The Hunger Games - Book 1 - Review.
Dec. 21st, 2010 03:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinished The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins last night, which had been heavily recommended by several people on livejournal - stating amongst other things that if you like strong female heroines, science-fiction, and were in any way a Buffy fan - you'd love this.
I had heard of the books prior to their recommendations of course. But was leery of them, yet another group of popular tween novels with a "love triangel" a la Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga. Or so I thought. Until they got rec'd on livejournal by friends of mine. So, I gave the first one a shot and it's not at all what I expected. If anything, it reminds me a great deal of the cult Japanese anti-war film Battle Royale based upon the novel of the same name, which Quentin Tartino and Joss Whedon have both borrowed images from, amongst others. Or to a degree the socio-political works of George Orwell, Shirley Jackson, and William Fielding.
In the author's note at the end of the novel - it states that Collins continues to explore how war, poverty and violence affect children in her saga the Hunger Games.
The story takes place in the not too distant future in a country called Panem, formerly North America. Or what had been North America before the continent was torn asunder and reformed by various environmental disasters culminating in a collasp of the governmental structure, chaos, and war - until a new facist regime took control. The new regime is housed in The Capitol - which is in the Rockies. The rest of the country is divided in a series of 13 districts. Or rather it used to be 13 districts - there was a uprising several decades back which was squealched. The 13th District as a result no longer exists - a bombed out wasteland. And each year, the other 12 districts must submit two children or tributes, a boy and a girl, to participate in the annual "Hunger Games". The children are selected by lottery. Their names put in at the time they are twelve and they are eligible up until the age of 18. The Games are held in an arena created by the Capital and televised across the country. Everyone must watch. The object of the Games is for the children selected by lottery in each district to fight to the death, the victor is the child left standing or the lone survivor. And that survivor gets a bounty of riches to take home, they also have to go on a victory tour, become a "media" darling of sorts, live in a nice house in the Victor's Village of their District, and mentor new tributes selected each year.
Into this mix, enter Katniss Everdeen - a 16 year old girl who volunteers to take her sister's place in the Games, when her 12 year old sister, Prim, is selected. Katniss is the sole provider of her family of three, since her father died in a mine explosion. With her friend, the slightly older Gale, who bears a striking resemblance to her and like Katniss also lost a father to the mines, she illegally hunts game outside the district fence. But it is not Gale who is selected for the games, but another boy, a Baker's son, named Peeta - who has long habored a crush for Katniss and when she was very young and before she figured out how to hunt on her own, starving in the streets, provided her with bread. A gift that she both resents and treasures. Katniss and Peeta's mentor is Haymitch, a former victor who has become the town drunk. It is Haymitch's duty to prepare them for the games and to ensure that they get sponsors who can provide at a cost gifts to aid their way through the games - such as food and medicine.
The story is told in first person and through Katniss' pov. It never leaves her pov. Through Katniss we meet the people in the Capital who bear a striking resemblance to Frank L. Baum's denizens of The Emerald City - fluffy souls who banter about makeup, nails, and fashion. "Oh...it was must likely a mistake to ask everyone to wear feather's to my party!"
The highlight of their lives is watching the annual Hunger Games, which they never have to take part. Oh the romance! Of the drama!
And through her all the others...the Career tributes who are prepared for the games from birth and are "volunteered", and the poor souls who are selected.
While most novels of this sort stop after the Games have been completed or the only highlight is the Games - the fighting, Collins' goes past that. It's not the fighting that fascinates Collins. Or the Games themselves, but rather the reprecussions of having them. Of the violence itself. What it does to you.
There's also the love triangle...but it is a rather fascinating one, unlike any I've seen. In some respects it feels like a subversion of the romantic trope - you know, the one where the girl or guy must marry or pretend to be love with someone to keep up appearances? But they really do fall in love? Or something to that effect? Here...that romantic trope is manipulated by the Capital who must have its entertainment, the romance is what the fans want! If it isn't real - the Capital is a laughing stock. You must be vicious and unfeeling or madly in love, no in between! Pretending to be in love is a means of survival. Katniss must play at being in love in order to win the Games, in order to convince the Capital that she is not a rebel. Collins, by exploring this angle, explores how reality shows and our culture imposes its romantic dreams and illusions onto others and the negative reprecussions of that. What it truly means to impose your world-view onto another, no matter how right you think you are.
Much like Adolus Huxley's novel Brave New World or for that matter Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Collins in her young adult novel takes on adult themes - of what we are willing to do to survive, and maintain an imperfect peace. And what cost entertainment, ours, has when it is at the cost of someone else's privacy and personal peace.
I had heard of the books prior to their recommendations of course. But was leery of them, yet another group of popular tween novels with a "love triangel" a la Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga. Or so I thought. Until they got rec'd on livejournal by friends of mine. So, I gave the first one a shot and it's not at all what I expected. If anything, it reminds me a great deal of the cult Japanese anti-war film Battle Royale based upon the novel of the same name, which Quentin Tartino and Joss Whedon have both borrowed images from, amongst others. Or to a degree the socio-political works of George Orwell, Shirley Jackson, and William Fielding.
In the author's note at the end of the novel - it states that Collins continues to explore how war, poverty and violence affect children in her saga the Hunger Games.
The story takes place in the not too distant future in a country called Panem, formerly North America. Or what had been North America before the continent was torn asunder and reformed by various environmental disasters culminating in a collasp of the governmental structure, chaos, and war - until a new facist regime took control. The new regime is housed in The Capitol - which is in the Rockies. The rest of the country is divided in a series of 13 districts. Or rather it used to be 13 districts - there was a uprising several decades back which was squealched. The 13th District as a result no longer exists - a bombed out wasteland. And each year, the other 12 districts must submit two children or tributes, a boy and a girl, to participate in the annual "Hunger Games". The children are selected by lottery. Their names put in at the time they are twelve and they are eligible up until the age of 18. The Games are held in an arena created by the Capital and televised across the country. Everyone must watch. The object of the Games is for the children selected by lottery in each district to fight to the death, the victor is the child left standing or the lone survivor. And that survivor gets a bounty of riches to take home, they also have to go on a victory tour, become a "media" darling of sorts, live in a nice house in the Victor's Village of their District, and mentor new tributes selected each year.
Into this mix, enter Katniss Everdeen - a 16 year old girl who volunteers to take her sister's place in the Games, when her 12 year old sister, Prim, is selected. Katniss is the sole provider of her family of three, since her father died in a mine explosion. With her friend, the slightly older Gale, who bears a striking resemblance to her and like Katniss also lost a father to the mines, she illegally hunts game outside the district fence. But it is not Gale who is selected for the games, but another boy, a Baker's son, named Peeta - who has long habored a crush for Katniss and when she was very young and before she figured out how to hunt on her own, starving in the streets, provided her with bread. A gift that she both resents and treasures. Katniss and Peeta's mentor is Haymitch, a former victor who has become the town drunk. It is Haymitch's duty to prepare them for the games and to ensure that they get sponsors who can provide at a cost gifts to aid their way through the games - such as food and medicine.
The story is told in first person and through Katniss' pov. It never leaves her pov. Through Katniss we meet the people in the Capital who bear a striking resemblance to Frank L. Baum's denizens of The Emerald City - fluffy souls who banter about makeup, nails, and fashion. "Oh...it was must likely a mistake to ask everyone to wear feather's to my party!"
The highlight of their lives is watching the annual Hunger Games, which they never have to take part. Oh the romance! Of the drama!
And through her all the others...the Career tributes who are prepared for the games from birth and are "volunteered", and the poor souls who are selected.
While most novels of this sort stop after the Games have been completed or the only highlight is the Games - the fighting, Collins' goes past that. It's not the fighting that fascinates Collins. Or the Games themselves, but rather the reprecussions of having them. Of the violence itself. What it does to you.
There's also the love triangle...but it is a rather fascinating one, unlike any I've seen. In some respects it feels like a subversion of the romantic trope - you know, the one where the girl or guy must marry or pretend to be love with someone to keep up appearances? But they really do fall in love? Or something to that effect? Here...that romantic trope is manipulated by the Capital who must have its entertainment, the romance is what the fans want! If it isn't real - the Capital is a laughing stock. You must be vicious and unfeeling or madly in love, no in between! Pretending to be in love is a means of survival. Katniss must play at being in love in order to win the Games, in order to convince the Capital that she is not a rebel. Collins, by exploring this angle, explores how reality shows and our culture imposes its romantic dreams and illusions onto others and the negative reprecussions of that. What it truly means to impose your world-view onto another, no matter how right you think you are.
Much like Adolus Huxley's novel Brave New World or for that matter Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Collins in her young adult novel takes on adult themes - of what we are willing to do to survive, and maintain an imperfect peace. And what cost entertainment, ours, has when it is at the cost of someone else's privacy and personal peace.
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Date: 2010-12-21 08:34 pm (UTC)What fascinates me about these books is how relevant they are. Lately I often get the impression that stories just repeat themselves over and over. And though media critique is hardly totally new, it's never been so important to write a book that explains how a narrative is build in the media.
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Date: 2010-12-21 09:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-12-21 11:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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