August 2, 2013
Recently, my nerdy ass discovered the goodreads.com forums. I've commented on a few topics, mainly on "classic" texts such as Pride and Prejudice or The Great Gatsby, just because those discussions happened to be active. I commented on one particularly interesting question regarding Gatsby, but it was really more about literature in today's public school curriculum. It basically addresses the big question: why read certain texts in school? What makes texts "school-worthy," or "classics"? Who decides these things, and why?
When (positive attitude) I have the chance to have my own classroom again, I will consider very carefully why I would teach any text to any group of students. One of my goals as an English and reading teacher would be to get students to read...and to actually enjoy it! That's not lip-service, that's my responsibility. I mean, if students are expected to read these all-important texts, and to study and analyze them and to assess their importance in our culture, then they need to be strong readers going into it. You can't put the cart before the horse; you can't just expect students to read something because it's been assigned, and it's for a grade. That's not good enough, especially when there are so many resources out there that can help students bullshit their way through any one of the "classics." I guess that's why I gravitate more towards teaching the middle levels, because I feel like that's really the place to get them reading, and enjoying it. And so, well-written YA texts would be a big part of my curriculum.
I will be taking a YA literature course this coming semester, and I have decided that, for the assigned texts in that class that I have not previously read, I will be counting them toward this book challenge. Why the hell not? Of course, I've been wanting to maintain as much of a balance in different genres and time periods as possible, so I'll basically just have to read more to keep up. Since my employment situation for next year is shaky (at worst, I'll sub again), I may just have the time that I need to read.
Plus, YA texts do tend to be quick reads, and Gathering Blue was definitely a quick one to plow through. I have read Lowry's The Giver several times. It was a favorite text among my 7th graders at my last teaching assignment, and when I read it again, I could clearly understand why. Lowry created such a vivid, fascinating world. The Giver's ending is ambiguous, leaving the reader to wonder the fate of the two protagonists. Lowry's brilliant work received raves when it was published in 1993. It wasn't until 2000 that this next text came out, and while it has been touted as a "companion novel," it's connection to The Giver isn't quite clear.
As I write this, I believe that there have been two more books, continuing the stories of Jonas, and Kira, and the other protagonists of both of these texts. That's a relief to me, because while The Giver could have stood alone forever and been a complete text in and of itself, I would definitely not say the same thing for Gathering Blue. It's not that I didn't enjoy this book. This, like The Giver and really any well-written dystopian-esque novel, creates a fascinating look at a world gone wrong, and presents many interesting questions to consider. I like that about this particular genre, and that's why I enjoy including it in curriculum whenever I can. Dystopian literature brings up many essential questions, and I, of course, found myself wondering how I could incorporate this particular book into a class of, say, 7th or 8th grade students.
Comparisons between this text and its predecessor are impossible to avoid. Unlike the organized, neat and tidy society depicted in The Giver, the people in Kira's world are grimy and poor. It seems that at some point in the past, modern society was wiped out by some kind of disaster (I'm gonna venture a guess at nuclear war?), destroying not only buildings and technologies, but basically all access to knowledge of the modern world. In other words, people were forced back into the stone ages. Kira's village seems like the middle ages, with people starving and rude and looking out only for themselves. Life is very simple: people live in little huts (called "cotts"), the men hunt, and the women take care of the "tykes" and have jobs like weaving. There is some sort of caste system, as some people are very poor and live in a hollow called "the Fen," but they don't seem that much worse off than their starving neighbors.
Life doesn't seem very well organized in this village; people have their roles and responsibilities, yeah, but the only people in charge seem to be the 12 men in the council, who do hold formal proceedings, and who enforce rules regarding murder, or sending people out into the Field to be left to be killed by "beasts." But I have questions about these men, and about this little society in general, that are not satisfied at this point. See, these men are putting in a lot of effort, it would seem, to keep people in their place. To what end? They're hardly better off, either. The only decent building in the village is an old church, where Kira is brought to live after her mother's death, to do repairs on the Singer's robe. The only really formal gathering or ceremony or religious or whatever that these people have is to come to the Gathering at this old church (they don't know it as a church, and though they know that the cross is a thing once revered, they only bow to it as that, with no clue as to its religious significance) each year, to hear the Singer (who is a prisoner in the church, as Kira discovers at the end), who wears this robe that tells the history of all time, sing about the history of mankind for several hours. The significance of this event is unclear to me; what are these men in power gaining by having them do this?
And again, why imprison these children (Kira, who will tend the robe and stick out the future; Thomas, a carver who will do the same with the Singer's important staff; and Jo, the new Singer-in-training) in order to harness their power? It is clear by the end of the book that these three children have some kind of psychic powers, brought out through their respective artistic talents. But the men in power don't seem to want them to observe the real future, but the future that they want to create. Or something like that? But again...why? If these children have this power insight, why not let them share it?
By the end of this quick read, it would seem that I've read half of a novel. A good half, I would say, but it doesn't seem like as solid of a work as The Giver. It could be speculated that Lowry wasn't sure if she would continue the story after the first book, and if that's the case, her tactic was pretty brilliantly executed. It's clear that Gathering Blue was simply a means to an end...an end that I look forward to finding out. But I find myself feeling like I would have felt cheated, if I'd read Gathering Blue as a 12-year-old. The follow-up (which directly follows the characters like Kira and the delightful Matt) was published in 2004, four years later! There were just too many unanswered questions to justify this standing as its own work for that long. In The Giver, the twisted motives of society were at least explained in a way that was logical, that all added up. Not so in Gathering Blue. Would it be fair for me to claim that something like this, on the part of the author, is a bit of a ploy? I think that's a fair assertion.
So the next book is going on my to-read list, but again, I won't be getting to it for some time. Last night, I downloaded several more free eBooks from Amazon (thank you, public domain classics!), and will be alternating those (more or less) with works from the library (I finally broke down and started going through the whole list of available check-outs for Kindle...I have 15 books listed, and have just started the "D's"...). I've made this observation before, and I'll put it here again: the more I read, the more I want to read. Can't be the worst kind of addiction to have...
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I should explain the title. You see, part of Kira's "job" is to dye the threads to be used in the robe. It is impossible to make blue; the plants to do so as simply not available within walking distance. But Matt, her little friend from the Fen, manages to get his hands on some important plants to produce it...and brings along someone with shocking news for Kira. However, the significance of why blue can never be obtained, or why the means to do so have vanished, is still not known. This gorgeous flower is called a bachelor button.
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