Book review: The Giver
The Giver by Lois Lowry was written in 1993. The plotline is not uncommon in science fiction - a perfect society is revealed, but perfection has come at some terrible price and the protagonist either overthrows the social order or dies defying it. With the way The Giver ended, it looked like both, but Wikipedia says there is a sequel, so he’s probably not dead.
I liked it, overall. It was intriguing and thought-provoking, though I did not find myself abhorring the society, but rather admiring it. Even so, I could forgive the protagonist because he was so young and naïve. I could forgive the Giver because he was so old and burdened. I saw no real villain in the piece. The protagonist (Jonas) and the Giver were the closest to such things because they conspire to destroy the social order, but honestly at the end of the book, I wasn’t even sure their plan worked (and if it did work, I had doubts about it having the effect they wanted).
About a third of the way into the book, I began to realize not all was as it seemed. I wondered, actually, if there was some large metaphor going on and the people were actually insects of some communal variety of bees or ants - not the more well-known species that have queens and workers, but of some more obscure breed that has adult pairs separately raising the colony’s offspring. The continual vagueness about food, clothing, and expressions were signaling me that things were different. I later decided they were actually human beings and the reasons for the peculiar ‘Sameness’ was explained.
There were many little things mentioned in off-hand ways that gave me clues about the world and society. They had motorized buses, although they used bicycles exclusively within the community. They had jets (or at least were familiar with them) and anti-aircraft weapons. Yet they did not have sunlight or snow or unscheduled rain. The weather was as tightly controlled as the society! Communication and fraternization was very minimal. Recreation seemed limited to strolling. There seemed to be little to do aside from be busy on behalf of the community. There was no commerce and no mention of trade goods. I wonder how their economy functioned - were they self-contained on all fronts? (such seems impossible if they had cars and airplanes) Or did they have some product they specialized in that they provided to other communities who focused on some specialized industry like pharmaceuticals or aeronautics? There were no answers - these were not the point of the book.
It was a short book and good for that. I listened to it because I hadn’t been able to bring myself to listen to the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I’m not sure if my disinclination to the latter book is because it purportedly has a female protagonist, or because it’s not, to my knowledge, set in a science fiction world. Now that The Giver is done, I’ll make another stab at Girl.