Wednesday, May 2, 2007

The Giver

I enjoyed this book quite alot - again none of my teens came to the book club - perhaps too many have had to read it for school.

Some topics I would have liked to discuss:

The ending. The author claims it's optomistic that Jonah and the baby live. I read it as he was clinging to what was left of the Christmas memory he had been given as he and the baby freeze to death.

The idea of rules and choice. If we let people decide for themselves the may make the "wrong" choice. But at what point does this become over kill? Spouses, children, jobs.

Language. This society talks about the "precision of languages" but then uses a euphamism to describe euthenasia by calling it "being released."

Conformity.