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Messenger is a 2004 novel by children's author Lois Lowry. It forms the third installment of the loose trilogy begun by her 1993 novel The Giver, which won the Newbery Medal. Characters from the two earlier books reappear in Messenger, linking the novels more strongly. Set in an isolated community known simply as Village, this novel focuses upon a boy named Matty, who serves as message-bearer through the ominous Forest that surrounds the community.
The book brings back Jonas, the central character from The Giver. He and Gabriel, the infant he rescued from his old Community, now live in Village (the place described in the first book's very final scene). Matty, a character Lowry introduced in Gathering Blue, is an energetic and impatient individual who begins the story at the awkward transition between boy and man. Matty lives with Seer, a blind man whom the citizens of Village rescued years before.
Many of the people in Village are like Seer: cast out from their old communities and sometimes seriously injured, they have made themselves new homes in Village. Most of the Villagers are reasonably altruistic, and there are never lacking those to help a Villager overcome some disability (blindness, for example).
Outside the safe boundaries of Village is Forest, a foreboding realm which most of the Villagers fear. They certainly have more than enough reason to fear it; in spite of the lack of dangerous beasts, the Forest itself is animated. It is capable of delivering "Warnings" in the form of injuries caused by such things as sharp twigs, stinging insects, or poisonous plants, all of whom attack with deliberate intent. But as Matty proudly states, "The forest likes me." He has gone through the forest many times without incident. Consequently, he has become Village's messenger, carrying word to the other communities scattered throughout the region.
Very early in the book, discord appears in Village. The temperament of the Villagers changes, and they decide to close their borders, no longer permitting the displaced and unwanted of other communities to enter. Matty decides to travel through Forest once again to retrieve Seer's daughter, Kira, who lives in a town several days away. The journey soon becomes gravely perilous, and in order to save both Kira and Village, Matty must use a special ability which he possesses but hardly understands; a power of healing, which causes wholeness even as lightning consumes wood
from the inside out. It is implied in the book that Matty dies of the overwhelming effort of healing the earth, thus eliminating the discord in Village, at the very end. "Messenger" abruptly ends here without mention of what happened to Jonas and Kira, giving readers a chance to speculate.
Readings and references
- Lowry, Lois. Messenger (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). Hardcover edition, ISBN 0-618-40441-4.
- Lois Lowry's web site has an informative speeches section as well as a summary of Messenger itself.
"Messenger (novel)"