The Hunger Games...

[fenderlove]

I am reading The Hunger Games for one of my graduate classes this coming semester (it's on dissent and rioting in Modern Europe, and the professor thought it would be fun, I guess). I'm not sure I understand the hype, but, then again, I'm only half-way through the book and I've already been spoiled due to the Internet for most of the plot. The main problem I have with reading this is the grammatical style of Suzanne Collins. I want to take a red pen to most of the book. I know that it's a first person narrative so most of the grammatical choices can be excused, but it gives me a migraine because it is so distracting to me (especially after I spent too much of my time last semester re-teaching those skills to my history students, and they still refused to get it).

Also, the thing I was looking forward to the most about this book was the world-building, and I'm not really getting it. I feel like I'd rather find out more about what happened to North America to make it like this. Slaughtering dozens of children for almost seventy-five years is sort of the kind of thing that people don't usually stand for in most cases. How is a little teeny tiny parcel of land in the Rockies controlling all these people? I suppose that is why the professor wanted us to read the book, so that we would be asking those types of questions. The only thing I have been getting has been to be beaten in the face with the "bread and circuses" metaphor... and some of that beating is from literal bread. Katniss is, at least, a competent female protagonist from what's been presented so far; I will give Collins that.

I'm more interested, though, in a character that, I think, is in another book-- Finnick. From what I read about him, he sounds fascinating, and I'd like to learn more about him. However, I don't think I'm going to continue with this series after this first book. At the half-way point in the first Harry Potter book, I was hooked, but The Hunger Games leaves me feeling rather cold (I suppose I always have a "You see what happens when people forsake empathy and charity for their fellow human beings?" mentality for things like this). Maybe I'm just the kind of person that prefers WWII-metaphor magical worlds to Ancient Rome-metaphor dystopian post-apocalyptic futures. I hope that the fans of the book, particularly the younger ones, will consider the implications of a country that leaves most of its populace to die of horrible conditions and starvation while a select few rule over everything in abundant luxury, taking all the resources and hard-work of others for themselves and leaving nothing for anyone else. I live in District 11, technically. Tennessee would be part of the agricultural center of Panem. District 11 makes all the agricultural-based staple foods (not the livestock-based) to feed the whole of the country, but it is the second poorest district (first being the coal district). Isn't that just the way of the world?

Comments

[spankingfemme.livejournal.com]

I've yet to read this, but I know my husband read the manga years ago and really liked it. I can't stand ill used grammar either LOL! That would annoy the crap out of me especially if it were an assigned reading!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

District 11 is pretty clearly "The South" in Book II with District 12 basically being "Appalachia". My interpretation of District 13 was that it was the east coast, mainly because there must have been SOME reason why the capital was moved out West. My interpretation was that it was NORAD. We don't know exactly what happened, but if it was growing dire enough that they nuked district 13, it's quite plausible that the government was relocated to NORAD (which bears a striking resemblance to the base that's destroyed in Book III). NORAD then became the locus of the nation that grew out of the remains of the U.S. Plus, they still have nukes. How they control everyone is basically through propoganda, weapons, and controling access to technology. And they use Districts 1 & 2 as their army, by allowing them greater goods and services than are allowed to the further districts.

It seemed to be that Collins was aiming toward a capitalist society run amok and thus showing (and exaggerating) how the few profit off the many. And how the few become insulated from the problems they cause by self-aggrandizing propaganda. And how we become obsessed with distractions like fashion, consumerism, and plastic surgery, etc.

Plus Collins admits that she was influenced by the war. How we feed the young and the poor into wars, sacrificing them for Halliburton and Big Oil.

As far as world building goes, I think Collins' approach is sort of the polar opposite of GRR Martin. Martin/Game of Thrones likes to give in depth world building such that we know in great detail things that happened even a thousand years earlier. Collins is keeping very close to first person perspective so what is known is only what Katniss knows or what Katniss is interested in, which in Book I is her family's and her own survival. She doesn't know or care about history or why or whether it was ever any different. For her, as it is is as it's always been. There is some expansion in the series in that Katniss slowly movies into recognizing the problems of the country, whereas in Book I it really is just about her own survival (and Peetas).

Although I still think it's kept small in that, I sort of saw Katniss as becoming the girl who asassinated Marat in the French Revolution. She never really "thought big" but she did see how propaganda was causing the country to destroy itself and that revolutions sometimes turn in on themselves.

And odd if it's about riots... wouldn't it be more of Book II? In the movie there's a riot in Book I, but in the books we really don't see a riot until Book II.


I love Finnick. Oh, Finnick. He was a previous games' victor who comes off as handsome and flippant and a bit of a celebrity post-Games but is in fact far more haunted than he first appeared. (I also love Johanna who shows up in Book II).

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

According to some of the official maps for the Facebook game version of HG, it seems that District 13 is in the New York area, spreading up into Canada. I may be wrong about TN being in District 11, according to those maps. I didn't realize just how much of the country is flooded/wiped out. Half of TN is in District 12 (from Nashville to Knoxville), and the other half is in another district that's a little further north from District 11. I can't imagine what other district it would be. We don't do much here. XD I actually thought it would be fitting that District 13 to be in TN since we have Oak Ridge. I suppose that those maps might not be Collins-approved canon that are used in the game.

I can understand why Katniss doesn't know or become curious about what's happened to her world at this stage. She's more focused on just day-to-day survival and has learned just what the dictatorship wants her to believe and the rest of what she's learned is about the industry the Capitol needs her District to maintain. It's, however, still disappointing to not have a broader picture of this world in the first book. There's not even a map. It becomes less interesting to me if I can't have even the smallest background information. It's like there's President Snow. Why is he a president? Is he elected? Doesn't sound like it. He just seems to be like Caesar. He's just President-4-Life guy, I'm guessing. How long has it been since the apocalypse happened, not just the rebellions and such? Religion, racism, and homophobia just disappeared during the apocalypse? I just need some kind of scope here if it's meant to be set on earth in North America at a time in the future.

Finnick seems like a very tragic figure. After learning about what President Snow forced him into after his victory, he seems very sad... At least he gets a trident, right?

[lovelikeadrug.livejournal.com]

gross. i hate hunger games.