January '12 / Newbury Reading: The Giver

[YesNo]

That doesn't seem clear to me. It seems like it could simply be symbolistic description for heaven.

In looking at the Wikipedia review of the book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giver it seems that others also considered the ending to be ambiguous although I still don't see much ambiguity in it.

Yes, the things Jonas described while on the sled could be symbolic of heaven and I can see your point. He and Gabe could have died in the cold. From the perspective of the main story of Jonas saving Gabe and the Giver trying to change the community so that memories could be shared, the ending wasn't relevant. Were this community the focus of my attention at the end of the book, I would have liked to know what happened to the Giver more than what happened to Jonas and Gabe. Did he survive? It looks like he was expecting to join Rosemary in death.

But by the end of the book after reading of Jonas' and Gabe's week long escape, I had forgotten almost completely about the community. I had put it behind me and I think that was Lowry's intent.

When I reached the end, after reading about the twinkling lights in the trees, the sled waiting for them, the hearing of music, I was now going back looking for hints to an underlying Christmas story that I had missed. I was no longer interested in the mechanics of the dystopian community but rather in questions like the following: Why was December so important in this story? Did it make chronological sense that Jonas and Gabe arrived on Christmas eve? Why was the Giver's "happiest" tale a story of a family opening presents and hugging each other?

So from that perspective, Jonas and Gabe must have arrived safely or Lowry would have had a lot more explaining to do which she didn't seem to think was necessary. The fact that she didn't say anything explicitly about Jonas and Gabe makes me think she also was more interested in the underlying Christmas story at that time as well. She was now telling that Christmas story and letting it show what must have happened to Jonas and Gabe, just as she was previously telling the story of the dystopian community and letting it show the contrasting story of family love in the Giver's memory of opening presents and giving hugs to family members.

[YesNo]

I was going to hoof it on over to the library, but the comments so far have dissuaded me. All in all, the book seems like an attempt to indoctrinate children before they reach an age where they can critically think.

What doctrine?

[Meta Penguin]

What doctrine?

I think what they meant is that the novel is typical for a YA novel in a sense that it presents a positive moral subject to an impressionable youth.

[YesNo]

Then I guess "indoctrinate" is not so bad after all. The community in The Giver did a lot of indoctrinating as well. Of course the daily medication helped.

What I don't understand is how they were able to keep the climate so controlled. There was no sun and yet they still had cargo planes. I also don't understand why the machines needed us for battery power in the Matrix either, but that's for another thread.

[j.hart]

When I reached the end, after reading about the twinkling lights in the trees, the sled waiting for them, the hearing of music, I was now going back looking for hints to an underlying Christmas story that I had missed. I was no longer interested in the mechanics of the dystopian community but rather in questions like the following: Why was December so important in this story? Did it make chronological sense that Jonas and Gabe arrived on Christmas eve? Why was the Giver's "happiest" tale a story of a family opening presents and hugging each other?

There is no doubt that the ending is ambiguous. The memories that the Giver shares with Jonah are the memories that he held dear (from the ones he received from his giver, and that giver received from his/her giver...). The story is unclear as to the time and setting of the place they live in. I think the author uses Christmas and family to anchor the story with the reader. We can identify with these ideas, and the feelings associated with them. That is probably why Jonah keeps repeating- "and back and back and back...". Time is unknown in this story, except when it pertains to Jonah's life (we know his age).

In the end, the way that this society has evolved- it would be quite impossible for Jonah to walk for one day in the woods and find himself on the exact same sled waiting for him at the top of a hill, and he and Gabriel sledding towards a happy family opening presents at the bottom. It seems much more likely that two small children have found themselves in the cold, starving, and Jonah has lost himself in his own inherited memories.

The author could have easily ended the novel with, "Jonah found the sled at the top of the hill, but at the bottom were all the countless bodies torn apart from the war." But instead of that memory, Jonah chooses to re-remember the Christmas one, because it was one of love and ... most importantly... hope.