The Hunger Games
This entry was posted on 12/16/2010 7:14 AM and is filed under Books.
The Hunger Games is the book all the cool kids are reading this year.
Carolyn read it and gave it to Josie, who spent several days planted on the couch until she had finished all three volumes.
I remember the first time I ever loved a book so much I let it suck me into itself nonstop until I finished. It's happened to me several times now and it's my favorite thing to do.
My first trip into a book was when I was about the same age Josie is and the book was A Horseman Riding By, by R.F. Delderfield. That three volume epic is the story of an Englishman who barely survives the Boer War (1899-1902) uses his inherited wealth to buy an English estate containing about ten farms and the story of him and all his tenants over the next seventy years. It's wonderful and I've read it at least once more since the first time.
Two years later I read the Lord of the Rings for the first time (It took five days over Christmas break; best Christmas vacation ever.) Eight years later, I read Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin in one long sit.
Several other books have had that effect on me and what they all have in common is that they are set in places that are as foreign to my world as anything Isaac Asimov ever came up with. For me, a book like that is more fun and more refreshing than taking an actual vacation.
Josie and Carolyn were very excited when I said I wanted to read it. That's the way it is with really good books. They both think The Hunger Games is the best book ever.
It is a very gripping read and a good story but the thing is; I've read a lot more great books than they have.
I enjoyed it and when I was done I was really glad that this is the book that has the kids imagination right now.
It doesn't compare to the Harry Potter saga in any way but it's light years better than that Twilight crap which has no redeeming value whatsoever.
The Hunger Games (by Suzanne Collins) is set in a distant, post apocalyptic future. Panem is the nation occupying what was once the United States and the rest of the world seems uninhabited for all practical purposes. Panem consists of a Capitol and twelve districts, which the Capitol rules with an iron fist. Cruelty and deprivation are the constants of life in most of the twelve districts, which don't even have names, just numbers.
The kids reading this book are all post cold war kids. They don't remember a time when the conditions described in THG were a reality for half the world. Yes, there are still places (lots and lots of places) where hunger is used as a political tool and where life is so cheap that death is entertainment but the similarities between Panem and the old Soviet Union and Communist China are striking.
Although I doubt most of the kids reading THG know this.
Several of the things I pointed out to Josie; in Panem, the district dwellers, who rebeled against the Capitol seventy five years earlier, are slaves who are denied two significant things; history and religion. Neither are allowed in the districts because if the people were aware of either, they would certainly rebel. Behind the Iron Curtain, history was rewritten to suit the Communist leaders and religion was abolished.
There's no freedom of religion in China today, either.
The people in the districts are not allowed to own anything; they lived where they are assigned, they eat what they are given and they work where they are sent. Deviations bring swift and terrible punishment. No communication is allowed between the districts. Information of all kinds is strictly controlled by the Capital.(Google in China, anyone?)
Worst of all, to remind the people that they are no match for the might of the Capital, every year, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 are chosen at random from each district to participate in The Hunger Games; a live, televised event that is set up by professional Game makers in the Capital, takes place in a huge artificial arena and is continues until only one of the 24 'tributes' is still alive.
Imagine American Idol where the contestants have to fight to the death. The two main characters are the narrator and the boy who is also chosen from her district. She just wants to survive but he's the one who refuses to become the animal the Capital sees him as.
That's the set up and the story is pretty darn cool.
It's kind of like if 1984 had been written by Louis L'Amour. Ms. Collins is no Louis L'Amour. She's no J.K. Rowlings, either.
It's okay, she doesn't have to be.
I'm glad Josie loved it. I liked it, but as I said; I've read 1984, which is basically the same story; one man's struggle to overcome an oppressive, tyrannical invasive government.
The country NEEDS this book right now. Our kids NEED to read this book.
J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter as a story of what happens in war; kids lose their entire families. This is true; war sucks. War is Hell isn't just a pithy civil war quote, it's the unadorned truth.
But Voldemort is a wizard; he's magic. No one who read those books was really afraid of Voldemort taking over the world.
The Capital of Panem is real in that actual tyrants have ruled their empires in much the same way over and over throughout human history. There are nations on earth right now, where the people who live there have no more rights or control over their own destinies than the unfortunate tributes of Panem. There have always been societies where life is so cheap that watching children slaughter each other is nothing more than entertainment.
It's an ancient story; 300, The Robe, 1984, Rise to Rebellion, Braveheart, the Gulag Archipelago, The Winds of War....they all tell the same tale but it's one that every generation has to learn for itself and I'm very grateful to Suzanne Collins for serving it up to the latest generation in such a rousing, heartbreaking tale of adventure.
