The Hunger Games

I read many good books, but every once in awhile I come across a book that is mesmerizing and addictive. Most recently, The Hunger Games fit the bill. There are three books in the series, and I devoured them at an alarming rate. I won't even admit how fast I read them (especially the second one, Catching Fire), nor what was neglected around here as a result. I will say that Dave read them, too, and we both eagerly awaited our turn at the library for the third installment. It has never, ever happened before that we were enthralled by the same book. (We would never have been paired by any online dating service, because our tastes are as different as you could imagine!) I was excited when I saw that he was as interested in them as I was, because I thought we could discuss them, until I realized that he wasn't the book club type.

But I was dying to discuss it, and so I thought I would just write down my thoughts about it. Then when Hannah passed on someone else's thoughts about the about the book (I wanted to post the link, but couldn't find it!), I was more determined than ever. So here's what I would have brought to a book club discussion. No, I really didn't have time to do it (it took me a couple weeks, and there was still so much I wanted to say, and I would have loved to polish it up), and it was probably a complete waste of the time I did spend on it. But it was fun to pretend I have some brain cells left.


***********************************Spoiler Alert!!!!***************************************
Those of you who are in the midst of reading it, or haven't started yet, don't continue! :-)



What I found intriguing about The Hunger Games is that it elicits introspection about what we might value the most when it comes to survival. What’s really deep within? And what would it look like when forced to the surface? Katniss is distinguished by her drive for survival, and even more so by her need to protect and preserve her sister Prim. She loves Prim, but even her love for her sister seems to be tied to her own survival. (I’ve now used that word way too many times!) Practically abandoned by the death of her father and breakdown of her mother, Katniss was stripped of the love, care, and protection a child needs, and she was exposed to such hazards and wants as children should never know. So it seems likely that her self-imposed mandate to shelter her sister from harm may be a desire to preserve vicariously the innocence Katniss herself ought never to have lost. Later her motives become more complicated, even to herself, when Peeta and other figures enter her life. Still, near the end of Mockingjay, Gale tells Peeta that Katniss will choose whomever she can‘t survive without., so obviously this remains a central theme of her life. (Note: But why are they even having this discussion? Why does Peeta, who has only recently been recovering from the "hijacking" that programmed him to hate Katniss, and is at this point acutely aware that he is unstable, even considering the possibility that he might be in the running for her affections again? I thought this was a misstep in the story.)

I think Katniss is such a compelling character because most of us , in the natural, would identify most with her primal drive for survival. We would like to think we would embrace Peeta’s idealism and pure form of love, or even Gale’s sacrificial passion for justice - and some probably would - but if we were completely honest, the need for our own survival would probably be all-consuming. And in a metaphysical sense, isn’t it already? Isn’t it the essence of our struggle against “self?” Doesn’t it already creep into our relationships with others? Our love, in it’s bare humanity, is riddled with ulterior motives. Of course in reality, this vulgar drive for self can be redeemed, and usually is, to various degrees. I found it interesting, incidentally, that The Hunger Games never addresses the spiritual element. - the characters never allude to any form of religion (are we to assume that it’s been eliminated in the upheaval of the social and government structures? And would that really happen in reality?), and the question of morality seems to shift with each party’s motives. There seems to be no fixed reference point for right and wrong. At first oppression and brutality seem to be clearly evil; however, as the series progresses, various individuals and groups use both to further their means, bringing to the fore the question of what lengths are acceptable in any given cause. Neither is the sanctity of life the clear good, as all the characters are willing to sacrifice it for whatever they value more. Gale acknowledges that for the sake of the rebel cause he may have been responsible (and willingly so) for a gut-wrenching act of mass murder, and Katniss reaches the place‘where she is able to kill “without hesitation” when circumstances seem to require it. She also votes for another round of Hunger Games, which I think is one of the more brilliant and fascinating turns in the series, because it leaves us with deep questions about who Katniss is and has become, as well as what might emerge in any individual after undergoing these kinds of circumstances. Although let’s face it, I would have been the girl who made the fire in the first book, who thus foolishly expedited her departure from the games. And that’s if I had known how to make a fire in the first place. So this is probably all a moot point for me personally, since the likelihood of my own survival from the start would be pretty much nil.!

A couple random notes on which I don’t have time to expand further: I loved the imagery in the series. It was fitting that Katniss was the Mockingjay, as in being the face and voice of the rebel cause she was picking up a song that wasn’t really her own. The bomb and her resulting injuries are a perfect metaphor for the whole story itself. Mentally, emotionally, and, at the end, physically, Katniss passes through agonizing fire, and when it’s all over, her soul is as patchwork as her skin. Some of her former self is left - some of it untouched, but other parts “damaged but salvageable.” Some parts, of course, have been entirely ruined, and have been replaced with something new. (Another note: I didn’t understand the use of the phrase “fire mutt.” Weren’t “muttations” - which word, I thought, wasn't a very clever deviation from "mutation,"but I may have missed the point - genetically altered creatures? Why would being burned make her Katniss and Peeta "fire mutts"? I thought it was a little strange and unncessary.)

While I loved the story as a whole, I did think there were some elements the author could have developed further, and every once in awhile I came across phrasing that was so awkward I wondered how it made it through all her drafts and then an editor’s desk. Of course, this is all coming from someone who hasn’t written a wildly successful novel!

Now that The Hunger Games has been simmering in my brain for weeks, I really need to move on to something else!