The Power of Dystopian Literature

With my job I can't drink during the week. Weekends are a different story. After eight hours of this I have earned my wine. You know what I'm saying? My family is a lot. It takes me four beers just to hang out with them. Binge drinking isn't all college kids doing cake stands. Oregonians in their 30s and 40s binge drink at close to the same rates as younger people. Raising our risk for long term health problems. More at rethinkthedrink.com. I know H.A. initiative. Welcome to the Valshi Bandbook Club. I'm MSNBC's Ali Valshi. There's perhaps no genre more critical to the success of a democracy and the success of its country than dystopian literature. These stories force us to confront the darkest possible realities we can imagine. The worst case scenarios are deepest fears. Fiers we didn't even know we should have and look them in the face. For many students both in America and abroad dystopian literature grows with us. Look no further than the runaway success of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games series or James Dashner's The Maze Runner series. Children adolescents and teens are fixated on the what ifs. Confronted by today's political and cultural uncertainty, the what ifs are not just more prominent, they're ever present. At the center of this critical genre informing the books that have come after them are two classics. The giver by Lois Lowry and 1984 by George Orwell. Those are the books we will be exploring on this episode of the Valshi Bandbook Club. We discussed which could come first on this episode. The giver or 1984. On the one hand, 1984 is seminal. You cannot so much as discuss government overreach without the word or wellian presenting itself. But the giver comes first for readers. For many, for decades, the giver was the first ever exposure to the critical thought that comes with that question of what if. So we're going to begin with the giver, just like we did as elementary age students all those years ago. Let's get started. Would we be happier in a society without the brutality of war? Without rain ruining our commute and with babies that slept through the night from the day we brought them home? What would you be willing to sacrifice for a place like that? What would you give up? Would you give up your freedom to choose or your individuality? How about creativity or love? These are the questions at the center of one of today's Valshi Bandbook Club features. The Newbury Award-winning American Classic, the giver by Lois Lowry. Set in a colorless, emotionless world that values sameness above all else. A world that mercilessly euthanizes those who do not fit in. The giver tells the story of 12-year-old Jonas. He is by all community metrics, normal. He apologizes readily for anything he's done wrong. He chooses his words carefully and dutifully takes a pill every single day to suppress any pubescent feelings he may have toward his classmates. That is until his life assignment ceremony. While each of his 12-year-old classmates are assigned their life's work to the fish hatchery or, as a doctor or as a laborer, Jonas has been selected as the community's next receiver of memory. That means the former receiver, now called the giver, will give every single memory of the collective society to Jonas. It will be he alone who will experience the pain, suffering, love and joy, all of which have been since taken from his society. Initially published in 1993, the giver grapples with heavy themes, including the weight of memory, the freedom of choice, societal and governmental control and individualism. While dystopian literature, especially in the young adult and children's genres, has become increasingly popular in recent years, the giver was among the first. The giver is proof of concept that those weighty themes are not too complex for middle-grade readers to understand. Lowry doesn't just use what is within the text to convey these themes, she employs her writing style to tell the story too. Lowry's style reflects the sterile and controlled community with direct language, unencumbered dialogue and pointed descriptions. Indeed, precise language is one of the primary means of psychological control within the giver. This is a society that is done away with feelings that cannot be so easily defined with words alone. Including love. "Father, mother, Jonas asked tentatively after the evening meal? I have a question I want to ask you. What is it, Jonas? His father asked. He made him say the words that we felt flushed with embarrassment. He had rehearsed them in his mind all the way home from the annex. "Do you love me?" There was an awkward silence for a moment, then father gave a little chuckle. Jonas, you of all people, precision of language please? What do you mean, Jonas asked? Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated. Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete, his mother explained carefully. Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory. And of course our community can't function smoothly if people don't use precise language. A kin to new speak in George Orwell's 1984, the other novel we'll be discussing in this episode of the Valshi Bandbook Club. Lowry's community has hyper-specific vocabulary. The words are similar enough to language we use off the page to maintain the pace of the story. For example, newborn babies are "new births" and sexual urges are "sturings". The result is an unsettlingly successful, uncanny valley effect. We know this place, these words, these ideas, but we know they're not the same. As Jonas begins to understand the power of emotion and memory, the writing becomes more vivid and more expressive. Humanity peeks through the cracks of the giver from the very first page, but the reader does not truly begin to understand the lack of it until these moments of color and emotion. The very topics that make the giver such a critical read are the same reasons it is top the American Library Association's most banned book list year after year. While in phantoside, suicide, and euthanasia are central to the plot of the book, the way with which the giver handles these topics is what makes it such a classic. The giver isn't violent or bloody or gratuitous, it is quiet and introspective and delicate. The giver allows its reader to come to the conclusion that we must have reverence for human life, that our differences are our greatest strengths, and that the darkest parts of humanity are needed to make way for the most beautiful on their own time. The giver is one of those rare works of literature that unites American school children. It is not hyperbolic to say that the giver has become one of the most assigned contemporary works ever. The giver has become a right of passage from middle-grade readers, a doorway through which they must pass to begin to consider their own humanity and their place in this world. I'm thrilled to be joined by a true literary legend, Lois Lowry. She's the award-winning author of many important children and young adult works of literature, including one of today's Valshi Bandbook Club features, the giver. Thank you. I love the description of me as a legend. You absolutely are, and after having been introduced since 1993, we've got to get creative in how we do it. So we hope we did some justice to it, because this one's a test. This one is like interviewing Margaret Atwood on the Handmaid's Tale. So many people have read this book over the years that they know what we're talking about here, and yet it's newly relevant. I mentioned in the introduction that the giver is centrally about the power of choice and of individual freedom. That is, in my opinion, more relevant now than it was when you wrote the book. I was just going to say the same thing. Every year it seems more and more relevant. You mentioned kids in schools here having all of them read it, usually in eighth grade. But I'll add to that, it's in 32 other languages, and I've talked to kids around the world. Even in Iran, Turkey, Totlandu, Romania, Thailand, and they all react to this book. And they all want to know how can we keep this from happening? Of course, I tell them you're the generation that's going to make that determination. Yeah, let's talk about how do we keep this from happening. I want to read from the book about one part of society they are referred to as the birth mother. I think new children are so cute, Lily side. I hope I get assigned to be a birth mother. Lily, mother spoke very sharply. Don't say that. There's very little honor in that assignment. But I was talking in Natasha, you know, the 10 who lives around the corner. She does some of her volunteer hours at the birth thing center, and she told me that birth mothers get wonderful food, and they have a very gentle exercise periods. And most of the time, they just play games and amuse themselves while they're waiting. I think I'd like that, Lily said petulately. Three years mother told her firmly three births, and that's all. After that, they are laborers for the rest of their adult lives until the day they enter the house of the old. Is that what you want, Lily? Three lazy years in the hard physical labor until you are old. Lois, I want to ask you about this because we've had Margaret Atwood on about the handmaid's tale literally just days before the fall of Roe v Wade. This concept of controlling women and their reproduction and forced birth is central to your dystopian myth. And yet, I tried to seduce the reader. That's the role of the writer, of course, seduction into believing that this would be a wonderful, safe, comfortable world. It has, as you pointed out, no crime, no poverty, no discrimination, no divorce, no sexism, no war, and then only gradually buying the use of little passages like the one you just read. Does the reader realize that terrible compromises have been made? I hadn't thought about it until you chose that particular passage, but, of course, the role of women is integral to the book. Incidentally, there are three more books that follow the giver, and in the final one, the main character is the young woman who'd been a birth mother. So you get to find out what happens to some of them. Look, all books are banned for the same boring reasons all the time, but one of them is that this is too much for kids. This is too much for them to understand. Tell me how you process that, because you really are dealing with concepts that are severe and serious and increasingly potentially real. How do you address the idea that eighth graders are prepared to deal with the heaviness and severity of the concepts? Of course, I'm one end of the row, and the kids are there and in between our teachers and librarians and parents, and those are often the ones with whom the kids interact and discuss this book. And that's where the important stuff takes place, I think, in those discussions. I tried to write it as an adventure story, and it is that I was surprised when almost immediately after its publication in 1993, the reaction was so enormous. And on both sides of the spectrum, for example, in one week, this happened in 1995. I can identify the date because of other things that were going on. But in one week, I got a letter handwritten from a woman who was so outraged that you could almost see it in her handwriting, as if her hand had been shaking. And the first line of her letter was, Jesus would be ashamed of you. Wow, same week, I got a letter from a monk in a trappist monastery, who explained that trappists are silent order, but they are read aloud too at meal time. And the giver had been read aloud too, as well. And he said, no, there's a better while coming up. He said that they voted to place it in the category of sacred text. Wow. Well, you're right. That's a bigger one. One of the things in the society, in the giver, is that the society is governed by the idea that sameness is the most important thing. Children are taught not to point out flaws or differences. Tell me a little bit about this. It's one of the reasons in this comfortable, safe community. There's no discrimination. You only realize after a little while, everybody's the same. They're all the same color. There's no racism. How could there be? But in making that choice, and we don't know how that, how that came about in previous decades. But in making that choice, the community, the population, the government, had let go, had rescinded all the richness that diversity gives to our lives. Everything that they have done has been a choice that has been a sacrifice and a terrible compromise. And of course, it's the young boy who comes to realize that when people object to the book and try to ban the book, they're kind of caught because there's no explicit sex or violence. And so they take out of context small things that they think they might find objectionable. But I think what they're really objecting to is that a young person has perceived the hypocrisy and corruption of the governance of the generation that has created their world. And of course, that's very relevant today. That's increasingly relevant today. And it's one of when I said their old books are banned for the same few stupid reasons. That's one of them, right? People who books that allow us to see the truth of what might be happening, especially in terms of control is one of the key reasons. Lois, it's a real honor to have you here on the Valshi Ben Book Club. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. The award-winning author of the giver, Lois Lowry. My pleasure. I'm sorry you have to have this segment, but I'm pleased that you've taken it so seriously. It's such a dangerous time. One day we will drop the band from the name. It'll just be the book club. And we will be able to enjoy it. Thank you, my friend. We've got a quick break next, but after that, we're taking a look at George Orwell's magnum opus 1984. If the giver is a reader's first exposure to dystopian literature, then 1984 is the most effective. There is arguably not a work of literature out there that has changed culture globally, more than 1984. From language to themes, this is just one of those books that leaves its reader changed. This is the Valshi Ben Book Club. Your new beginning starts now. DR Horton has new construction homes available in Ellensburg and throughout the greater Seattle area. With spacious floor plans, flexible living spaces and home technology packages, you can enjoy more cozy moments and sweet memories in your beautiful new home. With new home communities opening in Ellensburg and throughout the Seattle area, DR Horton has the ideal home for you. Learn more at drhorton.com DR Horton America's Builder and Equal Housing Opportunity Builder. For a limited time at McDonald's get a Big Mac X of aluminum for $8. That means two or beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun, and medium fries, and a drink. We may need to change that jingle. Prices and participation may vary. Undec is built to back small businesses, like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, Undec's loans up to $250,000 helped make it happen fast, rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau, and earning thousands of five star trust pilot reviews, Undec delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at Undec.com, depending on certain loan attributes your business loan may be issued by Undec or Celtic Bank. Undec does not lend in North Dakota, all loans and amounts subject to lender approval. Quote, the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final most essential command, end quote. In January of 2017, then President Donald Trump's White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer demanded that the American public not believe their own eyes. Spicer and Trump's acolytes insisted that Trump's presidential inauguration was the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration" period, end quote. It wasn't. This is just one example, one out of thousands of times Trump would contort the truth and twist our reality. Quote, and if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed, if all records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past, read the party slogan, controls the future, who controls the present, controls the past. In the days that followed Trump's inauguration, George Orwell's Magnum Opus 1984 became the best-selling book of any genre on Amazon, decades after its initial publication in 1949. Americans who had read 1984 in English class years before were hearing Orwell's warning ringing loudly behind their ears. In that moment, and in the years since then, it suddenly seemed that Big Brother and his immense cultural personality could be watching us right now. The Crucial Classic 1984 by George Orwell is today's second Valshiband Book Club feature. 1984 is set in a near future where a largely forgotten series of world wars and civil conflicts have created three infallible, totalitarian states. One of them, Oshiana, is ruled by an all-controlling leader, Big Brother, who is underpinned by a devoted cult of personality. Big Brother systematically murders anyone who does not conform to the party using constant surveillance, thought police, and torture. Our hero is Winston Smith, a member of the outer party in Oshiana. Smith works at the so-called Ministry of Truth, rewriting and destroying historical records to conform with Big Brother's constantly changing version of history. With each lie he writes and rewrites, Smith's hatred for the party and longing for rebellion grows. But Smith soon learns that to survive in this brutal world, quote, "You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him. You must love him." The ongoing and profound cultural influence of Orwell's novel cannot be overstated. 1984 is ubiquitous. Its referenced in movies alluded to in songs and borrowed from in literature. It is impossible to discuss authoritarianism, surveillance, and the manipulation of the truth without invoking the book's title or Orwell's name. 1984 is more than just a warning, though. It's a masterful exploration of complacency, loyalty, and identity. At its core 1984 is a commentary on how all government, if left unchecked, will exert control to maintain power. Quote, "The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" Big Brother's secret to control is clearly laid out for the reader, exploit the truth and restrict language. Orwell's writing style is as integral to the book as the plot and the characters are. 1984 is written with Frank language and straightforward grammar that mirrors the bleak and deadened life under the party. Orwell masterfully intersperses fleeting moments of emotion and more sensory language to underscore Smith's emotional break from the party. Moreover, Orwell wrote extensively about the power of clear and deliberate language especially when it comes to politics, arguing that politicians hide behind contrived words and can verbiage. Orwell in 1984 have become a right of passage for high school students across the country. Big Brother has been dissected by generations of young readers since the book's publication in 1949. With a country at such perilous crossroads you would think that 1984 would be even more critical to students, but there are forces at work who believe otherwise. 1984 has been removed from library shelves across the entire state of Iowa in cooperation with a new law that restricts books that contain any description of sex. And it's been removed by local boards in Texas and in Florida and in Missouri and in Oklahoma and in Pennsylvania. Perhaps Big Brother was right all along and quote "ignorance is strength." We will soon see. I'm joined now by Professor James McAllister or well expert in Professor of Political Science at Williams College and longstanding member of the Velshi band book club, Garrett Conley. Conley previously joined us on his memoir "Boy Erased" and shared how 1984 stopped him from becoming brainwashed at so-called gay conversion therapy. Welcome to both of you thank you for being with us and Garrett when we were talking about this we remembered that this was influential to you not simply as an author but as a child. Oh yeah, I mean I read it in high school and didn't quite understand the full implications of 1984 as often happens but when I was in conversion therapy there were so many rules. I mean we had 275 pages of rules in our handbook and in addition to rules about where you could look which sounds familiar if you read 1984 how you're supposed to hold your face right face crime is in the book. There were also so many terms that could have been new speak right so like false images if you had any image of yourself as a gay man in conversion therapy that was evil and had to be corrected and the goal ultimately was to love the people that were doing this to you. So I mean I couldn't have asked for a better text to really have in my mind going into conversion therapy and I remember I was asked the place was called love in action which sounds a lot like ministry of love in the book right and what it really is is a place of hate. It's not a place of love and and that inversion of the idea is something that's very much throughout Orwell's right. Right. Ministry of truth is not actually about truth is about rewriting history. James everybody wherever you are on the on the political spectrum people invoke the dangers of what 1984 poor tens Elon Musk had a t-shirt on it said what would Orwell think the strange part is that Trump's inner circle describes anti Trump sentiment as as Orwellian despite the fact that we watch those rallies every week that seem very Orwellian. Absolutely look you know in terms of our current political climate I think Orwell would be worried a lot about political candidate who sometimes appears like he's trying out for the role of big brother but I think Orwell would also be incredibly concerned about things that are happening on college campuses media other things the beauty about being Orwell is truth is all that mattered and more importantly I think Orwell always thought you have to be much more critical of your own side than even the other. Can let your own side corrupt its own principles let's address that issue of truth we have absolute truth these days that people believe in and some of it is related to what side you're on right we're in this world where you carve out a side and that's where you are how how do you reconcile things that are important to you with what is a truth well that's a hard one I mean for me the truth must always be tested right that's one of the ways that you check against fundamental thought. As you have to be open to challenging your own beliefs and listening to your own side and also criticizing your own side when that happens. I happen to believe that there is a much more dangerous front coming from the right right now you know my book has been banned in so many states the kid who found my book that wrote to me and said I no longer want to commit suicide because I read this book my parents wouldn't let me read it at home but they'll let me read it in the library right. Those things seem small to people they seem like these book bands don't work they don't do anything but that signal is very important. I'm obviously much more concerned with that attack especially the anti trans bills that are all around the country right now but I would say within our own party within our own side we have to be willing to question our our most sacrifice ideas as well. James let's talk about book band 1984 has been a widely banned book for a long time and the subject matter there in and the things that you said are well would be concerned about would in fact be book banning right the idea that the government is controlling I don't think anybody objects the idea that people can choose what they want to read and that parents should have very direct and influential impacted to what their children read. But we are in a world where people argue that the government or the library as a stand in for the government of the school as a stand in for the government should make those choices for you. Well or what have absolutely no sympathy for any view along those lines you know I think it's quite interesting to note that 1984 is a bestseller in Putin's Russia you can buy 1984 in China there's a lesson there both Putin and Xi Jinping realize the greatest support they could give to people who care about freedom is to ban. Books like 1984 and there's a lesson there maybe for people in the United States to you just make 1984 more attractive to people who are looking to be exposed to these ideas by banning it. Garrett in the book there's a relationship at the center of it between Winston Smith and a woman named Julia they consider sex an act of rebellion against the party talk to me about that connection between sex repression and. Well you know I've been rereading 1984 for this appearance and what has really struck me as this whole anti sex anti sensuality idea that's within the book and that rings true to my own experience and fundamental Christianity and then later in conversion therapy and I think writ large in the culture there are certain types of sex which are allowed to be spoken about certain types that are not. And I think that you know in the book it presents a very clear thesis that the party is able to maintain its control entirely by by reducing the desires that people have or by eradicating those desires making the language impossible to discuss desire right so all of literature. And I think that's a lesson for us right like why is there an impulse to ban books that even mention sex like my book mentioned sex only within the story as needed and it was actually recommended by librarians as a young adult book as well but it's being labeled as a book that is dangerous for kids to even learn about the fact that there might be gay sex in the world. And I find that really disturbing and you know it very prescient quickly talk about language James in 1946 three years before the book was published or well wrote an essay called politics and the English language which examined the special connection quote between politics and the debatement of language he was very critical of political language writing quote political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wit. Well that all comes from orals experiences in the Spanish Civil War where he was fighting in a so called trotskiest militia and he and his fellow militia members were reviled denounced hunted down by communist forces or will never got over that experience for him. That was a crucial lesson in how people could actually turn into its opposite and you never forgot that you can go right from the Spanish Civil War to both animal farm and nineteen for. Thank you to our or well expert professor James McAllister professor of political science at Williams College and friend of the well she banned book club Garrett Conley author a boy erased. 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So go ahead try something new try something different good different try something that feels like you you know the real you and then definitely brag about it later because the DSW you got a limited freedom to play by the shoes that get you at prices to get your budget a DSW stores or a DSW dot com let us surprise you. Back with me now is Hannah Holland our literary editor and chairman emeritus of the Belchi band book club handle let's talk about this. I love the fact that you said you know boy race was one of your favorite features we've ever done the Belchi band book club last episode and then here is back again you said in the introduction that 1984 is a basis for dissuapian literature particularly with the giver but clearly it's true of all genres because his book isn't dystopian in the traditional sense right I mean maybe it speaks to a dystopic part of our society. You know I have really loved all of our authors and you've helped curate this in a way that they're all really different but something about Gary Connelly boy erased really struck me and some of it is in the book and some of it is his telling of why he wrote it and what he went through and there are so many elements about this book in which he talks about his family and the love he has for his family the role that religion and a conservative upbringing played in his family and the fact that he did not reject that religion whole sale. I don't think he was me who thought to book him for nice and 84 I think that was a lily corvo but the book that you just described doesn't seem like it could be connected with 1984 I didn't think of it either was lily because it didn't occur to me that this book is influenced by 1984 totally and then here he is sitting there saying you know I read it as a 15 year old or however old he was and he was like wow I was able to use 1984 and staff off this teaching when he mentioned this in the conversation about how his so called gay conversion therapy center was called love and action right and it didn't occur to me that's the ministry of love literally and now obviously while you and I are sitting here is like well that's as obvious as the nose on my face completely that gay conversion therapy is brainwashing ministry of love is brainwashing these are the fascinating things about books and the influence they have on people you can be reading Garrett Connelly's book never having read 1984 or having read 1984 not know they're connected and yet now understand even knowing that sometimes people will say things that you know aren't true or make you say things that you know aren't true and to internalize that from 1984 and then apply it to your actual life in a real situation is unbelievable right I also like what McAllister said about how or well was only concerned with the truth yeah and being critical of your own side it's interesting 1984 is in this weird position because both sides of the aisle sort of use it or weaponize it but more than that it is such an American idea to be critical of your own government and your own institutions put that into the context of this book of 1984 and the framing of it it's like well I can apply that all the time you know like that's how you figure out what the truth is you critique the government I am intrigued though I often bring up the example of a parliamentary democracy in which the opposition is referred to as the loyal opposition their job is to be the opposition right they're not thought of as interlopers or the enemy they are part and parcel of the process of governing and the one thing we've lost sight of in America is the other sides of the enemy it's a fight to the death elections in parliamentary democracies are fights also and you want to beat the other side right but there is an institutionalized role for the opposition they are called the loyal opposition because they are there to critique the government it's a concept we should really understand because these days we live in a world that's so polarized that when you offer critiques of your own government you are called unpatriotic or you hate your country or whatever the case is that's the furthest thing from the truth I think sometimes people might think they're giving up ground like oh I support this one candidate therefore I can't say anything negative because then the other side will be like oh see there you and like that isn't the case but that's the critical thinking that 1984 talks about right the idea that once you've lost your ability to be a critical thinker on all things on anything it's a very easy slope to accept everything your side tells you or the government tells you or gay conversion therapy tells you yeah let's talk about Winston and Julia's relationship yes there's an interesting book Sandra Newman's book it's a feminist interpretation or a feminist take on 1984 and it positions Julia as the hero yeah and I think this is such a good idea you talked a little bit about their relationship in House Central it is 1984 and this idea that Big Brother and the government replaces love and family and intimacy with the government but there is also misogyny inherent to 1984 Winston has these violent thoughts about Julia and she isn't as well fleshed out as Winston is or also the society you know so much of what makes 1984 so amazing is like the world building but she doesn't get that same treatment right so you know for which but Julia the book does yeah and I think that's such a good idea I love that yeah something else I wanted to bring up I think it's maybe in bad taste to bring up the end of the book but we're not spoiling anything there is an appendix at the end of 1984 called the principles of new speak and it outlines the language that's used throughout the book as you discussed in the interview is a motive control from the government and it's written in past tense so a lot of people think that this is signalling that Big Brother didn't last and Oceana fell what are your thoughts on that I suppose the idea that the critique continues to say this isn't going to work the way they're doing it in 1984 isn't going to work so it does allow you to draw your own conclusion that it didn't work somehow even though we both work in this news industry is so good optimist so I love it I'm like this isn't the most bleak society imaginable the language is bleak and sad and dead end it's grey and okay we know Winston doesn't succeed but it stands to reason that if he was able to get as far as he did other people will try and someone will succeed which is another element of this book that is suddenly contemporary I mean so many people that I feel like telling everybody I have the conversation with a lot of you all these people who think that they're kind of alone in the fight or they're fighting back is like no that probably most of society feels that way but something has happened that has made us feel like we are rolling this thing up the hill on our own if you feel that way there is something to be said for examples that are trying to demonstrate that perhaps you can have some impact or if you don't even know that you can have impact at least you're going to try I mean small and secure it yeah I would argue that in our society that the contemporary example of that is you probably have more community than you think but it can seem bleak and there are people who look at the situation we're in globally with some of the wars we're in the conflicts that we see and climate and polarization and it can feel overwhelming and bleak it's running me if something you said last episode that your great grandfather I think didn't even know that the seed he I'm going to now I'm going to butcher your beautiful my grandfather yes didn't know that the city planted what would result in a tree yes I love that there would be that that someone could sit in its shade that someone could eat its fruit and yeah right and so if newspeak is in past tense and Winston did fail we know that but he planted a seed it does it does make the read interesting but we have to also talk about the giver the other book that was featured in this episode the part that I think was the most compelling I mean she's amazing and it all was wonderful but the connection you made it between Margaret at woods handmade tale and the giver I loved it because it isn't a part of the book that people think about as much it's this small passage and we learn that part of the society has these quote-unquote birthmothers and their force birth and they're not respected so I don't know I mean I'm curious what you have to say about that like authoritarianism and women I mean that's part of both of these books I think it's not normal for us you and I and our listeners to think about the degree to which society when left to its own devices considers women a threat or religious books are filled with references to women as threat as temptress it is a common theme in religion that all would be fine if women were not constantly leading us astray and then you you combine that with empowered women anybody who in society's view is stepping out of where they should be you know it feels an agronistic but it's not in 2024 the concept of of women achieving the success to which they are entitled though qualified still threatens people I remind people this is still the country that has not yet elected a woman president this is something that's been achieved around the world in a whole lot of countries that are nowhere as enlightened or politically advanced or free as America this shouldn't be as hard as it is but we really struggle with this and so I think both the giver and handmaids tail all put the idea of women as threat and then the need to control women in the forefront because you can't really justify the control over women that we try and exercise if you don't have some reason for the justification of courses they are threat left to their own devices crazy stuff is going to happen and louder even said that she said something to the fact of it's never even cross my mind but women are central to this success of this government yes and of course the handmaids tail is one of the most seminal dystopian novels in its own right but you have to listen to season one for that that conversation with Margaret atwood was amazing something else louder reset that I thought was interesting was that she intended for the giver to be an adventure story and I think this idea that authors set out to create something and it turns into something else and the giver is hugely successful it's amazingly compelling it's a classic for a reason but to me it does not read as an adventure story so I guess it's a matter of casting what you think an adventure story is because I like adventure stories and that's a section to which I would gravitate in a bookstore or a library and I'm sort of with you it didn't occur to me that it's an adventure story but I get it now that the issue is raised I understand that the adventure the growth the journey if you will I think about it is a very physical thing and adventure story is traveling Indiana Jones getting into an airplane or getting on a motorcycle and going somewhere right very traditional probably masculine view of what adventure looks like although there are a number of women authors who center women in adventure stories that's becoming much more common and you're right that's the classic heroes journey right this adventure is in Jonas's head yes that's the distinction still an adventure it's still a journey and frankly why not and this is just a great to me now but how could it be any other way when he's in this hyper controlled society right of course the journey has to be in turn all right I interviewed Vladimir Karamorsa who was in solitary confinement for 11 months in Russia there's no way I wouldn't think of that as an adventure but he had nowhere to go he had a tiny little cell they even took out the bed every morning and reinstalled it so there was nothing there nothing he could write for 90 minutes a day I was an adventure and in that writing he was so creative he want to pull its surprise yeah for his work that he wrote from his prison cell his days consisted of in a cell and one hour in which you could walk around a space that was a little larger than his cell which had an open roof so at least you could see that there was light outside he didn't go anywhere and yet there's no world in which I wouldn't think if I read a book about that or read his work I wouldn't think it's an adventure yeah so the invention in your head is as legitimate as the adventure that that you go on physically totally I have one more question about the giver so people are very upset about one part of this book it has an open ended ending yeah so Jonas leaves and we're not sure he dies with his baby brother how do you feel about open ended literature in general well so not with standing the fact that this is a remarkable book in general that troubles me I love things that end very cleanly that say the end I do like series I do love reading more work by author so to the extent that not having a very clear ending makes me think I want to read more about that's interesting but I will always worry about resolution because in my head if I'm watching a play or reading a book I'm ahead of myself I'm always waiting for how will this end and the good thing about me is that I'm so imperceptive that I can never tell I can never read the clues that you know the music and the scene in a movie where you definitely know this person's going to die the foreshadowing I do not think that there's no foreshadowing I can't read foreshadowing ever under any circumstance so that's why I need conclusion that said this is a great book and I did like to choose your own adventure stuff you know when I was a kid so totally those are great yeah and I'm with you I mean I get it this is a society where like you should be left unsatisfied you know so great okay I feel but I'm very simply you know everyone there feels you know my consumption habits doing the Valshi band book club is by a very long shot the most sophisticated and intellectually stimulative thing I've done in my entire life right these are fantastic books and I enjoyed reading them and I've enjoyed reading them in many cases when I was growing up some of them that you've introduced me to are not things I read growing up their entire genres that were not nearly as developed when I was growing up including young adult literature and that's what many of our members have written to us to tell us about that they didn't know this story they were never exposed to it which is the entire point of the whole exercise read something you don't know and let your brain go to the places it goes to how many people we talk to who have said by reading certain books it allowed them to imagine a different world I think that that is also the whole point of dystopian literature and why it's so important to push yourself to the brain of like how bad could it get which sounds horribly pessimistic but it's crucial reading dystopian literature will do one of two things to you it'll either scare you into action or it'll cause you to say perhaps things aren't bad is that right so both are good could be true and useful but to the extent that it does cause you to take some action that may not be a bad thing as I often say the arc of history does not bend toward justice it bends exactly the way you bend it all right this is what we've got coming up on the next episode we're going to continue to explore the idea of reading as a right of passage a little bit later in the season of the Valshi band book club like 1984 in the giver there's some literature that punctuates a young person's life even across generations but before then on the next episode of the Valshi band book club we're going to take a look at two books that explore the immigrant experience for young women written over 25 years apart how the Garcia girls lost their accents by Julia Alvarez and American Street by E.B. Zoo Boy prove how much changes in two decades and how much stays the same thanks for joining us be sure to subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple podcasts when you do you'll be able to listen to the Valshi band book club podcast ad free along with other MSNBC originals like prosecuting Donald Trump how to win 2024 and why is this happening with Chris Hayes without ads plus you'll get episodes of season two of the Valshi band book club one week early as well as exclusive bonus content from this and other podcasts sign up now on Apple podcasts I'm the host of the Valshi band book club Ali Valshi our producer and literary editor is Hannah Holland our executive producer is Rebecca Dryden alongside our senior producers Jared Blake and Dina Moss our coordinating producer is Lily Corvo with production support from associate producer Nicole McRennels the executive producer of MSNBC audio is Aisha Turner the head of audio production is Bryson Barnes alongside our audio engineers Catherine Anderson Katie Lau and Bob Mallory for a limited time at McDonald's get a Big Mac extra value meal for eight dollars that means two or beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun and medium fries and a drink we may need to change that jingle prices and participation may vary