Daily Archives: February 2, 2009

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The Giver

I read this one a few months ago, but I’ve been familiarizing myself with it again for book club this month. Spoilers follow… Here are the things that jump out at me:

1. Language. Take this passage, for instance:

“Do you love me?”

There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. “Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!”

“What do you mean?” Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated.

“Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it’s become almost obsolete,” his mother explained carefully… “And of course our community can’t function smoothly if people don’t use precise language. You could ask, ‘Do you enjoy me?’ The answer is ‘Yes,’” his mother said.

“Or,” his father suggested, “‘Do you take pride in my accomplishments?’ And the answer is wholeheartedly ‘Yes.’”

“Do you understand why it’s inappropriate to use a word like ‘love’?” Mother asked.

There are lots of examples of sanitized language, the main one being “release” rather than “death.” There are also examples of words — like Lily’s use of “anger” — used to represent things that are considerably less potent than the word really signifies. Once the range of experience and freedom are so drastically reduced, the correspondence between language and meaning loosens up a lot.

Carefully regulated speech in this book is a major way the society enforces conformity. We’ve all heard the debates about p.c. speech. Our scientific language — whether it’s in regard to “fetuses” or “smart bombs” — also relates, I think. Just the other night on the radio I heard the term “selective reduction” and thought of this book, particularly of the scene where Jonas’s father “releases” the weaker twin.

2. History (or historylessness). Recently I read Orwell’s 1984, and that book too portrayed a futuristic society with no history. The governing party had a whole department in charge of rewriting history every time something happened that wasn’t what Big Brother had predicted. The only thing that mattered was making him look infallible. There were these vents, tubes that sucked up old newspapers and past versions of events and sent them to a huge incinerator. There was no longer any record anywhere of the past, and without that external verification, people’s minds could be shaped however the dominant power wanted them to be shaped. 2+2 became 5, if they said so.

It’s interesting that The Giver varies that by including a Receiver of Memory. But the burden on one person is unbearable. And the idea that the past is something the general public must be protected from is just as strong as in 1984.

It raises some comparisons with public education too. One of the things that appealed to me about homeschooling was that we could learn history starting at a younger age, and learn it chronologically, getting the sequence and scope. When I learned it, it was in bits and pieces — Egypt in this unit, Athens in this one, a smattering of the American Revolution here, the three branches of government there. Starting earlier, and learning to love the story like my daughter is doing, gives it a priority that for whatever reason I never registered in public school. Learning about the Islamic Empire in Medieval History, then turning on the car radio and hearing about Muslims in Indonesia or Iran, we have an additional lens for “reading” the present.

If I weren’t homeschooling, would I be as aware of what happens to history in the mouths of political spokesmen? A great deal of distortion is about all we hear in the name of “history” as it’s thrown around in self-serving ways in public life, and if that were my only source of it I’d be at the mercy of the press and the politicos and whoever else had an agenda they wanted to prosecute by tapping into the ideals of our common heritage. As C.S. Lewis writes in “Learning in War-Time,” “The scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.”

3. Free will. Why did God give us free will when we can do such disastrous things with it? Wouldn’t it be better to live in a world without any discomfort or discord? Wouldn’t it be great if a trusted body of elders were observing us all the time and were willing to bear the responsibility of telling us what to do with our lives? What would it do to our humanity? This book suggests that creating that kind of a world is the most disastrous use of all of our free will.

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The Story Behind Modern Books

Ever wondered how some loved story took shape in its author’s mind? I read Jeane’s review of this book over at Dog Ear Diary, and it sounded really interesting. I picked up a used copy and have spent the last couple of days going through it.

Elizabeth Rider Montgomery gives brief accounts (around 3-4 pages each) of how thirty-seven children’s books came to be. Writing in 1949, she focuses on stories published between 1925 and 1945. I’m not sure if there exists a more up-to-date incarnation of a similar survey.

I enjoyed reading through the chapters on stories I know; I skimmed or skipped the ones on books I haven’t read. This is not illustrated, but it’s a children’s book, as my used copy from an elementary school library testifies. But it doesn’t condescend. It’s general and fairly simple in its focus, so it serves as a great introduction to further study on the authors included here.

I really enjoyed learning about some of my favorites. I had no idea James Thurber wrote Many Moons (a book I adore) in the midst of serious health issues. I did have a feeling that Robert McCloskey must have studied ducks for quite awhile to produce the drawings in Make Way for Ducklings, and I liked getting the details. I loved learning about Virginia Lee Burton’s own house-moving in The Little House, Lois Lenski’s creation of Mr. Small and how revolutionary he was, Marjorie Flack’s research for The Story about Ping. Other tales include My Friend Flicka, Lassie Come Home, The Yearling, Babar, Rabbit Hill (written by an extremely impractical gardener!)… Too many treasures to list. The chapter on Laura Ingalls Wilder makes no mention of Rose Wilder Lane, but that aspect of the Little House books didn’t come out until later.

A couple of themes emerge, including the amount of work and planning and research that go into these deceptively simple-looking tales for children. Believing in your project and not being daunted by initial rejection are important ideas too. The other theme that came through strongly to me was how much plain good will toward children exists in the world of children’s writers. Maybe this is a “duh,” but I hadn’t really thought about it before. The library shelves represent a supportive community for me as a parent. These authors wrote not just to put food on the table, but because they felt they had things worth sharing and preserving: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Pa and his stories, the long-ago Wisconsin of Carol Ryrie Brink’s grandmother in Caddie Woodlawn, Felix Salten’s close observation of animals in Bambi. And of course, in every case, the main gift is delight.

It’s interesting, how many of these “modern books” are now considered classics. I look forward to sharing these mini-biographies with my daughters and expect they will pique their curiosity about some of their favorites. I also plan to use it as a resource for investigating some of the books listed here that I haven’t read.