Been a While, Eh? (Hunger Games review)

Check out the date of the previous (and by that I mean first) post. Big gap, wouldn't you say? Like the space between the front teeth of Sara from CSI. Well, here's the deal. I came to the conclusion almost immediately after making the first post that I'm trying to write a book, and I don't really get a lot of time to do so. Therefore, the time that I can spend writing should probably go towards said book. Not expecting anyone to read this. I would like for people to read my book. Simple, utilitarian calculation. Write what more people will read. Not too complicated.

I'll admit, I don't know what brought me back to the blog. I think it's because I've been reading more, and I'd like the opportunity to review some of these books. I think it's also because I'm tired of writing my book, and I need something else to do for a little while. Any college student who has lived on a diet of Wheat Thins, raisins and ramen for months on end should be able to sympathize with my desire for a bit of variety.

Writers, inventors, engineers, artists: ever come up with a potentially great idea, only to find it staring at you from a bookshelf or YouTube video or museum wall? I was blessed with one such experience recently. I can't really complain - it was one of the best books I've read in a long, long time - but there's still a certain level of disappointment, a wish that you could have been born just a little bit earlier so that you could beat out this other creative person. But no matter. The joy from the experience of reading this book far outweighed my disappointment that someone else had brought my idea to life in a manner far superior to anything I could hope to accomplish right now.

What I discovered was a book entitled The Hunger Games. By "discovered", of course, I mean it was recommended to me by a friend. I don't exactly get a lot of reading time these days, so when someone recommends a book to me, I can be hesitant, as my pile of "to be read" books is quickly ascending. But the individual in question is one whom I trust very greatly in matters of creativity - he's the Gandalf to my Frodo, in that regard, the Obi-Wan to my Luke - so when he said that it was probably the best thing he's read since Harry Potter, I had to listen. "Use the force, Luke"? Try, "Read this book, Camel."

And man, I'm glad I did.

The Hunger Games (by Suzanne Collins, 2008) is told in 1st-person, which has always been hit-or-miss for me. It stars Katniss Everdeen (as good a name as I've ever heard), a 16-year-old girl whose no-nonsense attitude shapes the narrative into an easy-to-follow adventure full of far more turns than I expected. It's young-adult fiction; however, its subject matter is anything but adolescent. It's set in a country called Panem, which is made up of twelve districts controlled by the Capitol, an overbearing, oppressive entity that keeps each of the districts separate from each other with all manner of strict guidelines because the districts rebelled a long time ago. There were 13 then. When the Capitol quelled the rebellion, District 13 was completely destroyed, as an example to the others ("Who's unlucky now?" I can hear the president - played by Ah-nold - quip as he punches the button with the label "FIRE ZE MISSLES"). But since that apparently wasn't enough, the Capitol created the Hunger Games, an annual event in which a boy and a girl (between 12-18 years old) are randomly picked from each district and thrown into a massive arena. There, the 24 teens fight to the death until only one remains. The Games are televised, and all of the districts are required to watch as their children slaughter each other. As an added dig, the districts have to treat the Hunger Games like a celebration. I don't know about you, but watching my 12-year-old son get impaled by some 18-year-old punk from another district doesn't sound like a moment worth celebrating.

I have to commend Suzanne Collins for even believing that such subject matter would make for good young-adult fiction in the first place. It's a hard, dismal book, and you wouldn't expect there to be much love. You wouldn't expect Katniss to show much tenderness, and you wouldn't expect there to be many twists and turns once the 24 "tributes", as they are called, enter the arena. You would, of course, be wrong. I don't know if I'd call myself sentimental when it comes to stories - I cried in Cast Away when Tom Hanks lost Wilson, but I consider that to be a fluke, a momentary flash of weakness on my part brought about by the raging hormones of my adolescence - but one particular moment of The Hunger Games caught me off-guard - during a break at work, for goodness' sake! - and brought tears to my eyes. Collins' writing, her style as much as her subject matter, is what caught me. I can honestly say that I don't recall how things were worded, whether or not she used lots of adverbs or prepositional phrases or whatever, because the way she wrote was truly enchanting. Truly. It flowed so well and spent just enough time on each detail that for the entire book I felt as though I was imaging the scenes, not reading them. And since it was in 1st-person, I felt like it became my story. It was about me. Nevermind the fact that Katniss is a girl, and I am not (the knowledge that my brain so easily imagined itself as female is a bit unsettling, but I'll let it slide for now). When someone nearby talked to me, or one of the cats (particularly Jasmine, the 18-lb Thundercat) jumped into my lap, it was as though I was being shaken from an out-of-body experience. The effect was jarring; I haven't felt so heartbroken to leave a fictional world since last I read the Harry Potter series, which was a while ago now.

I loved every second of it.

The narrative is simple; some may come out of a scene saying "wait i want to hear more about this detail or this person or this setting piece!" I did, too, until some little light turned on in the empty cavern reserved for my brain, and a tiny voice, like that of the red alien from Space Jam (pre-NBA powers, naturally) told me that that was the point. "Use your imagination!" it squeaked. Then a deeper voice told me to just wait for the movie (2011, woohoo!). Red-alien-voice said, "That's what you said about The Golden Compass!"

Touche.

Point being, if you want to exercise your imagination, read this book. It gives you the outlines and the paint. You just have to color in the lines.

I just picked up the second in the trilogy. The bad news? Book 3 won't come out 'til August, 2010. I may be in trouble.

As a completely unnecessary sidenote, I couldn't help but laugh every time District 9 was mentioned. I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it. I kept imagining that the two teens from District 9 looked suspiciously like the crawfish aliens from the movie of the same name, and that they would be lured into a trap by a well-placed can of cat food, only to be blown apart by a strange lightning-gun. Call me immature and ridiculous. You'd be precisely correct.