The Giver

Whoa.

I was assigned this book for school reading. It was supposed to be a couple of chapters a day. I read through it in one sitting. I had to! Some books, it feels like I will ruin my life if I put them down. It was so with The Giver.

I'm not going to go into the utopian/dystopian setting or the political messages. What struck me about the book was memories. The people of Jonas's community had no memories other than here and now, the Sameness. It was safe, and they were all content because they did not know any other way. It sort of blew me away when I realized that no one in the book had any concept of hills or color, because those were outside the realm of their experience. Things I take for granted. And none of them had experienced love, which I have also lived with my entire life.

The Giver and the Receiver were the only people who knew suffering, hunger, poverty, agony, war, or terror. They were alone in their pain. But they were also the only ones who knew true joy, love, and courage. They needed the good memories of many generations, “back and back and back”, to face the pain that brought wisdom. Someone needed to bear all those memories. They alone had the strength.

Basically, anyone who has traumatic memories, this book will be an engrossing and hard read. It brought to mind a lot of stuff for me. Some pages it was mostly memories of the joy of love. Other pages it was the pain of loneliness. But after reading this book, it's like I'm armed with the confidence, that even when the bad memories threaten to overtake me, when it hurts just to breath, I have the strength and wisdom to use all my memories to keep others safe.