The Giver Quartet
Somehow I missed reading The Giver when I was a kid, so I picked it up a few years ago at the advice of teenager. I read it quickly and loved it. Lois Lowry is a powerful storyteller: her narrative is direct and clear, biting and succinct. I felt I knew the characters deeply within the first few pages. I quickly acquired Gathering Blue and was startled to find no connections (other than the dystopic style) to The Giver. It took me several years to listen to the audio version of Messenger and then read Son soon thereafter. The two final books in this quartet stitch the stories of the first two together and reveal Lowry’s inspiring and hope-filled vision of a future constantly formed by brave, insightful young people.
The Giver (1993) is Jonas’s story. He lives in a very restricted, but well-run community in which the committee of elders makes all decisions: who marries who, who receives children once paired with a spouse, who does what work. For Jonas, at age 12, the committee will soon choose his job, but at the annual ceremony where all these decisions are made public, Jonas surprises everyone, including himself, by being selected for a job he did not know existed. His journey is one of discovery as The Giver gives him the community’s institutional memory, many of which are beautiful, many of which are very painful. Jonas’s story, it turns out, is one that reflects upon the power of seeing and knowing truth.
Gathering Blue (2000) is Kira’s story. Born with a physical disability which would typically lead to her infanticide, Kira somehow comes of age in her village. And like Jonas, Kira has a gift that gives her insight into her world that others lack. When reading Gathering Blue, I couldn’t see how it related to The Giver, except in the vague parallels between Jonas and Kira’s experiences (although their communities are wildly different, they are both dystopic). Like Jonas, Kira desires truth, and discovers the power that comes with asking questions (of both yourself and others).
Messenger (2004) is Matty’s story. As a character in Gathering Blue, Matty has moved to the village several years after the action of Gathering Blue. He lives with a blind old man known as Seer. Matty is unique because he knows the paths through the forest and therefore acts as a messenger between the village and other communities. Like Jonas and Kira, Matty wrestles with the secret of his own gift. The book opens with a young Matty, but the narrative quickly propels Matty into adolescence. Matty’s maturation occurs as he witnesses his previously open community (a refuge to any fleeing hardship elsewhere) become angry, self-interested, and wish to close their borders. In the end, Matty faces the greatest of challenges and uses his gift for the good of all those whom he loves. Messenger is very much a book about love and sacrifice; it pointedly contrasts the toxicity of selfishness and the healing power of selflessness.
Son (2012) ties the four books together and concludes the saga. It starts a few years before the action in The Giver and ends a few years after the action in Messenger. It is about a young teen who is assigned the job of Birthmother (at age 12) in the community devoid of emotion in which The Giver takes place. Claire gives birth, blindfolded, to a baby that is immediately taken from her. The first half of the book is her story of loss, adventure and growth. The second half of the book follows Gabe, who we first meet as a troublesome infant in The Giver, as he deals with his lack of family growing up in the village, a democratic refuge, that we first hear of in Gathering Blue. As he matures he faces the question mark of his parentage while also grasping to understand his gift. Ultimately, Gabriel combats evil. What he discovers about himself—“I cannot kill someone” (repeated throughout pages 371-372)—and the nature of evil, itself, offers the reader a powerful moral and one to consider in daily life. Son concludes the quartet with its messages about the power of love and human connection within families and communities.
All four books include youthful characters who know they have gifts, unseen by others, but face the coming-of-age perils associated with learning to use and understand their gifts. They are all outsiders of one sort or another but they ultimately choose to trust themselves and their fate, and in so doing, they ensure a bright future. I think this is Lowry’s project in The Giver quartet. Writing for young people, Lois Lowry’s characters reveal the power of youth to change and question the status quo. She also provides young readers the opportunity to reflect on the nature of community and its goals—be they lofty or power-hungry, inclusive or restrictive. In light of contemporary issues over immigration and people seeking refuge in democratic communities, these themes are salient to all of our lives.
On a final note, this is the first juvenile or young adult (YA) fiction included on LitReaderNotes, and as such I wanted to make special note. I find fiction geared to adolescent readers delightful to read as an adult; it is generally inspiring as it deals with transformative coming-of-age themes and it is a fast read. They are at times fun and light, but many deal with intense tropes and thought-provoking characters (as is certainly the case with Lowry’s The Giver quartet). I encourage readers of all ages to pick up classic juvenile and YA at any time in their lives and will, in the future, include reviews of others here.
A Few Great Passages:
“But now he knew that there were communities everywhere, sprinkled across the vast landscape of the known world, in which people suffered not always from beatings and hunger the way he had, but from ignorance, from not knowing, from being kept from knowledge” (Messenger, chapter 3).
“The path ahead did not seem to be as familiar as it had always been. He could tell it was the same path, the turnings were the same [. . .] bit things that had seemed easy and accustomed no longer did. Now everything felt a little different” (Messenger, chapter 15).
“It was a very small village that had had its beginnings years before in a gathering of outcasts. Fleeing battles or chaos of all kinds, often wounded or driven out by their own clans or villages, each of the original settlers had made his way to this place. They had found strength in one another, had formed a community. They had welcomed others.
From time to time, as the years had passed, people muttered that they shouldn’t let newcomers in; the village was becoming crowded, and it was hard, sometimes, for the newcomers to learn the customs and rules. There were arguments and petitions and debates.
What if my daughter wants to marry one them?
They talk with a funny accent.
What if there aren’t enough jobs?
Why should we have to support them while they’re learning our ways?
[. . .] the villagers [. . .] had all been outsiders once. They had all come here for a new life. Eventually they had voted to remain what they had become: a sanctuary, a place of welcome” (Son, 290).
Bibliography:
Lowry, Lois. Gathering Blue. New York, New York: Bantam Books, 2000.
Lowry, Lois. Messenger. Narrated by David Morse. An Unabridged Production, Books on Tape, 2006.
Audiobook.
Lowry, Lois. Son. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 2012.
Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.
