These novels, which combine the ancient world's gladiatorial games with the modern day reality show and throw in an epic battle against political oppression for good measure, are exciting and thematically rich from start to finish.
AR Grade Level: 5.3
Suggested Age Range: 13+
The violence and very, very mild sexual themes make this series one for teens.
(Cut for length.)
Plot Synopses:
The Setting:
Ages previous to the events in these novels, an unspecified cataclysm destroyed the nations of North America. On the ashes of these nations arose Panem, a nation comprised of a glittering and futuristic central city and, originally, thirteen outlying Districts whose function was to send raw materials and manufactured goods to the Capitol. The people of the Districts were afforded second class status in Panem; while the Capitol hoarded all of the nation's wealth, the Districts were given meager rations. Thus, as you might expect, seventy-five years before the first novel begins, the thirteen Districts rebelled against the Capitol. In response, the Capitol bombed District 13 and instituted the annual Hunger Games to keep the remaining twelve Districts in line. At the yearly "reaping", one boy and one girl (ages 12 to 18) are selected at random in each of the Districts; these twenty-four adolescents are then forced to fight to the death on national television. And to make things worse, the poorer you are, the more likely you will be chosen to fight in the Games, as you must put your name into the selection pool more than once to get grain and oil rations for your family.
The Hunger Games:
As a resident of District 12, Panem's poorest District, sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen already knows what it's like to have to fight for survival. Before her twelfth birthday, her father died in the coal mines which constitute District 12's primary industry, and her mother effectively checked out in grief, leaving both Katniss and her younger sister Primrose to fend for themselves. It was only the kindness of Peeta Mellark, the baker's son, which saved Katniss and her sister from starvation: after Peeta gave Katniss a burned loaf of bread as a charity offering, Katniss at last remembered what her father taught her regarding the food sources to be found in the forest beyond the District's boundary. Since then, she and her best friend, a older boy by the name of Gale Hawthorne, have hunted illegally to keep both of their families afloat.
Katniss still resents her mother somewhat for those days her sister and she suffered, but she is fiercely protective of Prim, who at the start of the novel has just turned twelve years old and is now eligible for the reaping. Katniss has made absolutely sure that Prim would not have to apply for extra grain rations -- which makes it all the more shocking when, at the reaping, it is Prim who is selected as District 12's female tribute for the 74th Hunger Games. Desperate to save her little sister from what she believes will be a certain death, Katniss rushes onto the stage and volunteers to take Prim's place.
Katniss and Peeta, who is selected to be District 12's male tribute to the Games, are permitted one last goodbye meeting with their friends and family before they are shuttled onto a train bound for the Capitol. They are accompanied on their journey by Effie Trinket, the Capitol's liaison to District 12, Haymitch Abernathy, a raging alcoholic who also happens to be the only resident of District 12 to have won the Hunger Games, and a team of Capitol stylists whose job is to make both Katniss and Peeta ready for television. Once they arrive at the Capitol, Katniss and Peeta are bathed, plucked, made-up, and costumed for a series of publicity events put on for the benefit of the decadent Capitol audience. It is at one of these events that Peeta announces that he is in love with Katniss. Katniss, for her part, assumes this is Haymitch's strategy to ensure they both survive the games, and she plays along, knowing that attracting the interest of the audience will guarantee she and Peeta will receive crucial gifts during the Games.
Once thrust into the arena, Katniss flees from the launch point in part to avoid the Careers, the tributes from the wealthier districts who have been trained since early childhood to succeed in the Games. During the opening days of the Games, more than half of the tributes are picked off in rapid succession while Katniss relies on her well-honed outdoor skills to survive. Katniss eventually allies herself with Rue, a twelve-year-old tribute from District 11 who survives the opening bloodbath by swinging herself up into the trees. Together, they come up with a plan to do away with the Careers' advantage. Rue sets a series of fires to create a diversion while Katniss destroys the Careers' hoarded food supply. Unfortunately, before Katniss can rendezvous with Rue, Rue is murdered by another tribute. Katniss, in a gesture designed to remind the Capitol that she and Rue are not just pieces in their brutal Games, wreathes Rue's body with flowers before she is taken away.
As the Games continue, an announcement is made: the game masters have decided to allow for two winners in this year's Games provided the two winners hail from the same District. Katniss immediately looks for Peeta, who was seriously wounded while battling a Career for Katniss' sake. She finds Peeta hiding near a river and tries to nurse him back to health, playing up her "love" for Peeta for the benefit of the cameras. Peeta eventually develops a severe infection, and Katniss is forced to return to the launch point to battle the other surviving tributes for a vial of antibiotics. Katniss succeeds in this battle primarily because the male tribute from District 11 lets her go upon learning what she did for Rue.
After a final harrowing night battling a pack of mutated wolves, Katniss and Peeta do emerge as the final two survivors. Another announcement is then made: the earlier rules change has been rescinded. This contest can only have one winner. Katniss and Peeta take poison berries from their pockets and threaten to commit mutual suicide, and the game masters crumble and declare them both champions. This act of rebellion, however, angers powerful people in the Capitol. In order to avoid retribution, Katniss and Peeta must continue to behave as if they are madly in love with each other, even though Katniss herself is unsure of her feelings regarding Peeta. Temporary insanity prompted by love, you see, is considered the only acceptable excuse for such a bold act of defiance.
Catching Fire:
Katniss returns to District 12 to find things irrevocably changed. While Katniss' mother and little sister now live in relative comfort in the victors' neighborhood, Katniss finds herself on the outs with both Gale, with whom Katniss feels a real connection, and Peeta, who apparently is genuinely attracted to Katniss and is hurt that Katniss doesn't feel the same way. Worse, her and Peeta's performance in the arena has apparently inspired new rumblings of rebellion in the Districts. President Snow visits Katniss before she and Peeta embark on their Victory Tour and reminds her what's at stake, threatening to kill Gale if Katniss doesn't successfully convince the populace of Panem that it was only her love for Peeta - and not a thirst for rebellion - that inspired her actions in the Games.
Katniss and Peeta's first stop on the Victory Tour is District 11 - Rue's district. While there, the two winners make a critical mistake: Katniss makes a speech honoring the two dead tributes from the District, and Peeta offers to provide a portion of their winnings to support the two grieving families. These acts of compassion inspire the residents of District 11 to come together in solidarity, and Katniss sees one ringleader get shot in the head before she is rushed out of the square. Their options growing ever limited, Peeta publicly proposes to Katniss later in the tour in a last ditch effort to please the President and the other power brokers in the Capitol, but the damage has already been done. Riots erupt in several Districts.
The Capitol responds by sending a new group of soldier-enforcers to District 12 who are not so tolerant when it comes to violations of the hunting bans. Gale is brutally whipped for "poaching," and the Hob - District 12's thriving black market - is set aflame. As the conditions in District 12 deteriorate, Katniss sneaks out into the forest and meets two refugees from District 8 who claim that some of the residents of District 13 survived the Capitol's bombing seventy-five years ago and are now organizing a resistance. Katniss thinks this is just a fairy tale, but she finds the idea very compelling, particularly when she notices that the Capitol is using stock footage of District 13 in their newscasts.
Meanwhile, the Quarter Quell approaches. Every twenty-five years, the Capitol adds a new twist to the usual Hunger Games. For the 25th Hunger Games, the Districts were forced to elect their tributes. For the 50th Hunger Games - the Games Haymitch won - the Districts were forced to send twice the usual number of tributes. As Katniss and Peeta put on the act of preparing for their wedding - again for the benefit of the Capitol audience - Katniss learns, to her horror, that for the Third Quarter Quell, the Districts will be forced to select their tributes from the current pool of victors. As District 12 only has three victors - and only one female victor - this means that both Katniss and Peeta will have to return to the arena with Haymitch once again serving as their mentor.
Katniss privately decides that she will do everything she can to keep Peeta alive. Peeta, meanwhile, seems to have come to a similar decision, as he announces at one publicity event for the 75th Games that Katniss is pregnant, thereby igniting a storm of protest within the Capitol itself. Despite this turn of events, however, the Games proceed as planned. Once in the arena, Katniss and Peeta, per Haymitch's advice, team up with the tributes from District 4 - a twenty-four-year-old victor named Finnick and an elderly woman named Mags. In the night, this motley band is nearly killed by a poisonous fog; only Mags' willing sacrifice permits the other three to survive. At this point, they team up with the bitter Johanna Mason from District 7 and Beetee and Wiress, a clever couple from District 3 who have figured out that the arena is arranged like a clock with each wedge experiencing a particular deadly disaster at regular intervals. Katniss and the others use this knowledge to avoid both the poisonous fog and the ten o'clock tidal wave. After Wiress is killed, Beetee then comes up with a plan to electrocute the other tributes by harnessing the energy of the twelve o'clock lightning storm. In the last climactic moments, however, this plan seems to fall apart, and Katniss, who has figured out how to detect the arena's forcefield, fires an electrified arrow into the forcefield's weak spot in a final act of desperation. Explosions rock the arena, and Katniss loses consciousness.
When she comes to, she finds herself on a transport headed to District 13. It seems the rumors are true - some of the residents of District 13 did survive. She is joined by Beetee and Finnick, but Peeta and the others have been killed or captured by the Capitol. From her new friends, she learns that there was a conspiracy among the victors to break out of the arena all along -- and in the final paragraphs, she also learns from Gale that, while her family managed to get out in time, the rest of District 12 has been destroyed. A full-fledged war has begun.
Characterization: 10.0
The psychological insight Collins brings to her characterization is phenomenal. Katniss' personality and her arc - discussed further below - strike me as extraordinarily believable given the harshness of her upbringing. Also realistic are the ambivalent feelings that exist between Katniss and Gale and Katniss and Peeta; a hack teen writer might have tried to insert a little romance into the story by bringing one of these two couples together, but so far, Collins has wisely skirted this temptation. And by the way, demonstrations of Collins' skill in constructing emotionally credible characters are not limited to her depictions of the principals; we also see her talent manifested, for example, in her characterization of Haymitch Abernathy and the other victors from previous years. Haymitch spends much of his time drinking himself into a stupor in an attempt to banish his own memories of the arena. The others, meanwhile, have become addicted to narcotics - or they carry with them an air of sociopathy. Given what a tribute must do to survive the arena, all of these outcomes are eminently plausible.
Also impressive is the fact that Collins takes the time to invest even the Capitol representatives with their own humanity. Cinna, Katniss' chief stylist, is himself a rebel; in Catching Fire, he prepares Katniss for her pre-Quell interview by dressing her in a wedding gown that burns away on stage to reveal a mockingjay costume and is beaten by Peacekeepers for his trouble. Meanwhile, Octavia, Flavius, and Venia - Katniss' beauticians - at first come across as silly little wastrels -- yet when they must prepare Katniss to enter the arena for a second time, their grief seems entirely genuine. Lastly, we have Plutarch, the game master who in Catching Fire attempts to warn Katniss about the design of the 75th arena by showing her his watch. President Snow, is, of course, pure evil in every way, but on the whole, the hated Capitol is not presented as monolithic. The portrayal is instead mature and nuanced.
Plot/Pacing: 9.5
Though the plotting of Catching Fire is weakened a bit by unnecessary recapping of the events of the first novel, both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire are gripping and suspenseful works punctuated by moments that pack a real wallop. Rue's death and Katniss' reaction, for instance, are gorgeously rendered; the following lines in particular destroy me with their simple beauty:
Another mockingjay, a young one by the look of it, lands on a branch before me and bursts out in Rue's melody. My song, the hovercraft, were too unfamiliar for this novice to pick up, but it has mastered her handful of notes. The ones that mean she's safe.
"Good and safe," I say as I pass under its branch. "We don't have to worry about her now." Good and safe. (The Hunger Games, p. 237-238)
If that doesn't choke you up at least a little, you have no soul.
Concepts/Themes: 9.5
Collins has cited two primary sources of inspiration for this fantastic series: the Greek myth of Theseus, in which the citizens of Athens are forced to send their youth to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur, and our own society's current obsession with both the Hollywood mystique and "reality" television. Indeed, the latter is certainly satirized with savage glee; in particular, Collins fires point-blank shots at both the Hollywood set's shallow preoccupation with fashion and dissipation and the manner in which reality show editors create storylines to hold the audience's interest - storylines that, in the end, are no more reflective of reality than an episode of "scripted" television.
But some of the images in these novels also evoke the Ancient Rome of popular imagination. For example, when Katniss and Peeta visit the Capitol on their Victory Tour, they attend a lavish feast in which the revelers willingly purge themselves in order to make room for more feasting (and by the way, take note of the character names as well, as they are extremely Roman in flavor):
"Why aren't you eating?" asks Octavia.
"I have been, but I can't hold another bite," I say. They all laugh as if that's the silliest thing they've ever heard.
"No one lets that stop them!" says Flavius. They lead us over to a table that holds tiny stemmed wineglasses filled with clear liquid. "Drink this!"
Peeta picks one up to take a sip and they lose it.
"Not here!" shrieks Octavia.
"You have to do it in there," says Venia, pointing to doors that lead to the toilets. "Or you'll get it all over the floor!"
Peeta looks at the glass again and puts it together. "You mean this will make me puke?"
My prep team laughs hysterically. "Of course, so you can keep eating," says Octavia. "I've been in there twice already. Everyone does it, or else how would you have any fun at a feast?" (Catching Fire, p. 79)
Also noteworthy is this series' Bread of Life symbolism; at various points in both novels, bread is used to represent hope, charity, unity, and the spirit of freedom. When Katniss was nearing twelve and almost dying of starvation, it was Peeta's offering of a loaf of bread that changed her fortunes (The Hunger Games, p. 30-32). After Rue dies in the Games, meanwhile, Katniss, to her surprise, receives a loaf of bread from District 11; as Katniss observes in her narration, this is the first time a tribute has received a gift from an opposing District. Katniss recognizes at once that the loaf is a tremendously sacrificial gesture of thanks for the gentle way in which Katniss cared for Rue before and after her death. Of course, while Katniss doesn't realize it at this point in the story, this simple loaf of bread is also the first indication that the people of the Districts are beginning to feel a sense of solidarity in opposition to the Capitol's cruel exploitation (The Hunger Games, p. 238-239). Finally - and most provocatively - bread is used by the refugees from District 8 as a token symbolizing their rebellion:
I turn, drawing back the arrow, although I know already that the odds are not in my favor. I see the white Peacekeeper uniform, the pointed chin, the light brown iris where my arrow will find a home. But the weapon is dropping to the ground and the unarmed woman is holding something out to me in her glvoed hand.
"Stop!" she cries.
I waver, unable to process this turn of events. Perhaps they have orders to bring me in alive so they can torture me into incriminating every person I ever knew. Yeah, good luck with that, I think. My fingers have all but decided to release the arrow when I see the object in the glove. It's a small white circle of flat bread. More of a cracker, really. Gray and soggy around the edges. But an image is clearly stamped on the center of it.
It's my mockingjay.
...
It makes no sense. My bird baked into bread. Unlike the stylish renderings I saw in the Capitol, this is definitely not a fashion statement. "What is it? What does it mean?" I ask harshly, still prepared to kill.
"It means we're on your side," says a tremulous voice behind me. (Catching Fire, p. 134-139)
I don't know if this is intentional or not, but based on the description given above, the rebels' bread seems to resemble a communion wafer.
As other reviewers have noted, though, this is also a magnificent coming-of-age story. As a destitute teen who has had to struggle all of her life to keep food on the table at home, Katniss initially has a lot of trouble accepting that people are capable of being kind or selfless or moved by some higher principal than animal survival. Gale's often subversive grumblings alarm her, and Peeta's expressed desire to avoid being transformed by the brutality of the arena baffles her. She has been trained not to trust - to care only for the well being of her immediate family. She has, in essence, been stripped of much of her humanity - much of her soul - by the severity of the life which has been imposed on her. Over the course of these two novels, however, as Katniss and her mockingjay become symbols of the Districts' new revolution, Katniss gradually develops a sense of responsibility for the oppressed of Panem. She comes to understand that the stakes are far greater than whether she herself will live to see tomorrow; in fact, she even demonstrates a willingness to martyr herself for the Districts' cause. It is this evolution that constitutes this series' emotional core.
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