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Rating: Let us imagine a perfect world, a world where there is no inequality, where no one is rude, no one asks indiscreet questions, no one insults, everyone respects the rules, a world where there is no pain, suffering, loneliness, where frustration and sadness can be dispelled with a pat on the back, where everything goes as it should, in the most perfect way possible.
This is the world described by Lois Lowry in her book "The Giver", which tells the story of Jonas, a twelve-year-old who spends his life in the Community, where he lives with his family unit—Mom, Dad, and sister Lily, attends a school that teaches mastery of language, and meticulously performs volunteer hours under the sharp eyes of the Elders, who will soon assign him to the role he will perform for life within the Community itself, according to the skills they have, after careful examination, identified in him.
Jonas is satisfied with his regular and perfect life until he learns that the role assigned to him by the Elders is that of "Receiver of Memories" of the Community, under the careful guidance of the old Receiver, who from that moment on will become "The Giver".
What are the Memories? The Memories are the recollections of the world before the Community, which has made Uniformity its creed, and to avoid chaos, suffering, and differences, has decided not to share them with its inhabitants, but to have them kept by only one individual who will bear the burden.
A burden that Jonas does not know if he can bear.
Yin and yang, black and white, good and evil, must every coin necessarily have a reverse to complete it? Is it absolutely necessary that everything has a shade that makes it different from the others? Among the choices we are forced to make every day, are there some wrong ones that can destroy our lives? Wouldn't it be better if everything was uniformed so that no one could make mistakes? Wouldn't it be wonderful to eliminate all the negative things in life?
But by eliminating the negative aspects, would the positive ones also be lost? Because if we don't know suffering, how could we know what happiness is? Without pain, how would we understand joy? And without hate, how would we recognize love?
These and countless other questions arise when reading this small novel, which since its publication in 1993, has been, I quote from the back cover, "banned in many American schools because accused of dealing with themes such as sexuality, euthanasia, and infanticide explicitly."
Originally conceived as a juvenile novel, "The Giver" proves to be a read for all ages because the doubts and anxieties of the protagonist, although twelve years old, are the same that each of us, looking at the evolution of our society, may have.
In the end, is free will a gift or a curse?
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