Joe's Notes: September 2021

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Book Review: The Giver by Lois Lowry

This book is not a book. It is an allegory. A parable. A quick philosophical pondering wrapped in narrative simplicity. The moral of the story is that when you seek safety and equality you give up on what makes life worth living. The movie Equilibrium is based on this same idea. Equilibrium is a very fun movie and stars Christian Bale. It is about a world where all emotions are repressed by a drug and all cultural items are outlawed. Books, art, and music are all banned and people live only for the work that the state provides. They live lives of colorless monotony but when Christian Bale is forced to kill his partner, who stopped taking his pills and begins to enjoy reading, he starts to question his assumptions. He stops taking his pills and starts to work for the resistance to stop the state's supply of pills to release people from the trance of emotionless slavery.

The Giver is a children's version of this cautionary tale. It is about Jonas who, in his twelfth year, is given the honorable job of Receiver. During his training, he learns that the world he has lived in has been devoid of real emotional content and also there is no color. His community is completely controlled by scientific and political means to make everyone the same in order to rid life of any risk or inequality. As Jonas begins to see colors and feel emotions such as love, and hate, he also learns about death and finds out that members of his community are murdered for not fitting in and that is the only way out of that way of life. After about a year of training he and The Giver, the old man that holds all the memories of emotions and the reality of life and gives the memories to Jonas, devise a plan to force the community to regain possession of the memories by having Jonas run away to Elsewhere, a mythical place where life is as it used to be.

The book was easy to read and not very long. I found it compelling for the majority of the story but I thought that the ending was lackluster. It takes a long time to create the world but ends somewhat abruptly and without much fanfare. The stakes of the decisions that Jonas makes are not quite fleshed out and so it doesn't seem as dramatic as it should be. There are sequels to the book that might go over the consequences of Jonas's actions. I suppose it does offer a good cliffhanger for what is to come but I'm not sure I care much about any of the other characters.

I enjoyed this book and I think it is perfect for younger readers. It would be a good way to bring up critical thinking discussions in a class or household. I recommend this book and I might take time to read the sequels.