The Giver, by Lois Lowry

This book sucks. My son had to read it in his 6th grade class and since he was confused by the dystopian universe of the book, I decided to read it along with him. I have nothing against dystopian novels--Atlas Shrugged and 1984 are two of my favorite books. But it should at least make sense. In The Giver, they all live in a commune worse than anything dreamed up in Soviet Russia or Communist China where the leaders kill babies if they don't develop quickly enough. Apparently there was a big war and to prevent such a thing from happening again, they all decided to live in this new commune where everyone is the same. But, for some reason, the author also decided to mutate humans to some new species which can no longer see color and who can transfer memories by rubbing another person's back (this person is the Giver). Only one person is allowed to know history or have memories of anything outside the commune and this person must pass the information along to a new giver every few generations.

What are we supposed to learn from this ridiculous premise? The commune has nothing to do with life or reality for actual humans, so why are we contemplating these characters? Why not write a story about a group of people living in a commune after a war but without all the silly memory-transfer parts? Having a brave child rebel against the commune would be interesting, although I'm still not sure it would be useful for 6th graders to read.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the novel is that it is not clear that the author believes the commune is a living horror. One gets the impression that the author believes the commune is almost a good idea except, perhaps, for the killing of babies and the inability to see colors and hear music. The book is infused with a strong sense of duty with everyone simply doing what they are supposed to. And the main character doesn't rebel for his own freedom and happiness but instead escapes the commune to prevent a baby from being executed that he has come to love.

The only good thing about this book is that my son and I could laugh at some of the wooden dialogue which the characters are forced to utter by their leaders, such as, "I apologize for inconveniencing my learning community," said by a student to the class for being late. The Giver is a lousy book.