Occasionally I Read Books

Book #11: The Giver, Lois Lowry

To me, reading Young Adult fiction is like eating ice cream. It's like swaying on a porch swing. It's like a sipping a nice glass of red wine. It's comforting, is what I'm saying. When I'm in a reading rut, I can always go to an old YA favorite to get me back in the mood for books.

I first read The Giver when I was in 8th grade, and it sparked a life-long interest in utopian/dystopian literature. Jonas is a 12-year-old boy in a controlled society, where both joy and pain have been removed from daily life. At 12, children learn what occupation they will hold for the rest of their lives: doctor, educator, laborer. But Jonas is told something else - he will be the Receiver of Memories, a position which will expose him to pain and joy, but also to knowledge about how the community truly functions.

Since its release in 1993, this book has been regularly taught in middle schools - which gives me some hope about the education of American kids. A book that encourages kids to question authority and embrace their sexuality is one that more young'uns should read.


Book #12: Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges

All right, I confess: I didn't get it. This book came highly recommended by two friends of mine who thrust it in my hands and insisted I read it immediately. Well, it took nine months, but I'm done. And I. Don't. Get. It.

The book is a nonlinear series of vignettes that is somehow still presented as a novel, even though a main character (or any character really) only exists in the vaguest sense of the word. Many of the vignettes are thought experiments about Argentinian political and cultural figures. You're probably shocked to hear that I have no knowledge of these people or their issues, so those sections left me at a loss.

Honestly, I'm sure it is "one of the great works of the 20th Century" as it's described on the back cover, but without a study guide or footnotes or any previous knowledge of Borges or Argentina, I couldn't make heads or tails of the book.