My friend Amy insisted I read The Hunger Games, and she was right to twist my arm. I devoured it over the course of a weekend's road trip. The book will haunt me forever.
I'm going through it a second time, more carefully, with the audiobook so wonderfully read by Carolyn McCormick. And as I do so, I'm again awed by Suzanne Collins' sure-footed, euphonic prose and deft plotting. Joseph Campbell said we live amid the rubble pile of our old, outdated Myths, and Collins has contributed to what I view as the genesis of a new Mythology, adapted for the very different world in which we find ourselves. Ironically, Collins claims to have drawn inspiration from the tale of Theseus, and it seems proper our new myths should be grown from the topsoil of the old.
The Hunger Games is perhaps the best speculative fiction I've read in years. It is science fiction, but not the "hard", technophile stuff I've grown entirely weary of. No, the technology of The Hunger Games is so advanced it becomes magic again: mass media projected in the sky, unseen spy cameras guided by implanted trackers, precious boons delivered on precision-guided silver parachutes, and fierce chimerae. Yet all these wonders spring from things we already know, and so the Möbius strip of Mythology closes back on itself.
This is a deliciously subversive book, in subtle ways that sneak up on you. The system which perpetuates this dreadful bloodsport is clearly amoral, and enjoys unassailable military might. Katniss has no choice but to fight in the Games, no way to avoid killing others for her own survival, or any means to strike back at the decadent Capitol. The Hunger Games are both sport and propaganda, the ultimate form of Bread and Circuses, a constant reminder of the Capitol's power. Yet in her small acts of defiance, she unwittingly uses the Capitol's own propaganda tools to strike a blow where the power structure is most vulnerable: in the hearts of its subjects.
Collins masterfully braids a deep understanding of modern media and government corruption in a well-realized, believeable dystopia, seasoned with a dash of Vonnegut-style satire. It saddens me to see Young Adult fiction become the new home of dystopian literature, as it implies a growing sense of pessimism and despair. Yet I'm also encouraged, because it means these young people will come into our complex world with eyes that much wider, more aware, than we did. While I had Mad Magazine to show me the fallacies and manipulations of media and politics, these kids are being innoculated with much stronger stuff. They'll need it.
I also want to say that Katniss is one of the most engaging characters I've read in a long, long time. I'm eager to read the next two books, and learn what fruit her seeds of defiance will bear.
I can't recommend this book highly enough.
(Link)
I'm going through it a second time, more carefully, with the audiobook so wonderfully read by Carolyn McCormick. And as I do so, I'm again awed by Suzanne Collins' sure-footed, euphonic prose and deft plotting. Joseph Campbell said we live amid the rubble pile of our old, outdated Myths, and Collins has contributed to what I view as the genesis of a new Mythology, adapted for the very different world in which we find ourselves. Ironically, Collins claims to have drawn inspiration from the tale of Theseus, and it seems proper our new myths should be grown from the topsoil of the old.
The Hunger Games is perhaps the best speculative fiction I've read in years. It is science fiction, but not the "hard", technophile stuff I've grown entirely weary of. No, the technology of The Hunger Games is so advanced it becomes magic again: mass media projected in the sky, unseen spy cameras guided by implanted trackers, precious boons delivered on precision-guided silver parachutes, and fierce chimerae. Yet all these wonders spring from things we already know, and so the Möbius strip of Mythology closes back on itself.
This is a deliciously subversive book, in subtle ways that sneak up on you. The system which perpetuates this dreadful bloodsport is clearly amoral, and enjoys unassailable military might. Katniss has no choice but to fight in the Games, no way to avoid killing others for her own survival, or any means to strike back at the decadent Capitol. The Hunger Games are both sport and propaganda, the ultimate form of Bread and Circuses, a constant reminder of the Capitol's power. Yet in her small acts of defiance, she unwittingly uses the Capitol's own propaganda tools to strike a blow where the power structure is most vulnerable: in the hearts of its subjects.
Collins masterfully braids a deep understanding of modern media and government corruption in a well-realized, believeable dystopia, seasoned with a dash of Vonnegut-style satire. It saddens me to see Young Adult fiction become the new home of dystopian literature, as it implies a growing sense of pessimism and despair. Yet I'm also encouraged, because it means these young people will come into our complex world with eyes that much wider, more aware, than we did. While I had Mad Magazine to show me the fallacies and manipulations of media and politics, these kids are being innoculated with much stronger stuff. They'll need it.
I also want to say that Katniss is one of the most engaging characters I've read in a long, long time. I'm eager to read the next two books, and learn what fruit her seeds of defiance will bear.
I can't recommend this book highly enough.
(Link)
