The Hunger Games (and HG trilogy), by Suzanne Collins

[Jim]

I just read something about another author who tried a story in the present tense, but can't recall where. I remember a comment about it being artsy, but wearing. I agree. The comments on filtering & limiting the information through that tense are interesting. I never thought about it like that. Certainly a little of it goes a long way.

The lack of religion in the story makes a couple of teens not playing around sexually unbelievable to me. Even with religion & all the social mores, plenty of teens wind up with a jackpot. I could see them not wanting a pregnancy, but a little imagination has solved that for most of us & I'm sure the rest of mankind through the ages. Anyway, it's just one of the places were belief has to be suspended or a reason assumed for the story to work. Not a huge deal, but it doesn't bear a lot of scrutiny, IMO.

The same can be said of the Districts. I don't think they should be taken literally, just as a device to separate groups of people since sex, religion, & race are off the table. I don't mind that at all. As literary devices go, it's a decent one, but I would have liked it better if some information had been left out, such as a population figure, or the areas involved were smaller, perhaps just the central East Coast, rather than all NA. It leads to all sorts of assumptions about their transport systems & such.

I'm guessing that the TV showing how District 13 is still a toxic waste is foreshadowing a resistance movement based there or it being a target in the future books, otherwise I'm a bit worried over Katniss' intelligence. Why would she blindly believe that when she knows so much else they're told is a lie? Don't answer that, please. I'll find out in good time. Anyway, it felt a bit tacked on.

[Mike (the Paladin)]

I've read many first person writers and many are done well (though of course most are told in past tense). It can be difficult but it didn't bother me here.

As for religion I've not commented, but I sort of assumed that she left it out because it wasn't required for the story and can side track a novel at least for some reasons. I thought she was possibly just not borrowing trouble.

[Jim]

It borrows trouble when people don't act within character.

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

The present tense didn't bother me. It showed the immediacy of Katniss situation and was symbolic of the fact that she believed she had no future.

I agree with Werner about the sexuality question.

[Werner]

Hmmmm! Jim, "through the ages," mankind did indeed use imagination to come up with a number of ways of trying to prevent pregnancy: folk charms, herbal potions, coitus interruptus, the rhythm method, condoms, etc. The sheer volume of out-of-wedlock births and shotgun weddings in pre-modern times suggests that most couples who relied on these methods were usually called "parents." As solutions to the problem, they might not evoke boundless confidence. Of course, with the advent of the Pill, post-1960s Western culture has much more dependable contraception. (Though even with it around, unplanned pregnancies still manage to occur in huge numbers.) I'd guess that, given Katniss' equation of marriage and childbirth, the Pill isn't something most people in the Seam have access to. They're probably back in the situation of their pre-1960s ancestors in that respect. And while religious ethics aren't a factor in her choices, you also mentioned "social mores;" and we don't know what those are like in Panem. Stalinist Russia --also a society with an oppressed population living in dire poverty, where most women didn't want to be stuck raising kids without a provider-- had rather strict, strait-laced sexual attitudes by 2013 U.S. standards; and the government actively encouraged this, despite being as anti-religious as the Capitol undoubtedly is. So I'd say it's not a foregone conclusion that every teenage character who's celibate is acting out of character, even in cases where the author supplies a plausible reason for it. In the real world, "plenty of teens" today are sexually active, but some aren't; we can infer that the range of human possibilities is about the same in Katniss' world --and not all the social factors in the latter would necessarily push for greater promiscuity, IMO. (Of course, my opinion and 50 cents will get you a can of pop.... :-) )

Some reviewers have also suggested that it's out of character for Peeta, as a teenage boy, to openly state his feelings for Katniss on television; the idea of any 16-year-old guy being that candid in that setting, no matter what the circumstances are, is viewed as being a virtual psychological impossibility. I'm not in that camp myself. Yes, males that age tend to be close-mouthed about their romantic feelings in public. And granted, while he was answering a question, we can infer from what's said elsewhere that the question was planted, with his consent. But I'm not sure his consent, or even initiative, is unrealistic in these circumstances. Fear of social embarrassment sort of pales when you know you're probably going to be killed tomorrow, or at least in the next few days, maybe with something crucial left unsaid. And if he wanted to say it so Katniss could hear, that method might have been, in an odd way, less threatening than saying it directly to her in private. For a shy teenage guy, talking about love directly to the girl is more scary than talking to strangers; their reactions don't have the potential power to hurt him to nearly the degree that HER reaction might, if it's angry (or worse, mocking). What do you all think?

[Jim]

The no sex thing is sort of OK since this is a YA book. As I mentioned, it reminds me of John Christopher's novels, but it's a fine line to walk. Since no religion & mores are stated, I'm going with what I see in my society, the people I know. I'm not going to go looking for excuses to make something fit. If there had been some stated or a religious reason against, it would have read better.

This is in contrast to the too much information about the district. Neither was a big deal, but it's one more thing to stretch my suspension of belief. Too many & it snaps. So far, that hasn't happened, just mentioned a couple of instances that bugged me a bit.

I'm into the game itself now & liking the story better. Her hunting skills are certainly coming into play as are previous games. Well done so far, better than I expected.

[Jim]

I'm getting close to the end, only 3 tributes left. Very good. I like the way the fighting has gone so far & the hard realities that Katniss is dealing with for getting food & medicine.

[Werner]

Yes, I thought Collins did an excellent job in her treatment of the events and conditions in the arena, and Katniss' reactions to them!

[Jim]

I finished "The Hunger Games" yesterday. While it had some great points & was a lot of fun, the end was a train wreck, IMO. My review is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I thought the second book, "Catching Fire" might alleviate my disappointment. Unfortunately, the main premise seems to be what I hated at the end of the first. I gave it most of an hour, then abandoned it for Drama: An Actor's Education by John Lithgow.

[Werner]

Jim, good review! (My take on the ending was a bit different, and I posted a comment, using spoiler tags.)

The Hunger Games present certain parallels to the Roman gladiatorial "games" (which is probably where the Capitol leaders got the idea). And in those, of course, while contestants theoretically fought to the death, it didn't always work out that way; Roman bigwigs were shrewdly sensitive to crowd sentiment as to who survived and who didn't.

[Werner]

Good discussion; lots of interesting thoughts on this thread! January is almost over (time flies!), but the thread remains open for anyone who wants to comment later; and I'll retitle it, so it can include posts about the rest of the trilogy as well.

As we wind down, I'll toss out another thought for consideration/dicussion. Collins' picture of a future government, that has no consideration for human rights and dignity or for the welfare of its subjects, is relevant as a cautionary tale for the present, IMO. But she avoids references to any contemporary partisan, Left/Right slogans or shibboleths that would brand the Capitol as an outgrowth of one or the other. That may make the relevance to the present less clearly obvious to some readers; but I think it was nonetheless the right move artistically, for two reasons (related to each other). First, if she had identified the Panem regime as either right-wing or left-wing, a huge number of readers on that side of the polarized contemporary spectrum would immediately dismiss her as the enemy, and turn off their brains to any consideration of what she's saying. And that wouldn't just be bad for sales; it would be their loss of a worthwhile warning call, because of the second (and even more imporant) reason. That is that the danger of future despotism is not neatly confined to one side of the ideological spectrum, at least the spectrum as our media simplistically lays it out for us to swallow. Such premises as the "need" for elitist government, with all power centralized and no bothersome input from the contemptible masses who exist to do as they're told; the worthlessness of any individual human life; the "rationality" of a top-down economy where everything is collectived for the profit of a few at the top; and the total rejection of any concept of transcendent ethics or human rights are all cornerstones of Panem's polity --and they're all ideas that would be very widely shared among the leadership of both major U.S. parties and the business/financial elites who subsidize their campaigns, whether they call themselves "liberals" or "conservatives." They wouldn't state those premises that baldly on the stump, and they posture a great deal with supposed disdain for this or that detail of each other's policies. But the posturing masks a deeper kinship; and it's becoming increasingly clear that the most meaningful dichotomy in our politics today isn't the partisan charade, but rather between those who care about preserving a democratic human community with diffused political and economic power vs. those who want to turn the world into one vast Gulag. The world Collins has created in this novel is directly related to that conflict. And if readers --whether they see themselves as Democrats, Republicans, or independents, liberals, conservatives or moderates-- can take a good look at the Panem leadership and recognize it as something we don't want to support and want to fight, Colins will have done a public service. Of course, the specifics will be different --neither party, in the foreseeable future, is going to be advocating putting something like the Hunger Games on CBS or Fox. (Though, if our Establishment honestly thought it would attract viewers and sponsors....!) But I submit that perceptive readers might be able to spot the same vibes, even viscerally, when they show up in today's headlines and policy debates. (Maybe I'm too optimistic. :-( )

Anyway, that's just one person's thoughts (as opposed to those reviewers who see no contemporary social significance at all in Collins work). What do some of the rest of you think about it?

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

I think it's better not put any obvious political lean in a work of fiction, for reasons you stated, and just because it's not necessary the answer or the effective method through which you can provoke thought and emotion in readers. While things are often definitely black and white, there are also many different perspectives that transverse obvious differences between people. We are all humans, and we all want a good life and freedom of thought and belief. That's really a basic thing, and it's not focused on any one political ideology.

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

Thanks for the discussion of the book, everyone!

[Werner]

To my surprise, I discovered that I didn't post a link here to my review of The Hunger Games last February. By now, I've read all three novels of the trilogy. Since some discussion of the series is still happening in this group here and there (though on other threads), I decided I'd go ahead and post the links to all three of my reviews, in case anyone's interested:

www.goodreads.com/review/show/297275418

www.goodreads.com/review/show/507246160

www.goodreads.com/review/show/662319525

I really wanted to like the last book --and for much of it, I did, despite its grimness. But I was ultimately disappointed, and have to join the ranks of those who feel that Collins fumbled at the goal line, and big time. :-(

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

Sad news that the last book didn't measure up, Werner.

[Werner]

Well, some of my friends thought it did, and I would have too, if Collins had handled one thing differently. But I don't regret reading the whole trilogy, just to make my own judgment!

[Mike (the Paladin)]

I'm another who thinks the third sort of crashed and burned. Too bad.

[Charles]

Wow, sorry I missed out till now on this wide ranging discussion. I watched the first two Hunger Games movies but so far have only read the first book. I liked it pretty well and put up my review here. the whole reality TV aspect of it is disturbing

[Mike (the Paladin)]

I liked the first and the second wasn't bad at all. It's the third i was so badly disappointed in.

[Derrick]

"Real or Not Real?"

sigh

I hated book 3.