Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games had been on my list for awhile, just because of its cultural significance--it seems to be the biggest thing in reading to come along since Harry Potter.  It is the biggest hit I can recall that has a female protagonist action hero, though those are becoming more common.  There's plenty of analysis out there for the series--with Mockingjay finished I now add my own small bit.

The series is a pretty trenchant critique of a current societal trend and its biggest side effect.  The societal trend is unequal economic opportunity, and the closely related symptom of blood sport.  Games for blood are as old as human society--the Roman gladiators being the most famous early example, but people have probably been paying to watch fights since long before any form of literacy existed.  And the contestants in these fights are always some form of oppressed group--the poor, prisoners and other powerless folk are the ones risking their lives, willingly, forcibly, or somewhere in between.

The modern twist on this is the female perspective, of course.  We have the uplifting message that women can be action heroes and win in combat--which means they end up being participants.  But what Suzanne Collins really brings out and properly emphasizes is the spectacle of it all.  One of Katniss' most important, and definitely most forthright, allies is her stylist.  What we end up with is Survivor for the highest stakes, complete with all the reality-tv tropes of elaborate massaging of the games to keep them competitive (the GameMaster is another very important character) and audience involvement.  In Mockingjay, though, Katniss goes beyond the arena and takes it to the streets.  Her leadership is figurative and her conscience is conflicted, but in the end she brings it all off.

A couple of issues, at least one being kind of minor and definitely un-PC:

1. For the 75th games, they brought back 24 former winners, two from each district, male and female.  With 12 districts participating (we don't know when 13 dropped out), that would mean there were at least 12 female winners.  That is a stretch, unpopular as it is to say.  I am in favor of women as combat soldiers, mostly because I harbor the belief that war is somehow less physical than it used to be, based more on stamina than raw hand-to-hand combat strength.  And teamwork is more important, where women excel.  But one-on-one, where strength or spatial ability is any factor--you'd be lucky to have one or two.  Women can compete, but in just about any sport the men separate themselves significantly at the top end.  That shapes relationships in ways that pretend equality ignores.
2. More importantly, while some find the ending to be a game-changer, I think it's a bit pat.  Katniss the conflicted hero takes out the scheming rebel leader who was looking only to be the evil President's replacement.  A decent human being gets elected instead.  It happens, but not without even more blood and tears than we see here, and that's the best case scenario.  Far more often in revolutions no heroes emerge at all.  For every Aung San Suu Kyi or Nelson Mandela, you have ten Nouri Al-Malikis or Thabo Mbekis.  Less often a Fidel Castro or Vladimir Lenin, who can lead and bring order but at a terrible price.  George Washingtons and Confucians are pretty rare.

It's easy to read more than is warranted into the series.  It's a powerful critique, but firmly rooted in the present, even though the themes are timeless.  The beauty of simple storytelling and well-represented emotions gives way to oversimplified solutions.  We see plenty of the simple banal evil of Coriolanus Snow.  Katniss is emotionally complex enough to see the way forward, but then hands off the resolution.  It's still a fine read, and a must if you want to be culturally literate.  Four stars.

Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire is the second in the Hunger Games trilogy.  Second novels are the tough ones in trilogies, since they do not have the natural advantage of either introducing or finishing a story.  They pretty much just need to move things along, and that's happening just fine here.  Panem goes from decadent to desperate in this one as the districts start uprisings.  Katniss is the unwitting and unwilling spark.  The Arena becomes even more high-stakes in the Quarter Quell, when all the past champions are pitted against each other. Something has to break here, and it does--at the end we have yet another uprising and the surviving tributes taking part in a revolution.  But Katniss is not in on the secrets and is unhappy at being used as we close.

We see potential for a shift here.  Will Katniss come around and be the symbol?  Will she cave and sell them out?  Or something else?  Something Else is always the most interesting choice, but we won't see that until volume 3.  No new message here yet, so I'll give this one four stars and let's move on.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

I tend to read highly popular books well after their initial appearance.  The title of this blog suggests why--it's pretty difficult to read a brand-new best seller for free without being some sort of pirate.  So it is with The Hunger Games--the movies have revived interest, but wait times are now going down.  Also the books are short, so that most anyone can finish them before they are due.

The other thing about reading such a popular item is that it's hard to add to the canon on it--popular guides, world expansions and scholarly deconstructions are all available in quantity.  But I am committed to adding my two cents' worth, so here goes...

The best highly influential works of fiction are both timeless--they state deep truths about human nature--and time-bound--giving a future reader insight into the time and society in which they are written.  Usually one or the other dominates, and the less-apparent aspect is unpacked in subsequent commentary.  I suggest that Rowling's Harry Potter series is more of a timeless work--a long retelling of the story of Jesus (a subset of  Campbell's Hero's Journey).  The Hunger Games is much more the latter.  While it's a very good action story on the surface (thus accessible as a YA novel, much like Harry Potter), it is also a very open critique of American society in the early 21st century and where Collins thinks it is going.

The story itself is as old as the Roman gladiators.  The protagonist, Katniss, is part of a group of youth (the Tributes) sacrificed for the entertainment of the Capitol, because they can.  And it's all done up with the trappings of professional sports and fashion.  Boxing was the popular modern equivalent blood sport--mixed martial arts and American football represent two contemporary directions.

What's new and interesting here, and what I think will be revealing for readers fifty years from now, is the emphasis on style and commercialism in the blood sport.  Collins presents the game arena as a future reality show--Survivor on steroids.  The mentor and former winner Haymitch spends much more time coaching his protégés on winning sponsors and story making than on fighting skills.

There's no point in avoiding spoilers at this remove.  Obviously Katniss survives to appear in the next two books in the trilogy.  I give it four stars--not five because it's so straight-on that it feels more like a news report than a novel, even though it's written in the first person.  If you are just coming to it now, try to imagine what your grandchildren will bring to it.