A letter from the author of ‘The Giver’

May 15, 2020 6:08 PM

Would you please write a prequel to The Giver so we could find out how all that happened? Dear Reader: guess what. You don’t need a prequel. You’re living in one.

"In 1993, I wrote a book called The Giver which was intended for a young audience, for readers maybe 10-14 years old. Its almost immediate success (it was awarded the 1994 Newbery Medal, and has sold millions of copies now, in thirty-some languages) took me by surprise. Set in the somewhat distant future, it depicted a world that had gone awry and become devoid of empathy or compassion, a world in which individual human lives had little value. I had thought of it as a fairly straightforward adventure story.

But young people didn’t read it quickly and move on to the next thing, the way they often do. They found something in the book that resonated at the same time that it puzzled them. How had that happened? they asked me—first in letters, now in emails. What went wrong? How can we keep this from happening?

I’ve given them simplistic answers. Verbal shrugs. It would have been gradual, I told them. It would have involved small compromises."

posted by pjsky (12 comments total)

Between Lowry and Atwood, I was hoping we would find a better way to honor their works than by acting them out in real life.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:39 PM on May 15, 2020 [79 favorites]

I read this this morning and it just gutted me. We’re all in this together folks.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:01 PM on May 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

One of the last in-person conversations (about two months ago) I had with my boyfriend was me saying "I thought a lifetime of reading dystopian novels would've prepared me for all of this." He said "No, I think it has, because you know where this ends up and you're more ready."

I still don't want that to be true, but here we are.
posted by darksong at 7:11 PM on May 15, 2020 [20 favorites]

There is a fairly good sequel to The Giver, though! (There are actually three, but only one of them is fairly good.)
posted by colorblock sock at 7:28 PM on May 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

I can't believe it was only written in 1993, that would have been the year I read it. It felt timeless. I'm genuinely surprised.
posted by Dynex at 7:51 PM on May 15, 2020 [17 favorites]

We’re all in this together folks.

Disagree. There's some of us that are in it and there's others who are more than happy to stand on someone else's shoulders when the water levels rise and have invested in cleated shoes and gym memberships in the meantime.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:01 PM on May 15, 2020 [15 favorites]

That's what (references to) guillotines are for. To convince the 'others' to help, or at least to get out of the way.

(I can't believe I just said pour encourager les autres and meant it. I'm so sorry.)
posted by Fraxas at 2:53 AM on May 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

8. You may lie.
posted by Fizz at 5:23 AM on May 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Guillotines are worthless if people don't frigging USE THEM.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:49 AM on May 16, 2020 [3 favorites]

Likewise, Dynex, I also must have read it right after it was published, and I also always assumed it was some kind of decades-old classic. I don't think I've read it in at least 20 years now but I still remember its themes and some of its elements quite vividly -- like a shock of color among hazy, gray memories.
posted by biogeo at 5:18 PM on May 16, 2020

Mod note: A few comments removed. There's probably a workable way to talk about where and how you disagree with the content of the link, but calling stuff BS and garbage isn't gonna help make that a constructive part of any conversation in here.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:46 PM on May 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

So partly cuz homeschooling there's a lot of books "everybody" read but I didn't and The Giver was one of them. Does it still hold up when first encountered as an adult?
posted by PMdixon at 2:07 PM on May 21, 2020