Friday, November 09, 2007

Taking things literally

My mom sent me this.

Appalled by descriptions of adolescent pill-popping, suicide and lethal injections given to babies and the elderly, two parents are demanding that the Mt. Diablo school board eliminate a controversial but award-winning book from school reading lists and libraries.

"The Giver" by Lois Lowry depicts an efficient and war-free society that exists at the price of strict rules.

Doesn't it sound like an Onion article? It's like no one understands anything not-literally. It's called science fiction for a reason, fuckers.

Ironically, "The Giver" deals with freedom of choice. In it, citizens apply for spouses and children. And, in Orwellian fashion, "elders" assign each person a function to keep their utopia running smoothly.

The sensitive Jonas, 12, is being groomed as the next "receiver," one who alone holds all the memories of the past and understands what it is like to feel joy and pain. In the end, armed with the knowledge of what life can be like, he decides to flee to a place where he will be allowed to read, feel and love freely.

Oh wait, maybe it's not so fictional after all.

1 comment:

Ellen said...

We read that in seventh grade, back in the dark ages when you could read anything apparently. I remember being totally freaked out by it, but I liked it better than most of the books we read that year in that its "meaning" was pretty much out there on the surface. (Unlike LORD OF THE FLIES, where every time a character steps down from something, it's symbolic of his total depravity, and yawn yawnness.)