The Giver

Hola!! Hoy les quiero hablar de el libro The Giver o el Dador de recuerdos. Este libro lo leí en ingles y vi la película en inglés así que voy a hacer este resumen en inglés. 😋

Título: The Giver I. El Dador de Recuerdos

Título Original: The Giver

Autor: Lois Lowry

Editorial: Everest

Páginas: 200

Meet Jonas, an eleven-year-old boy who lives in a rigidly controlled society some time in the future. In his "community," there is no suffering, hunger, war, and, as you will soon see, no color, sex, music, or love. Everything is controlled by "the Elders," right down to who you will marry, who you receive as children, and what you will be "assigned" as a job. Individual identity has gone the way of cassette tapes, and everyone is essentially just like everyone else. It seems that no one has really left the area, except to visit other neighboring communities. To get "released" is a big deal. It only happens to sick infants or really old people, or to people who break the rules.

So Jonas is almost twelve, it's almost time for him to get assigned a profession. There's a big ceremony at which the decisions are announced. Jonas watches all his friends get their jobs (Recreation Director, Caretaker for the Old), but then he's skipped over. The Chief Elder finishes the ceremony and explains that Jonas has been "selected" to be The Receiver of Memory, which is a big job or assignment. Jonas looks over at the current Receiver, an old man who, like Jonas, has light eyes. This is also a big deal; Jonas is one of very few people in the community with light eyes.

By the way Jonas's family has been taking care of a "sick" baby named Gabriel with this same unusual characteristic. If the baby doesn't get better, they will released him.

So Jonas has been selected to be Receiver, he gets a list of rules. They tell him that he isn't allowed to discuss his Receiver "training" with anyone, that he's allowed to lie, and that he can ask anyone any questions he wants, even if it's rude. (That's cool actually).

And then Jonas starts his training, which consists of receiving a series of memories from the old Receiver, who is now referred to as The Giver. These aren't just any old personal memories; rather, the old man is passing on to Jonas all the memories of humanity, going way back. The memories are from before their community was established, back when there was color and sex and love and music and emotions and hills and snow and sunshine, all of which are notably absent from Jonas's world. The very first memory he receives is that of sledding down a hill in the snow. While Jonas gets to experience lots of fun things like Christmas and birthday parties, he also has to deal with the bad memories, like sunburn, loss, death, and warfare.

So the bad experience changes the way Jonas looks at his world. He realizes that no one around him has ever felt any real emotions at all. A year into his training, Jonas discovers that the process of "release," which is performed on people who break the rules, babies who are sick, and folks who are very old, is really nothing more than a lethal injection. He and The Giver devise a plan: Jonas will fake his own death and run away to Elsewhere, (the land outside the communities), which is, for all intents and purposes, very similar to OUR world (in other words, it has music and color and joy, but also violence and poverty). Once Jonas leaves, the memories which The Giver has passed to him will be released to the general community, at which point they'll all just have to deal with the pain. Oh, and also they'll be free, because they'll understand what it means to have choices.

While he's getting ready for the big escape night, Jonas finds out that the little baby with light eyes, Gabriel, is going to be "released" the next morning. He has to make an improvised, fast-paced, and thrilling bicycle escape, taking the baby with him.

Weeks later, Jonas is still biking away from the community with Gabriel. They're basically starving to death. Jonas keeps trying to transmit memories to the little baby , memories of sunshine, in order to keep them going.

My opinion:

Okay, so I just want to say that I love this book! It is brilliant, the way the community works, and how people doesn't  have to make choices. Also that Jonas at first doesn`t  understand what he is experiencing, I found his reactions very cute.

I also find interesting that the people in the communities don't have idea of all the memories that the receiver/giver have.

Now I want to discuss the movie vs. the book.

Okay first I want to tell that I love both the book and the movie even though they were a little different.

The first thing that I noticed was the age of Jonas, Fiona, Lily and Asher. In the book they are 12 years and in the movie they are like 15-16 more or less. And also in the movie the Elder (the role play by Merly Streep) has a lot of "power" and in the book the one who has all the "power" is the Giver, he has immunity to everything and he can lie whenever he wants and hide information if someone ask`s him anything.

I do like the movie and book, I know they are a little different but the message is the same in the book and in the movie. 

The message that I found or that I understand is that: 

 You don't have to be afraid of making choices, it can get hard  sometimes but is the only thing that makes us what we are. And also, you don't have to be afraid of being different, that difference that you want to hide, is want makes you who you are.