The Giver

Chapter 2

Interesting to note that Jonas' mother is in the elevated position of judge. She comes across as being empathetic and actually agonises over the decisions she has to make for those appear before her in court. She was with the Law and Justice.

Jonas' father without a doubt is empathetic which explains his role as a Nurturer. He is seen as a shy and quiet man. He was with the Nurturing Centre.

Ironically, they are in positions to determine whether an adult in the case of the mother or a child with the father gets released or not. 

This I believe helps Jonas' development as a Receiver of Memories which calls for a high degree of empathy. However, his ability to see beyond is something that is unique to him and not seen in his parents. 

Small discretions - Father finding out the name of Gabriel, children learning to ride a bicycle before the official age of nine.

Rules were very hard to change.

The Receiver was regarded as the most important Elder and would be consulted for interpretation or changing 

of a rule. 

 1st - Naming and assigning to a family 

8th - The comfort object would be taken away and recycled to the younger children.

9th - to be allowed to ride a bicycle. Girls got to remove their hair ribbons. 

12th - Ceremony of Twelve. Seen as the most important where the Assignment is given which is a secret and done so by the Committee of Elders. They would closely scrutinise the Elevens in school, recreation time and during voluntary hours; meeting with the instructors. If the Twelve is disappointed with the Assignment, there is an appeal process. 

You are seen as an adult upon receiving your Assingment. He then spends his time with his Assignment group as opposed to his friends of the same age. 

Yoshiko - Doctor (Japanese) 

Andrei - Japanese (Greek) 

Chapter 3

The arrival of the newchild, Gabriel who has the same pale eyes as Jonas. This feature marks them as different though this is not too much an issue in Jonas' community. 

Actually, Jonas is intrigued with Gabriel which foretells their special relationship later on in story. 

We learned about how reproduction takes place in the community. Through Birthmothers who over three years would be expected to give birth to three offsprings. 

There is an episode where Jonas indulges in picking out the types of assignments suitable for Lily like being a Speaker. Here is the mark of a good writer where Lowry uses this to hint at the changes to the community as experienced by Jonas. 

She uses this as a pretext to bring in the incident of the apple where it had changed for an instant (turns out it was colour - does it have anything to do with his pale eyes, a genetic defect so to speak where the others have dark eyes?) (24) 

It is common for minor infractions and to refrain from committing them annouced over the PA. In this case that objects are not to be removed from the recreation area and snacks (i.e. apples) are to be eaten, not hoarded (23) 

The chapter ends with the family doing what they have done in all previous evenings - reflecting, quiet, a time for renewal and preparation for the day to come. 

It was different only in the addition to it of the newchild with his pale, solemn, knowing eyes 

I can't help but think that this can refer to Jonas with his pale, solemn and knowing eyes both literally and metaphorically. 

Chapter 4. 

They enjoyed freedom to a degree which they regarded as a luxury (26) This refers to where they would like to spend their volunteer hours at. Completing their required number of hours was taken seriously at the risk of having their Assignment delayed (28) 

The rule of not bragging (27) seems in keeping with this concept of equality. Benjamin's obvious talent in developing devices for rehabilitation, 

Jonas' parents, Asher and Fiona do not seem to fit the mold of what a model member of community should be. They took liberties to break the rule in their own fashion. Asher was probably due to forgetfulness. Fiona was described to have a sense of fun. (28) 

This was an interesting tour (somewhat like Lowry's time in Japan) - Nurturing Centre, Food Distribution Centre and the House of the Old. (27) - This was 

Here is where the reader comes to know what Release is about as far as the Community knows. 

As a side note, Jonas had done his hours in a variety of places so that he could experience the differences (29) 

We see now why Lowry had written into the story the type of parents Jonas had, his penchant for the marginalised (Asher and the Old) He bathed Larissa with gentleness and care.

If one was assigned as a BIrthmother, one cannot be part of a family unit which is ironical in one sense. One is instrumental in bringing a life into the world but one is denied the opportunity (or in our world, the right) to raise these children.

Larissa answered Jonas' question about what happened to those who are Released which in this case was Roberto -(31-32)

There is a Releasing Room for this ocassion

Jonas wished that he could be there to see the Release. This foreshadows the Release of the twins later in the book. 

Chapter 5

Jonas rarely has dreams but he has one about Fiona which is known as the Stirring.

Grass by Sheri S. Tepper

 Grass is a 1989 science fiction novel by Sheri S. Tepper. It is part of the Arbai trilogy. 

My first impression is that the landscape reminds me of the steppes or the savannahs with overgrown grass but with a beauty that would astound the reader with the riot of colours as seen in the book cover below: 

It starts off with a hunt where the aristocrats of the planet Grass are engaged in what seems like a time-honoured ritual of the hunt. The quarry is a fox flushed out by hounds with humans on mounts. No one is excused except on extenuating circumstances, it seems. This happens in the backdrop of a galaxy-wide pandemic. Most of the human-inhabited sectors are under the control of the Sanctity while Grass is seen as a breakaway due to religious differences. (16 June 2021) 

Quite a sweeping narrative arc in that the writer introduces quite a few significant characters from the aristocratic Dimiti, the do-gooder, Majorie who seeks meaning in life even if it means makng sacrifices that would go unnotices to Rillibe Charm, a acolyte at Sanctity's cathedral where his terms of service is 12 years. The world that has been created for the reader is one based on religious, structured world with Terra or Earth is the preeminent power. However, there are planets such as Breedertown where abortion and contreception are enforced. 

In Sanctity, no women are allowed into the cathedral. 

The Shadown of the Dragon by Marc Cameron

This was written by Mark It is about the Campus team an off-the-books counter-intelligence team set up by Jack Ryan so that it would not be held back by too many bureaucratic encumbrances in fulfilling its mission. 

The Chinese Navy had designed a submarine propulsion system known as the Mirage that allowed it to run silent submerged but unfortunately it is severely damaged in after entering the North Pole area after clearing the Bering Straits. 

It was China's efforts to create a true blue water navy capabilities. The inventor, Profession Liu, who was on board for the maiden voyage was stricken with stroke after a catastrophic accident that decimated the engineering crew. It turned out that the Chinese did not have a backup plan to build another propulsion system should Professor Liu become incapacitated. However, it turned out that an Uyghur (oy guh) woman, a gifted Mathematician, was the original inventor. To complicate matters, she was stripped of her position at the university and became part of the Uyghur uprising. The Campus came into the picture to extricate her from China while also doing so for her daughter. 

Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska

 The book to me is all about two boys - Manolo, the son of the great bullfighter who died at age 22, Juan Olivar and his friend, Juan Garcia. Manolo was interested in becoming a doctor to help people rather than to entertain people. Juan had the passion that drove him to practise with bulls in secret. 

It was in Chapter 15 that Alfonso Castillo saw the different drives in both of them that the Count and the six self-styled experts did not notice at all. 

Castillo words about Manolo: 

 "Has anyone," Alfonso Castillo asked of no one in particular, his bottomless eyes still fixed on Manolo,  "Has anyone asked the boy if it is his wish to be here? • It seems to me that we have taken it upon ourselves  God's, prerogative: playing with the destiny of a human being. Even God does not tamper with  free will." 

Castillo words about Juan: 

"What  is it?" Castillo asked impatiently. 

"I,  I would very much.  like to shake the hand of the greatest of critics. 

"Who are you?" 

The Count turned to Manolo and also asked who the boy was. 

"He's my friend, Juan Garcia.' 

With this, 'Manolo spoke, for the first time Since entering the . Count's house  "You  gave me .permission to bring him" 

  "You have not heard of me," Juan was saying to Castillo and blushing a violent red. 

  "But, .undoubtedly, 1 will." Castillo smiled and the smile lit up his gaunt face. He no longer looked forbidding or mysterious 

"You'll be a great torero someday" 

"If it is the will of God." 

Alfonso Castillo extended his hind:- 

 "I wish you -God's will then."

Catch-22 turns 50

Half a century on, Joseph Heller's anti-war novel still resonates, with new books to mark its anniversary



Washington - Hyper-cynical anti-war novel Catch-22 turns 50 next month, and Joseph Heller must be chortling in his grave over how apropos the phrase he coined remains today - from the US jobs crisis to a bottomless war in Afghanistan.

In addition to a fresh edition of the novel, publishers have rolled out new books to coincide with the anniversary, including a major Heller biography and a memoir by his daughter.

The absurdist, often cartoonish story, about a hard-to-kill World War II pilot stationed on a small Mediterranean island and trapped in a perverse bureaucratic cycle, has sold more than 10 million copies and introduced to the English lexicon one of the most penetrating new phrases of the 20th century.

Released at the dawn of the 1960s, Catch-22 seemed to foretell the ghastly war in Vietnam, and prophesied a counter-culture spirit that would dominate the last half of the decade.

Despite its slow pacing and repetitiveness, 'remarkably, college students are still reading it', said Tracy Daugherty, a professor of English at Oregon State University and author of this year's Just One Catch, a major new biography of Heller. 'But the basic situation - an average person caught in a maddening bureaucratic nightmare - still resonates, maybe more than ever as our institutions have only grown more bloated,' he told AFP.

The novel's catch - 'anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy' - has rattled militaries worldwide for decades.

Prof Daugherty said it is the people seeking to enter the US workforce who instantly relate to one of today's obvious logical impossibilities: To get a job, you need experience, but to get experience, you need a job.

'They live with that paradox every day,' he said.

With America's longest-ever war dragging into its 11th year in Afghanistan, officials sometimes get sucked into the pretzel logic about a conflict that from afar may look like an infinite loop.

On Sept 16, 2009, ex-soldier and former diplomat Rory Stewart, who walked across Afghanistan in early 2002 months after the US invasion, laid out what might well be the primary military Catch-22 scenario of the 21st century: 'You need to defeat the Taleban to build a state and you need to build a state to defeat the Taleban,' Mr Stewart told a US Senate hearing.

Heller, who died in 1999 at age 76, had tapped his own World War II experience flying 60 missions as a B-25 bombardier. At first they were largely uneventful, but by the 37th mission, things turned bloody. 'There was a gunner with a big, big wound in his thigh, and I realised then, maybe for the first time, they were really trying to kill me,' Heller said. After that, 'I was scared stiff'.

Christopher Buckley, the American satirist who wrote an introduction to this year's edition, said young US soldiers sometimes took the book to Vietnam - and such acts of defiance are still likely happening today.

'It's not hard to imagine a brave but frustrated American marine huddling in his Afghan foxhole, drawing sustenance and companionship from these pages in the midst of fighting an unwinnable war against stone-age fanatics,' he wrote.

The book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, is hosting a New York panel discussion the week after the novel's Oct 11 anniversary which will include Buckley and Catch-22 editor Robert Gottlieb, among others. 'It's certainly a special book, and we're glad that 50 years later people are still recognising that,' Simon & Schuster senior publicist Emer Flounders said.

Heller's catchphrase almost never came to be. He had first called his book Catch-18, but Leon Uris was releasing his novel Mila 18 that year, and a numeric clash was to be avoided.

Heller penned more novels but none came close to matching the influence of his debut.

Prof Daugherty wrote that when Heller was asked 'How come you've never written a book as good as Catch-22?', the author shot back: 'Who has?'

Agence France-Presse