About Nothing (Pages and Pages)
Jan. 27th, 2008 07:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jheti
It was on the bus that I discovered The Giver. I'm familiar with dystopia, but I loved some of the layers and twists in hers. (They're subtle lifts, gear-shiftings in the prose, and not "twists" as in OMG PLOT SHOCKER.)
The thing that sucked me in, as always, was the rhythm. The language arrangement, the prosody, is like water over stones, silver-white singing, graceful and insidious at once. At a base-technical level, the writing is tight and evocative, the imagery crisp, and the pacing perfect until her hasty MY ENDING IS PASTEDE ON YAY conclusion.
I heartily recommend it. Any age, from about seven up, will get something out of it. Stronger readers will finish quickly, but the writing's very clear; there's not much to trip up problem readers. It would make a good classroom discussion book for a fourth or fifth grade class. Gifted third-graders will get a kick out of it.
Adults reading it for a class *cough* will get something out of the writing itself, and see the twist coming, but probably enjoy it anyway; it's very well-executed and I've got the squirms waiting for Wednesday when we get to discuss it in class.
I have not been this excited about/in love with a book for eight years.
"Easiness" of content should not be a deterrent to anyone who may have read Harry Potter.
I liked it a sight better than Anthem, a similar work of similar length with a somewhat different ending.
Both The Giver and Anthem are novels of a remarkably similar theme, and even of simliar content in places--the naming and numbering of people, the regimentalizing/compartmentalizing of their conversations with various rules, the constant monitoring of the state/collective/Them/foo--both written by women.
The only comparable male novel that leaps immediately to mind is Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury. I have not read Orwell's 1984 (I read Animal Farm instead, out of X-Fandom geekery) or whatever that Clockwork Orange business is; I don't recall its author. I also have not read Brave New World by Adolus Huxley, though the more I see his name in places of interest to me, the more intrigued I become; that will probably be the next dystopian "message" book I'll read.
I have something of a weakness for them, but I got distracted somehow/somewhere by The Book of the Dun Cow, which is a weird little treat of a thing that took me a full day (sixteen-or-eighteen hours) to finish to my satisfaction.
That is, I was considering writing some sort of essay comparing the two books, though for what purpose/to what end escapes me. I simply desire it. I've never had a nonfiction desire that didn't start with the specific purpose first; it feels odd.
I was also having bitter feminist thoughts about the obvious connotations of the arrangements in Lowry's novel's society. That is, Jonas' mother works a high-pressure, masculine job at the Justice Dept., and Jonas' father is a Nurturer, a carer-for of infants. "Birthmothers", as they're called, systematically reproduce for three years (a theoretical average of four children per woman, assuming multiple births do not occur and there is no other means of accelerating/displacing gestation so they can use her harder/faster) and then go on to be Laborers, the bottom class, for the rest of their lives. Her disdain for them is explicitly and implicitly clear.
I always feel a bit green around the gills when I see women write like that. The only way for females to be liberated is for some of them to be liberated and some of them to be dumb breeder cows.
So, uh, strong women can't have children, then? Way to buy into the patriarchy, genius. You fail at irony.
There should be a fictional world where all the midwives are armed with machetes and all the temple whores are male. Just once I'd like to see a society where nevermind, I've already ranted that rant into exhaustion.
No, you know what, let me say it once more. I want to see a book about a society where all the women are soldiers and the men stay at home and mind the children. It's that simple.
He was never like the other guys
Sellin' curly fries
Or riggin' the games
Gonna step up, step up, step right up
(He looked good, from behind)
Well, step up, step up, step right up
*Snort.*
Recently Finished: Crisis on Centaurus, The Last Innocent Man, The Giver
Ongoing: Journals, Kurt Cobain
The thing that sucked me in, as always, was the rhythm. The language arrangement, the prosody, is like water over stones, silver-white singing, graceful and insidious at once. At a base-technical level, the writing is tight and evocative, the imagery crisp, and the pacing perfect until her hasty MY ENDING IS PASTEDE ON YAY conclusion.
I heartily recommend it. Any age, from about seven up, will get something out of it. Stronger readers will finish quickly, but the writing's very clear; there's not much to trip up problem readers. It would make a good classroom discussion book for a fourth or fifth grade class. Gifted third-graders will get a kick out of it.
Adults reading it for a class *cough* will get something out of the writing itself, and see the twist coming, but probably enjoy it anyway; it's very well-executed and I've got the squirms waiting for Wednesday when we get to discuss it in class.
I have not been this excited about/in love with a book for eight years.
"Easiness" of content should not be a deterrent to anyone who may have read Harry Potter.
I liked it a sight better than Anthem, a similar work of similar length with a somewhat different ending.
Both The Giver and Anthem are novels of a remarkably similar theme, and even of simliar content in places--the naming and numbering of people, the regimentalizing/compartmentalizing of their conversations with various rules, the constant monitoring of the state/collective/Them/foo--both written by women.
The only comparable male novel that leaps immediately to mind is Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury. I have not read Orwell's 1984 (I read Animal Farm instead, out of X-Fandom geekery) or whatever that Clockwork Orange business is; I don't recall its author. I also have not read Brave New World by Adolus Huxley, though the more I see his name in places of interest to me, the more intrigued I become; that will probably be the next dystopian "message" book I'll read.
I have something of a weakness for them, but I got distracted somehow/somewhere by The Book of the Dun Cow, which is a weird little treat of a thing that took me a full day (sixteen-or-eighteen hours) to finish to my satisfaction.
That is, I was considering writing some sort of essay comparing the two books, though for what purpose/to what end escapes me. I simply desire it. I've never had a nonfiction desire that didn't start with the specific purpose first; it feels odd.
I was also having bitter feminist thoughts about the obvious connotations of the arrangements in Lowry's novel's society. That is, Jonas' mother works a high-pressure, masculine job at the Justice Dept., and Jonas' father is a Nurturer, a carer-for of infants. "Birthmothers", as they're called, systematically reproduce for three years (a theoretical average of four children per woman, assuming multiple births do not occur and there is no other means of accelerating/displacing gestation so they can use her harder/faster) and then go on to be Laborers, the bottom class, for the rest of their lives. Her disdain for them is explicitly and implicitly clear.
I always feel a bit green around the gills when I see women write like that. The only way for females to be liberated is for some of them to be liberated and some of them to be dumb breeder cows.
So, uh, strong women can't have children, then? Way to buy into the patriarchy, genius. You fail at irony.
There should be a fictional world where all the midwives are armed with machetes and all the temple whores are male. Just once I'd like to see a society where nevermind, I've already ranted that rant into exhaustion.
No, you know what, let me say it once more. I want to see a book about a society where all the women are soldiers and the men stay at home and mind the children. It's that simple.
He was never like the other guys
Sellin' curly fries
Or riggin' the games
Gonna step up, step up, step right up
(He looked good, from behind)
Well, step up, step up, step right up
*Snort.*
Recently Finished: Crisis on Centaurus, The Last Innocent Man, The Giver
Ongoing: Journals, Kurt Cobain
