George Rebane

I just finished reading The Giver (1993) by Lois Lowry, and then sat there staring into space, letting the ending wash over me again, reviewing how the author brought me there, and of the many ways one could interpret the book’s conclusion.  This is a story written primarily for teen-agers, and I would have totally missed it had not the 21jun14 WSJ featured an interview (here) with Ms Lowry.  Apparently many of us adults have overlooked her award-winning novels for young people.

From the interview we learn that “since it was first published in 1993, Lois Lowry's young-adult novel has sold more than 10 million copies, spawned an entire genre of dark teenage science-fiction, been translated into dozens of foreign languages, and become a staple of high-school English curricula.”

And I guess the real reason for the prominent interview was that the book has been made into a movie coming out in August, and starring big names like Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes, and Jeff Bridges.  Having read the book, I will be standing in line to see the flick on the big screen – no waiting for Netflix for this one.  So what’s all the fuss about?

The book tells a tale of what today we would call a perfected progressive society formed into homogeneous small communities somewhere in the not too distant future.  More formally, it is “an anti-totalitarian allegory that poses discomfiting questions about the fate of free thought, authentic family relationships and the dignity of life in a progressive age.”  And even more discomfiting is the reader’s realization that if present trends continue, we are headed smack dab into the middle of such a future.  Moreover, given the technology advances since 1993, we’re not that far from achieving it.  In spite of that, “the totalitarianism of The Giver community … isn't the work of a vicious ruling elite bent on exercising power for its own sake; it's the product of perfectly good intentions.”  And therein lay the seeds of the polarization that so exercises us today.

The more broadly read reader will recognize that the tightly managed communities in The Giver exist in an age where the objectives of Agenda21 have been realized in spades.  I don’t know what kind of warning Ms Lowry is sending us today since she is a proud and burnished Democrat.  Perhaps we can understand her mindset better if we study the recently nuanced distinction sociologist Charles Murray – The Bell Curve (1994), Coming Apart (2013) – makes between today’s liberal and progressive (here).  In any event, I would venture that many of our leftwing friends would conclude from The Giver that ‘Hmph!  I certainly don’t believe in anything that would lead to such a future.’  Everyone else would most likely respond, ‘Oh yes you do!’

In any event this Newberry Award winner has now been a controversial staple in many of the nation’s high schools where it has been folded into the English literature curricula in various ways that have called for both the book’s censorship, and its being extolled by both Christians and Jews.

Given that, I’m really impatient to see how Hollywood’s screenplay treats Lowry’s tale.  Following the money trail laid by its progeny – ‘Hunger Games’ and “its ilk” - the producers apparently want to hew to some reasonable semblance of what the lady wrote, since they have been consulting her heavily during the movie’s development and production.   My eagerness is really centered on what our progressive pundits take away from the story.  Will they be able to connect the dots? Will they even see the dots, or are they already ‘genetically modified’ to filter out entire dimensions of experience and sensory perceptions like the well behaved citizens in Lowry’s ‘communities’?

In any event, do yourself a favor and download the book ($4.11 at Amazon).  It's a short but intense read, and you need to have it under your belt when the movie comes out.  After that we’ll be having at it in these pages, so do your homework 😉