Twenty-Seventh Meeting

Hello Receivers! Thanks for coming to the meeting!! And thank you for pizza, Jacqueline! :) Here is some of what we talked about:

• Is there any interest in reading the sequel? We mostly enjoyed the book as a stand-alone, but Quinci said she had too many questions that needed answers.
• The community felt like the cultural revolution in China, with the loudspeakers, the bicycles, and the public apologies.
• We know that the community had pilots (it was a job option, planes searched for Jonas and Gabe, and cargo planes brought supplies). But where did they fly to? Where did the cargo planes come from? And what did the cargo planes bring? The society seemed pretty self-sufficient with farms just outside of the community.
• Some of us felt that it seemed pointless for Jonas to give away all of his happy memories to Gabe, just so that Gabe would sleep when Jonas needed him to.
• We wished that there was more information about the effects of Rosemary's release. The memories went into everyone's minds, but did they forget about them since the incident 10 years ago? How did the Giver help everyone at once? What were people's reactions to the memories?
• Both the Giver and Jonas had blue eyes -- maybe the recessive blue-eyed trait was what gives the ability to give and receive memories. Jonas failed to give memories to his father, his sister, and Asher, but Gabe, who also had blue eyes, was able to receive them.
• Citizens were supposed to report things. It seems to be implied that the speakers in everyone's homes are actually two-way, and everything is heard or recorded.
• Where did the sled come from, at the end of the novel? It seemed to be the exact sled from Jonas's memory. It also led into the village during Christmas time from the Giver's favorite memory. Were they put there on purpose by the Giver or someone the Giver was in contact with, to put Jonas on the right track and give him hope? Were they the actual objects from the memories? Maybe the memories weren't as old as we were lead to believe. Maybe they weren't really there at all, and just final memories as Jonas died from the cold.

The next meeting is Friday April 10th at 6pm in the Winn Room, and we are reading A Canticle for Leibowitz. Chris is bringing food. Also we decided that it makes sense to stick to a rotating food schedule, which we have already kind of been doing, but we're making it official: Christian, Candie, Eileen, Jacqueline, Chris, Chelsea, Quinci, and then David is the order we decided on.

Happy reading!