The Giver

I first read this book in high school, but I'm glad I picked it up again to read.

At the beginning, the author throws you straight in, which can make the reader feel like an outsider and not sure about anything.

The copy I had (e-book) had a number of missing spaces between words, and weird line spacing (where the line would finish, then the next word would be on the next line). Both of these happen multiple times which sometimes may for some frustrating reading.

There are a number of things that happen in the book that happen in real life,

"But the committee would never bother The Receiver with a question about bicycles; they would simply fret and argue about it themselves for years, until the citizens forgot that it had ever gone to them for study."

There are a couple of times where the author moves forward (or back) a length of time without indicating it to the reader, which comes across as confusing.

When I finished the book (which I did in one day) I'm not sure if it ended on a positive or negative note. I was almost in a haze for the rest of the day.

"Jonas frowned. "I wish we had those things, still. Just now and then.""

"It's the choosing that's important, isn't it?"

"The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without color, pain, or past."

Ordinarily, I’m not a huge fan of the YA Dystopian genre. Reading this story, I think I finally realised why that is: they’re all poor imitations of this one!

Just kidding. They’re actually quite different.

In most modern YA Dystopian stories, we’re told “the way things are” over a few pages, early in the story. Most of these stories are also told in the first person (often through the eyes of a teenage girl), and they’re presented in a way that intends to disgust and revolt us straight away. The situation is unequivocably, irrevocably bad, it needs to change as soon as possible, and the protagonist is going to be the one to do it.

You’re told what to think and how to feel about the state of the world.

This story’s different. It’s told in third person, and focusses on Jonas, a regular kid of approximately eleven years old (I say “approximately” because nobody really knows exactly how old they are or when their individual birthday is). The author describes the way the world works, and the rules under which Jonas and his peers live, very matter-of-factly. Jonas himself has no particular feelings about whether they’re good or bad; they just are.

You as the reader aren’t encouraged to have any feelings about whether they’re good or bad either. You get to make up your own mind. The various cultural norms and expectations are also unwrapped slowly over the course of the book.

That you’re allowed to make up your own mind gives you the freedom to feel like some things are actually good. For a good chunk of the beginning of the book, I thought, “Oh, that’s not so bad!” or “Hmm, okay, I can see how that might be useful,” and it wasn’t until Chapter Five that I read something and really went, “Oh, heell no!”

That’s powerful storytelling, because it shows how insidious things can be. How seemingly innocuous things, left unchecked, can escalate to where nobody understands how they got there and no idea how to fix it.

Like many YA Dystopian stories, Jonas starts out feeling apprehensive about a big upcoming event. Unlike many YA Dystopian stories, his anxiety doesn’t devolve into the over-the-top teenage angst we find in so many modern YA stories: “OMG! OMG! My life is over! The sky is falling! What am I going to do now?! Nothing’s ever going to be the same again!”

Please.

No. Jonas is apprehensive, and a little anxious, but he’s also excited. He knows that he’s about to go through what his father went through when he was an Eleven. What his mother went through. What his younger sister will go through in a few years’ time.

It isn’t the end of the world. Nor is it particularly good or bad. It just is.

This is such a refreshing story, I honestly can’t think of a single bad thing to say about it. I’ve heard it described as the story that started the YA Dystopian genre. I can believe it, and I can safely say that while there have been many imitations, there’s never been one to rival The Giver.

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This book was published after I graduated from school, so I missed out on the assigned reading. Back in my day, we read 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451. This dystopia shares elements of each, but doesn't quite measure up.

The best comparison for this novel might be Jeanne DuPrau's City of Ember, which was written for and about young adults. In each, the main characters are coming of age and have been assigned jobs, opening their eyes to the larger world of their community. Also in each, the communities are balanced and ideal. In City of Ember, that balance is tipping and some change must take place; in The Giver, change happens at the whim of the 12 year old main character. It is implausible that nobody in that world has dealt with a similar situation previously.

Speaking of implausible, the whole "transfer of memories" just doesn't fit. How does it happen? Why are memories "gone" after transfer, and how could proximity or death release them to the community? While I like the premise and feel of this colorless world, a technological Widget would have made more sense than some mysterious power of transference.

The last complaint I will make is that everything seems rushed. We gloss over months of training, and while describing each memory wouldn't be required, the relationships of the main character should be. He grows away from his friends (one scene only) and grows towards his mentor. Even the decision to stop taking his pills doesn't seem to have any direct consequences.

Those complaints aside, The Giver shows a lot about Jonas' world in a short time, and doesn't stray from the first person perspective. The ending works perfectly for this. It works well as a young-adult coming-of-age story, and demonstrates first-hand a very severe censorship. As a talking point, this story is great. As a novel for adults... it leaves me colorless. I am interested to see how this will transfer to the medium of film.