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Michale's Reviews > Son
Son (The Giver, #4)
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Michale's review
bookshelves: on-a-quest, do-you-believe-in-magic, the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, the-power-of-youth
Oct 14, 2012
bookshelves: on-a-quest, do-you-believe-in-magic, the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, the-power-of-youth
Spoiler alert!!! I have such mixed feelings about this series and book. The Giver was wonderful, but it was clear to me that the boys died at the end - old handed down memories of a sled in the snow do not lead to real redemption from freezing and starvation. Then I enjoyed Gathering Blue even more, except that it seemed that Lowry believed that her characters from the first book had survived, and were living in some sort of utopian village. Then, in The Messenger , she had a beloved character die for the "sins" of others - which is way too Christological to have meaning for me. And now? Now her message is that the power of love conquers evil. Evil doesn't really exist: it just crumbles when faced with true empathy. While I enjoyed the return, in this book, of The Giver's dystopia, her conclusions left me feeling that the hard "truths" of humanity she captured in the first two books - that things are more complicated than they first appear - has now been reduced to the banal cliche that love can heal all wounds. But I know it can't. I'm very disappointed that she couldn't handle the complications she introduced, even though these are not adult books.
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October 14, 2012
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October 14, 2012
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Jessica
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Oct 15, 2012 04:14PM
Yea~ Michael, you nailed for me what felt unsatisfying about SON: it seemed like a pat genre-fiction ending to what is really a more complex story. The question of the series seems to be about how people can set up successful communities that allow them to maintain their individuality, and to end it with a one-on-one face-off felt like a real veer in a different direction. I did enjoy SON a lot for its many emotional colors and weaving in of worlds, but I am with you in finding the ending unfitting. (I also found MESSENGER to be a bizarre addition to this series.)
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Sorry, I thought I spelled your name correctly, Michale!
Thanks - it's nice to know I'm not the only one frustrated by the potential she lets slip through her fingers.Michale
I agree that it was somewhat disappointing, but I never had the feeling that the boys had died in The Giver.
I couldn't agree more. I too felt that the ambiguous ending in the Giver was perfect...and that this one felt way too pat. I also didn't like the way it veered into the supernatural and how the "how" of the original society isn't ever explained (no rain or thunder, for example) and that, even though these characters have escaped, that society's banal sameness remains and other characters remain trapped inside it.
Michale, I thought they died, too! And then I read the Q & A in the back of the book, where she said they really did end up in a happy little town. I loved The Giver, but I didn't really feel a need to read the rest of the series. Does that make me a bad person?
No, but I highly recommend Gathering Blue. It was really good.
I totally agree with your assessment of this book. And I also had been 99.9% certain that Gabe and Jonas died at the end of the Giver too!
I never had a slightest feeling Jonas with Gabe died... did we read the same book? They found the sled and they were on top of the hill, above village lights. Why should they die?
The sled they found was based on an old memory that was handed down from the Giver. Why would it still be in exactly the same place and in the same condition?
Right - evil may have been "vanquished" but what about the society that Jonas, Gabe and Claire come from? Isn't it still there and in some ways as evil as any? It's weird that the planet is divided into dystopias and utopias.
Thank you for articulating exactly how I felt about the series and in particular Son.
Lois Lowry say if you are an optimist, Jonas lives. If you are a pessimist, Jonas dies. I guess many years later we discovered Lowry was indeed an optimist.
Sarah I was thinking the same thing myself about the society that Jonas and the others came from. I remember something that Jonas said in Messenger that he believed things were changing or different in his old society. I guess because he can see beyond. I also remembered Kira felt she needed to stay in her village rather than returning with her father Seer. She needed to stay and help her village to change. There is a little hint of how it has changed but not much. I don't expect all questions to be answered but there were many characters that the reader got to know in the first 3 books and I guess I would have liked a little of a hint of what happened to them. Kira's friend the wood carver also had a gift. I wonder what was the significance of this in relation to the whole series? I kind of felt like there could have been a better way to tie all of these societies together somehow. In the books there is talk of" how it used to be" and maybe I just assumed something would happen that would bring these societies or worlds together to become one again.
I read The Giver with my two sons and like some of you I thought Jonas and Gabriel were gone but my boys convinced me they lived in a better place. Says something about age and optimism. I enjoyed the next three books by letting go of my pessimistic attitude.
![Raevyn "Lucia" [I'm in it for the books]](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1374959527p1/18721584.jpg)
My big problem with this book was the same as another commenter's (can't find it again-sorry!). It never did tell what happened to the old village. maybe that's what fanfic is for??? 0_o
I thought they dies too. None of us read the same book; that is one of the remarkable thkngs about books :-)
Michale, great review. I wonder if she felt pressured to finish the series. So, she was not as inspired for The Messenger and Son as she was for The Giver and Gathering Blue?
I don't know that she felt pressure to finish; I think that she really wanted her happy ending. One of the ideas of "new" literary criticism is that what we readers bring to the text is as legitimate an analysis as what the author intended. So she may have intended to write happy endings, but when I read the first 2 books I can pull out "proof texts" from them to support my analysis even if she says that's not what she meant. Does that make sense to you?
Yes, thanks.PS- spelling corrections:
*died
*things
Why would you think jonas and gabe died at the end? Didn't you have high hopes for them?
Yes, I am a hopeful realist. I thought the ending described his hallucinations as he froze to death. Also, I thought it was a stand alone book. I was thrilled to read the remainder of the series and to learn that the boys had survived.
Loved all 4 books - Jonas' leaving meant that his community would have to deal with memories, so the community would change. He 'saw beyond' that it was indeed changing for the better. Therefore we were not left with a world that was so wrong in amongst the other communities - all were undergoing change.
But, Michelle, we see that the same community he left in the first book is still present and dysfunctional in the fourth. So how, exactly, did it change for the better? (Sorry to be revisiting this topic, but I just received another "like" for my review today.)
wait what are you implying happened to jonah? I just asumed he would show up in the last book but it is obvious that he didnt so what do you think happened to him?
