THIS ONE IS REALLY MESSING WITH MY HEAD YOU GUYS.
The Giver was one
of those books that was assigned to me in class, but that I really ended up
liking. Loving, actually. It was my introduction to dystopia, and I’ve been
hooked ever since.
I first read this book in eighth grade, and I clearly
remember not only having to write a paper on it, but also having to choose from
a list of projects that would help us analyze the book. I chose to make a mix
tape--on my boom box, natch--and I know for sure that Fiona Apple’s “The Child
is Gone” was on there, but I can’t remember what else. (Shout out to Mrs. Van
Doren who was doing multi-modal before multi-modal was A Thing!) Basically this paragraph is just here to show
you how cool of a kid I was (Eighth grade? Fiona Apple? Come on.) even though
no one in middle school seemed to catch on. I was way ahead of my time.
So now that we’ve established that Eighth Grade Mallory was
awesome, let’s talk about how Eighth Grade Mallory had her mind blown. Upon
finishing the book, I thought “Oh, what a happy ending. He found a sled. He’s
going to Christmas dinner. This is nice.” Then I went to class and the
aforementioned Mrs. Van Doren got all critical think-y on us and was like, “Do
you really think that he found a
sled? Don’t you think that’s just a little too
perfect?” And then I realized: Oh God, he died. He died and the baby died
and this is not happy this is horrible and I need Fiona Apple now.
So this is what I’ve thought since eighth grade. And when I
re-read the book, I thought it again. Yes, the ending is too perfect. There’s
no way a sled is just waiting at the top of a hill. Some kid wants to go
sledding, brings a sled to the top of a hill and then his mom calls him for
dinner and he’s like “Ok, guess I’ll leave the sled here instead of going for
one last ride,” and then trudges back down the hill? NOPE.
But then I started doing some research on Amazon, and I
found this in the description of the sequel to The Giver: “Under the gentle guidance of Leader, who arrived in
Village on a red sled as a young boy and who has the power of Seeing Beyond…”
Wait, what? So he did live. And now he’s helping disabled children? I feel like
my entire life has been a lie! Well, not really, but I do think this is a good
example of when not to do a trilogy,
which The Giver eventually turned
into.
There were a few other things that surprised me about the
book. I hadn’t realized it was so short.
I wanted to know more about everything, and I especially wanted the relationship
between the Giver and Jonas to be fleshed out a bit more, but with YA books
that skew younger--The Giver may even
be classified as middle grade now--those are the kinds of things that we, as
adults, miss.
I still think it’s a wonderful book, and a great
introduction to the genre of dystopian literature, but I also wish that there
was no trilogy, because even if the ending was not entirely clear, open-ended
is better than cheesy, and an actual sled waiting at the top of an actual
mountain to take Jonas and Gabriel to an actual Christmas dinner—well, that’s just a
little too easy for me.
Grade I would have given this book as a kid: Tidal
Re-reading Grade: Extraordinary
Machine
Status: Sometimes I choose to ignore things that ruin my
perception of art (see: unnecessary sequels and When the Pawn…)
What blew my mind was realizing that they were seeing in black and white. Wouldn't have happened if I'd seen a stupid movie.
ReplyDeleteRead books, kids.
Yes! I had even forgotten about that this time around. I kept thinking "I can't remember why the stupid apple is changing!" Man, I wanted to write something about that in my post, too.
DeleteTake notes, kids.
The Giver is one of my all time favorite novels. I remember reading it and starting off thinking "Wow, what a nice place! Everyone has a bike! And a job!" Then slowly realizing that this was a horrific, emotionally dead society changed me as a reader. It was the first time I truly had to think about a book I'd read and loved. And honestly, I still think of it as a stand-alone book.
ReplyDeleteA teacher friend gave this book to me several years ago as a birthday gift when she found out I had never read it. I read it...and remember NOTHING. Like, I thought it would all come back to me reading your entry. Nope. I guess I will have to reread it? I still have it...Reading fail.
ReplyDelete