The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Giver
Lois Lowry

"The worst part of holding on to memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared."

"Even trained for years as they all had been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?"

I read The Giver in highschool, which was five years ago already, and I remembered I hated it. Now that I am older, I thought that I would give it another read to see if I like it this time - I didn't. To be honest, I don't know how anyone likes it but I guess people are entitled to their opinions. For me, the story just seemed to drag on right from the very beginning and I couldn't get into the story at all. This is the first book (12th out of 50) that I didn't like. I hope I like the rest of the ten books I picked out for this go around! Here are some of the reasons why I didn't like about it:

1. The book is boring and weird.
2. I didn't feel any emotion towards the main character (Jonas).
3. I didn't fully understand the book.
4. I really didn't understand why the ending is the way that it is.
5. I don't understand why this world that Lois Lowry made should have no color, no feelings, and no music so that people can live "decently".
6. I didn't understand why "bad" memories - war, loss - would make someone want to give up on their own life. It is like the characters cannot think for themselves, someone else is thinking for them and making them sad.
7. I didn't really understand this at all! haha.

The Giver is aimed for a children's audience (grade six-ish) but if adults don't really like the novel or understand what Lois Lowry is trying to get at, how are young children? Lowry uses oversimplification, emotional appeals, and dualistic morality to shut down reader's minds - this is what makes the story pretty confusing.We get morality from our culture that we live in, not from the people around us. Lowry thinks her view on morality is correct and only correct. Another bad thing that I didn't like about the story is that it doesn't have a clear ending to it, it is left open for reader's to come up with their own ending. I guess Lowry redacts the ending in the sequels to this novel - which doesn't really make sense. I know that since I didn't like The Giver, I have no intention to read the sequels and now I will never know the ending that she created. I will only know the ending that I made up in my head.

The story is not based in reality, Lowry creates an artificial world to suit her needs of the book. She builds this world to support the dualist morality that she is trying to push to her readers. Instead of writing about how poverty makes the world seem small and dull, she has the characters in the book unable to experience life how they would like too. Instead of writing about an impersonal government, she presents a "happy-go-lucky" commune. She contrasts "evil" with the idealized "goodness of emotion, beauty, and freedom".

If you feel like you want to read this book or have enjoyed reading it in the past, that is great! I hope that someone in the future will create a thoughtful and textual analysis of the novel that points out its merits, its structure, and its complexity - but that is just my opinion. If there are no wrong answers, can we really say that something has any meaning? I really wanted to like this book since so many people do and it is on so many lists of books to read, but I can't -at least I tried!

PS. The Giver is being made into a major motion picture and comes out this August! Some of the big name actors that are in it are Meryl Streep and Tayor Swift. I am a big Meryl Steep fan so here is to hoping that the movie is better than the book!

Till the next review! (The Kite Runner - Khaled Hoseini)
Rebekka. :)