The Giver by Lois Lowry

(1993)

Genre: YA/Dystopian

Synopsis: Jonas's world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the Community. When Jonas turns twelve, he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.


***

Review: I'm always wary of reviewing classics - I tend not to do it with the older ones, simply because I don't really feel it's my place to question the quality of something that has already stood the test of time and passed. However, The Giver is too good of a story not to write at least a little blurb about.

For such a short novel, The Giver packs in quite a detailed system of living in the Community. Much like the residents of the Community, the novel is precise and un-flowery. I've seen this marked as a criticism against the book, but I actually find it to be quite an important part of the experience. The simplicity and precision of the book, for me, heavily reflects the starting point for Jonas and that which he ultimately tries to escape. In addition, Lowry's writing is extremely readable. I will admit the characters are a little flat, but again, we're talking about a community where exactly two people experience real emotion. Funnily enough, my favourite character was Gabriel.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about each aspect of Community life, and the fundamental underlying idea of giving up agency for a Pleasantville-style existence. It is far from an original concept - the idea of a society without pain, sadness, violence, or redundancy, but it does well to illustrate the pitfalls and sacrifices of such a concept, without ever directly pointing out why free will is, although more chaotic and difficult, much better. That is left as a logical conclusion to be reached by the reader as Jonas does.

I've seen some reviews discussing the foundation on Plato's Republic, and the depth (or lack thereof) of the philosophy in the novel. Mostly those reviews sound like people searching a young adult book for intellectual enlightenment, and I feel they're missing one of the points. Among my favourite things about this book is that it is a lightly intellectual story for younger readers.

Rating: 5/5