‘The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness…’
As an English teacher, I occasionally have to accommodate a change of curriculum or a year group I haven’t taught for a while, which means reading a new book in preparation to teach the damn thing later on. Lois Lowry’s The Giver is one such book, and unlike many of the others, I ended up enjoying this one…
Set in an alternative universe in which the world has become a dystopia disguised as a utopia (think Brave New World), The Giver presents us with Jonas, a 12-year-old boy who lives in an isolated community. Through the course of the short novel, Jonas finds out that he will be assigned a work detail that will isolate him from his friends and family… and also reveal a dark truth.
Lowry wastes no time in establishing the rules and conceit of this world. Much of it is stuff we have seen before (most notably in 1984 and Fahrenheit 451), but what this book excels at is diluting the darker elements of previous dystopian works to render them suitable for a younger audience. Having said that, there is one moment here that rivals anything to be found in more traditional dystopian texts in terms of genuine horror. I won’t spoil it here, but needless to say, you’ll know it when you get to it and I found it to be a genuinely tough section to get through.
The Giver is subversive enough to ensure that it is one of the most banned books in the American school system and it also inspired a film adaptation in 2014 (which I haven’t seen but is pretty awful by all accounts). While it is derivative of other (superior) works, it’s still well-written and surprisingly moving in places – a classic of modern-day children’s literature.