Book Review - The Giver - by Lois Lowry

Jonas lives in a "utopian" world that is bereft of war, diseases, suffering, as well as long term memories. A society where 'sameness' is celebrated, where folks are made unaware of color, music, hills, snow or sunshine – anything that goes against the concept of sameness. The society is also isolated from the rest of the world (referred to as"elsewhere") and all are prohibited from going there. Everything is well structured and well communicated. Life is simple without ambiguities. To protect people from the risks of making poor or wrong decisions in life, the elders of the community make all their decisions, including assignment of spouses, children, and careers. ​Everyone is assigned a spouse after long and deliberate consideration to compatibility. Each couple is assigned at most two children, again after much deliberation, and the "family unit" stays together until the children turn twelve.  Upon turning twelve, every child is assigned a role in the community based on skills and aptitude, by the elders committee.

To spare the​  people from pain, the rules of the society​​ inhibit people's ability to feel ​ any emotion including love. At the first sign of such emotions, people are required to take medication that will suppress those emotions.

It is after reading a few pages that you realize that while the elders of the community set up a structure to establish a secure pain free society, they are, in fact, stifling freedom in all aspects, including natural human instincts. The Community lives only in the present and the people have a narrow perspective of life because they only remember only the happenings of the current generation and only know their community and its way of life. They are naïve for they do not gain knowledge or wisdom from the memories and are made to abdicate all choices.

​​ T​he burden of holding the memories of the past​is designated to a single member of society: the "Giver”. He is given this role for the community requires at least one person to have memories, experience, and wisdom beyond what is available to the community. This is to equip him with the wherewithal to provide the right judgment and advice for really difficult problems. ​In this role, he holds the position of highest honor within the Community.

​​When Jonas turns twelve, ​​because of his intelligence, integrity, courage, wisdom, and ​his capacity to see beyond, he is selected to be the Receiver of Memor​ies​, ​a precursor role for his subsequently becoming the Giver. ​​It is when Jonas receives "memories" of experiences beyond what is available to this society that he realizes ​​the shortcomings of his society, like lack of freedom, knowledge, cruelty of infanticide, euthanasia etc. He is convinced that the society is being wronged decides to do something to change the current conditions and enlighten his community. ​The giver tells Jonas that if he escapes the community and goes "elsewhere", all the memories that he has received thus far will be transmitted to the people. Jonas feels this is a good thing and is happy when the Giver tells him that he will help the people assimilate them. Jonas, with the help of the Giver plans his escape to "elsewhere". The final twist in the story is when unbeknownst to all, Jonas decides to take with him little Gabriel, a baby that his family is nurturing. He makes this flash decision when he finds out that the community had decided to release little Gabriel, because he had not adjusted well to the required sleep schedule.

Jonas and Gabriel set out on this arduous and hazardous journey, with determination and hope. They have little to eat on the way and the weather is quite rough as well. Finally, just about when they are close to dying of starvation and the wrath of the weather, they manage to reach “elsewhere", where they find a happy family celebrating Christmas.

 ​The book ends with an optimistic note with the enigmatic sentence "Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But, perhaps, it was only an echo." This perhaps implies that Jonas’s old community has, by now, learned to make music too, after they receive the memories that Jonas left behind him - an unmistakable signal that their plan worked and worked well.

In the Giver, Ms. Lowry ​has crafted an interesting picture of this Community by using unusual terms, to help delineate them from our own​society. ​Here, c​children are categorized by their ages and called "ones", "twos" etc. and children ​ of the same age are ​​​called "group mates”. Putting an end to one's life is referred to as "release". She has made some of their practices extreme, to give us clarity and a definite feeling of antipathy towards the practices. It, however, also drives us to introspect if our own societies suffer from some of the negative practices. Do we pretend that we all are same and should be treated similarly? Do we celebrate diversity enough or prefer to stay with the same kind of people for it is within our comfort zone? Do we go out of the way to protect our children from the feeling of pain? Even if it will make them wiser and prepare them to adjust to life better? Is the family unit temporary even in our society and is it functional only as long as children are young? Are the elderly left to their own devices and left to live by themselves when they become infirm? ​Do we attempt to erase unpleasant memories even if there are things to learn from them?

​ ​​The Giver, a Newberry​ Award Winner,​is quite popular with children and adults alike and has been listed as one of the hundred must-read books. However, it is also a controversial book that has been challenged and even banned from schools for its "mature themes" of euthanasia, infanticide, and suicide. That the book was banned is ironic, given the theme of the book.