surface of bubbles. You see them, you cherish them, but they disappear in a blink of an eye.”

The book discusses the delicate and complex contradiction between artistic freedom and subservient taciturnity under oppression. Through the lens of an unreliable narrator, the joy, vanity, melancholy, and loss of living in absurdity are conveyed. The switching of perspectives and non-linear narrative shows a subtle but profound magical realism influence as the dystopian society in the novel resembles Huxley’s Brave New World in uncanny ways.

(SERIOUS SPOILER ALERT! This summary contains countless spoilers of the novel!)

It was in the far future—for how far we don’t know—when society reconciled to a time of the past. On the relics of an ancient war that destroyed all previous orders, a new nation was built.

The story unfolds as the diary of a humble technician working in the National Technology Department. His name was Jonathan. He was one of the millions of people living in The Nation as a Citizen. However, unlike most, he was hit by an automobile years ago and since which had suffered from memory syndrome which impaired his short-term memory: making him forget everything in a matter of minutes, only leaving his long-term memory intact. So, he always kept a red diary as an alternative to remembrance.

He worked hard as how a Nation’s Citizen should. Every day was the same for him, riding the underground train, reading the news, then sitting in the office working. The only college he talked to was a woman named Cymbeline, who was kind enough to maintain this friendship despite Jonathan’s amnesia.

His mediocre life started to transform into utter chaos when he encountered a stranger on the underground train.

The stranger, whose name was Rafael, slowly uncovered Jonathan’s forgotten past and the unspeakable crimes The Nation had committed on individuals like him. During this, he was dragged into a new project in the National Technology Department that proved to be another trap he could not escape. Each day he was dragged down to the basement of the Department to develop some cutting-edge technology. But each time, his memory was erased to “maintain the secrecy of the project”. With each day of the promotion, his memory worsened to the point of oblivion.

The Nation had always disfavored art. Any form of emotion was despised to the point that it was completely banned under the rule of the Supreme Leader. It was not helpful when Rafael told how before Jonathan’s amnesia developed, he was an artist working for a rebel organization Art Underground. He showed Jonathan a painting that he did before the automobile accident and disappeared from the organization. As Rafael started to uncover Jonathan’s past, he learned he was a rebel artist, and Cymbeline was his older sister (explained why she was always so kind to him). Also, the automobile accident was a governmental coverup, which Cymbeline threatened her college to tell her. Years ago, when he was still in the Art Underground, he was tracked down and taken away to the Biolab by the Nation to perform cruel experiments on his brain. The memory syndrome was a result of the Nation’s experiments. But with this knowledge, the three were forced to go into hiding from the Nation.

Rafael, Jonathan, and Cymbeline ran away through the underground network of Art Underground but were later captured by the Nation. During their escape Cymbeline sacrificed herself to save Jonathan, the latter who was taken away by the Nation military, and Rafael was never to be heard from again.

After the whole affair, the Nation told Jonathan that everything he had experienced was nothing but a hallucination due to his memory syndrome. Rafael was completely imaginary, and Cymbeline had been dead since Jonathan’s childhood. But when he returned to his apartment Jonathan found the painting that Rafael said he had painted with a note left. And that Jonathan knew that everything was real, and Rafael was still alive, but the two could never meet again.

He later was unable to bear the pain of the death of his sister and the endless remorse. So, one day, he climbed the fire stairs of the National Technology Building and jumped off, ending his own life.

The whole novel had been Rafael reading Jonathan's red diary. As everything had ended, he had a hallucination of Jonathan’s ghost, as his consciousness fade into oblivion and the light dimmed so much that only eternal darkness was left.

And the whole novel ends! If you read this before the actual book, congratulations because I just spoiled the whole thing.