The Giver by Lois Lowry

First published in 1993 by Houghton Mifflin

The Aaron Rodgers book club has become a feature of Rodgers’ Tuesday appearances on the Pat McAfee show. McAfee is a former NFL punter who offers an opinionated, amusing, and often insightful take on football, the world of sports, and whatever crosses his mind during his daily broadcast. Rodgers is a legend, a future Hall of Fame quarterback who, at 37, continues to lead the Green Bay Packers to victory in game after game. How Rodgers started a book club on a sports show is a bit of a mystery, but Rodgers is a cerebral athlete who views life as a beautiful mystery.

I commend Rodgers for urging sports fans to read. I commend McAfee for giving Rogers the space to talk about the universe outside of football. Rodgers’ book club selections tend to be inspirational or self-help books that are meant to guide people as they learn how to live in the moment, to acquire their best life, and to succeed in their endeavors, just as Rogers has done. Of course, it helps that Rodgers can throw a football into a bucket from a distance of 70 yards, but still.

The Giver is one of the books Rogers recommended. McAfee is 34; he claimed that he was supposed to read The Giver in grade school. McAfee is a loquacious, funny guy, but he makes no secret of the fact that he’s not much of a reader. I was between marriages and well into my career when The Giver was published, so I wasn’t asked to read it in school. In fact, I don’t recall ever hearing about it, notwithstanding that The Giver was a YA bestseller.

It seems that The Giver has been widely assigned in middle school since its publication. It is also widely challenged or banned for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend, although I never understand the desire to ban books. Almost any book that asks readers to think about social justice is challenged or banned by people who fear social justice. Still, I don’t know what aspect of The Giver could possibly frighten or offend anyone, beyond authoritarians who view the controlling society depicted in the novel as ideal.

The Giver is a parable. It imagines a community that has divorced itself from the rest of the world. The community lives by a strict set of rules. The governing council assigns jobs and spouses. Married couples are given children to raise on the community’s behalf after they have been nurtured by specialists in infant childcare centers. At puberty, everyone takes a daily pill to suppress their sexual desire. Older people are segregated into facilities where they receive care until it is time for them to be released. People are given a strict set of rules to obey that focus largely on civility. They can’t go outside at night unless their job requires it. They can’t ask intrusive questions or make rude remarks. Three offenses will result in the offender’s release. There are no hills because they make productivity more difficult. There are no animals or colors because they distract from a productive life. Weather is controlled so every day is the same as every other day. That’s the point of the society. Sameness is the ultimate value. When everything is the same, when everything is controlled, there are no risks. People feel no pain, no jealousy. They have no sense of loss. Crime is nonexistent. The society seems utopian.

The story follows a boy named Jonas. As the story begins, he is about to become a Twelve. At the Twelve ceremony, he will be assigned his life work. His little sister is eager to reach the age at which she will be assigned a bicycle. Jonas’ father is a Nurturer who takes care of babies before they are assigned to a home. Jonas’ father is hoping that a baby who cries at night will become less burdensome so that it won’t be necessary for the community to release the baby. You can guess what “release” means, although Jonas has no clue.

At the Twelve ceremony, Jonas is chosen to be the Receiver of memories. He replaces the old Receiver, who becomes the Giver of memories. As Jonas receives memories, he is able, for the first time, to see colors, to feel warmth, to experience love. But he also experiences cold and pain and terror and loss, all the things that the community shields from its members in the interest of pursuing a utopian society. Jonas and the Giver agree that it is wrong to deprive people of enriching experiences even if they are protected from disturbing experiences. They agree that something needs to be done. The choice they make leads to an ambiguous ending, but the ending really isn’t the point. The point is that they exercise the power to make a choice in a society that denies choice.

The story argues that people don’t really live if they don’t experience everything that comes with life. If eliminating pain means eliminating pleasure, if eliminating the perception of loss means eliminating the perception of love, if the only feeling is contentment, people exist but they don’t live. On McAfee’s show and elsewhere, Rodgers talks about learning by being open to experience and by overcoming adversity. He talks about gratitude and appreciation and openness. In the world of sports, winning games becomes more special when the winner remembers all the losses that were endured while rising to the top. The message of The Giver fits the Aaron Rodgers theme of living in the moment and experiencing life fully. Both sorrow and ecstasy have their place in the fullness of life.

While The Giver is clearly a Young Adult novel, I agree with Jen Doll, who talked to Kate Milford (a YA author who also hadn’t read the book) and wrote an article in the Atlantic about their experience of first reading it as an adult. Doll argues that the book is about “the ability to choose versus having things told to you, dictated, or prescribed. Choosing is harder, but in a free society, we have to be able to do it for ourselves, and of course, we value that.” Taking choices away from kids is what parents do (and with good reason), but notwithstanding the desire of helicopter moms to protect their kids from the real world, part of maturing is exercising the power to make choices, good and bad, and to experience consequences, painful and pleasurable, and to grow as a result of chosen experiences. Doll and Milford both thought the book is a gripping read for adults who haven’t encountered it. It’s certainly a vehicle for thought. And if Aaron Rodgers recommends it, how could I do otherwise?

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