The Hunger Games Wrap Up

Well. I can breathe again. I've been immersed in the latest, and last, installment of the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins.

Now, what to say about it. Without giving anything away!

As grim as the premise is, the first two books struck me as keeping a little distance from the gore that resulted from the story. I didn't often have to look closely at the suffering of those who died. I thought that was in good keeping with the themes of oppression and abuse of power. Life is sacred, that the suffering of someone you do not know still matters, and the reason for the violence in the story was to point that out. It wasn't necessary to witness every gruesome detail.

Mockingjay is much more grisly. This is a book about war, and it spares us little. Reading the trilogy as a whole, I think that this book continues to push the reader to examine the effects of war, violence, and abuse of power. Indeed, it's impossible to miss those effects. While this does not diminish my estimation of the series--I don't believe that "nice" stories are the only ones worth reading--it does make me reconsider what age group for which I'd recommend them. A mature 12 or 13 year old can probably handle this, but there are many disturbing images, and I'd be cautious who I share them with. That said, my 11-year-old started reading The Hunger Games yesterday, and now I'm wondering if that was such a great idea! At least, having read them myself, I can talk about the books with her.

I heard Suzanne Collins on NPR last year when Catching Fire came out, and I believe she said that she came up with the idea for this series when she was channel-surfing and flipped between a story on child soldiers and a reality show. She says that if you combine the two, you get gladiators. The commentator asked her about the darkness and violence in the story, and she said something to the effect that we don't give children enough credit for knowing and interpreting the world we live in. She says that violence finds its way into their lives. We want to candy coat it, but they know better.

Certainly, if they read this series, they will know better. They'll also be offered various ways to look at violence and oppression. One choice is to use it as a sick sort of entertainment--picking favorites, watching disaster, getting a secret thrill from the proceedings--be it war between two entities, an exploitative reality game show, an epic disaster. Another choice is to shut it out, pretend it doesn't exist, and live our happily, relatively luxurious lives in ignorance. A third choice is to feel true compassion and reach out for change.

Another theme that is particularly strong in the third installment is the cost of survival. Whether helpless victims, unwilling participants or idealistic revolutionaries, surviving violence takes its toll on everyone. Coming into power changes people. And in particular, killing another human being (or many) changes a person profoundly. Given her initial impulse for the books, a story on child soldiers, this last theme makes perfect sense and is made painfully clear to the reader. It's hard for me to imagine someone "enjoying" the violence in the story in the same way as a spectacular special effects moment in an action movie. All of the characters, whether on the side of the heroine or not, are presented as human and cannot be dismissed lightly.

Mockingjay is a powerful book. Looking through discussions online, I see that much of the speculation surrounding it has to do with whether the heroine Katniss will end up with either Gale or Peeta. While I enjoyed speculating about that myself, readers looking for the Jacob/Edward tension of the Twilight books or the Pam/Jim progression of "The Office" should look elsewhere. This is a book about the pain of being manipulated, the horror of war and the horrible choices one is forced to make in such situations, where few are innocent and everyone has a motivation of his or her own.

Collins keeps the reader wrapped in the tension, refusing to allow readers to take a break when the chapter ends.

And while the novel is grim, it does offer hope. There are also brief moments of beauty. As a parent, I'd like to see that hope and beauty show up a bit earlier or in larger doses for my child. Contrarily, as a reader myself, I feel that any more would just negate the horror that the characters experience. And let's not delude ourselves--there are horrors, as well as beauty, everywhere. So, how will we respond? If we ignore the suffering in the world, can we truly appreciate the beauty? And if we constantly view horror while feeling ourselves detached and safe from it, how long will it be until we are so jaded that we can't see it for what it is?