Messenger by Lois Lowry

Village has for years been a safe haven for all comers.  Refugees from harsh cruelty in their former homes live there harmoniously, helping each other to overcome the past and build a new future.  Many inhabitants are physically impaired in some way.  Some also have particular gifts which determine their true names and their places in the settlement:  Leader, Seer, Mentor, Herbalist.

Matty first arrived in Village as a wild young boy who called himself the Fiercest of the Fierce.  In the space of six years he has shed that title but retains the courage and loyalty he has always shown.  He has not yet received his true name; for the present he serves as a messenger between Village and other settlements which lie beyond Forest, which only he can enter without fear.

As inexplicable shifts in attitude are beginning to occur in Village, and Forest is becoming mysteriously more menacing, Matty is discovering and learning to use his gift.  When an unprecedented decision which will change the very nature of Village is reached by popular vote, the boy is called upon to make a journey through Forest like none he has made before, one demanding all his courage, his skill, his gift.

In Messenger, Lowry brings together the threads of The Giver and Gathering Blue, weaving an intricate tapestry of story.  This book is, in my view, the darkest and most disturbing of the three, but also the most powerful in its depiction of self-sacrifice in the face of despair.

 

 

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

Orphaned, crippled, unable to perform the physical labor necessary to survive on her own, and unlikely ever to be married, Kira faces daunting odds and probable death in the days following her mother’s mysterious illness.  To her surprise, a defender stands up for her; she is placed under the guardianship of the community council and given materials and a commission for the practice of the needlework that is her one skill and joy.  She soon learns that she is not the only young artist who has been taken into the compound upon being orphaned.

The next months are filled with a great deal of learning and painstaking work in preparation for the annual Gathering, as well as the discovery of startling information about events of the past and accidental insights into the future that is planned for the artisans in training.  Unexpectedly given an opportunity to alter her circumstances, Kira for the first time has the power to make a decision that will determine her life’s direction.

A companion volume to The Giver, Gathering Blue is set in a rather primitive settlement, in stark contrast to the earlier book’s well-ordered, sanitized society; affording an examination of similar issues from a very different perspective.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

As his Ceremony of Twelve approaches, Jonas is apprehensive, simply because the career assignment he will receive is virtually the only unknown he has ever faced.  The community in which he has always lived is well-ordered, safe, clean, and predictable.  All the citizens’ needs, from food and housing to placement with a spouse, are provided for under the careful oversight of the Council of Elders.  Courtesy and conformity are the hallmarks of every aspect of life.

All the community shares his apprehension for a short while, when Jonas is skipped in the designated order of the Ceremony.  Finally, after all of his groupmates have received the assignments for their life work, Jonas is called upon to accept the great honor of being selected the Community’s new Receiver, an office whose function neither he nor most of the citizens understand clearly.  The single page of instructions he is given, with its statement that the foundational rules of propriety and honesty will no longer apply to him, only adds to his confusion and distress.

As he learns what is expected of him and undergoes training, Jonas discovers that many generations before, back and back and back, life was very different from what he has experienced.  Realization of the price being paid for the security and efficiency of the community ultimately drives him to irrevocable decisions and unheard-of actions.

The Giver is a powerful and thought-provoking depiction of the sort of society that could be built by citizens willing to sacrifice key individual freedoms and responsibilities in exchange for the guidance and protection of the state.  Ms. Lowry employs graphic description sparingly, judiciously.  Sensitive readers will find some scenes disturbing.