The Hunger Games - Political Statement

[Timothy]

Alf...I was talking about Stephen Coonts of Flight of the Intruder fame, not Dean Koontz.  Never read his stuff...

[Tyler Durden]

isn't the Twilight stuff/series all done with now?

So this is just the latest media to get turned from a book into a movie, a franchise really, as I suspect there will be at least one sequel, probably two.

They are out to make money off the tweens and teens, and the way to do it is with sequels.

[Timothy]

isn't the Twilight stuff/series all done with now?

There is one more of the Breaking Wind movies coming in December I think...I'm assuming that the devil spawn of the vampira chick will eat everybody!  My daughter is already drooling over the finale...

But, she has a date with her Dad for "The Hobbit" when it comes out in December as well!   

[alfsauve]

Okay, done with the book. 

Not terribly exciting.   I see how the tween and teen are all ga-ga over the love triangle, angle.

I've read the fly leaf in the two sequels and don't think I'll read those.   There's way too little action and way too much "thinking" going on.

Obviously, the "Capitals" have some fantastic technology and bio-technology.   Obviously, they've used propaganda, coercion, government mandated curriculum in schools and brutal totalitarian rule to keep control over the Districts.  And, obviously, they lie a lot.  A LOT.  District 13 lives, for example.  The reader is left drifting, plot wise, since nothing has to build on anything in the past.

There are all sorts of metaphors that can be seen in the book.   One could have a field day writing about what the "Capital" and "Districts" stand for.    Are the "Tributes" representative of the military's of the countries of the world and do "the games" represent wars?   Does this reflect what Stalin did in the 40's and 50's?   What's going on in Asia the past 50 years?

An okay diversion.   I will be able to use the imagery though in work to connect with the younger generation, so it was a worthwhile read from that standpoint.

 

[Solus]

Ok, for anyone interested, I found this review of The Hunger Games on Amazon.

There were over 5000 reviews and almost all gave the book 4 or 5 stars (out of 5), with 5 well ahead.

There were 168 1 star reviews and I selected one of them that I read.

The writer of this review is 17 and obviously intelligent and, even though his review is not typical for this book, he probably hit the nail on the head.  Here it is.

I'm seventeen, and everybody and their mother told me to read The Hunger Games, because "it's incredible!". I finally decided "Why not?", despite the fact that I have long given up on Young Adult novels. Sure, I've come across some good ones, but The Hunger Games is a prime example of why I don't shop in that section anymore.
For what was advertised to me as an "awesome, fast-paced adventure", I was bored out of my mind from start to finish. With every turn of the page, I thought it'd get better, thinking surely something interesting had to happen or else people wouldn't be so obsessed with it. Twilight should have taught me that people can go nuts over poorly executed literature, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt.
The book is poorly written, in the POV of the main character, Katniss. When I say "poorly written", I mean both in the construct and execution of plot and characters, AND the writing style (e.g., Lots of cliche ideas, like "it feels like I was just dreaming", and one line I remember reading was "the saltiness of the soup reminds me of my tears". I find that ridiculous, like some moping Emo-stereotype) And, because the story is in first-person, I (*spoilers*?) started the book KNOWING that she wasn't going to die (not to mention, two books follow). I didn't feel any danger for her and I didn't like her. While, admittedly, I like the CONCEPT of the book, I didn't enjoy anything about it while reading. The characters and plot are one-dimensional. It was painfully predictable. Cliche. Boring. Immature.

The sad thing is, I think teenagers like this book because it requires no thought--it has no sustenance by means of developed characters or intricate plot. If we want people my age to start reading, should we really settle for feeding them empty stories like this one?

[Sponsor]

[alfsauve]

Whomever that 17 year old is, Solus, they're so much more knowledgeable about literature than I ever was.

I started to skip over the heroin's ruminations a little and just get to the action.   

[Timothy]

Sounds like he has a bit of a literature background.  

Collins is a TV screenwriter and a published novelist so she can sell books.  I can't knock her for that but what she's writing isn't really literature any more than Danielle Steel or any number of hundreds of published novelists.

It's obvious that todays youth that read this drivel are not being taught real literary composition, structure, syntax, character and plot development or any of the basics that I (we) were taught forty years ago!  Sad....there is so much more to appreciate!

[Pathfinder]

Whomever that 17 year old is, Solus, they're so much more knowledgeable about literature than I ever was.

I started to skip over the heroin's ruminations a little and just get to the action.   

At 17 I was avidly reading Shakespeare and going to every production of his plays I could afford.

I also took my girlfriend at the time - who ended up going to Vassar BTW - to see Conrad's Lord Jim on the big screen. And by big screen, I mean the drive-in!! So, during the week, I went alone to see Lord Jim in a real theater, seeing as how I didn't see much of it at the drive-in. 

I also did my Senior report on Oscar Wilde, not knowing his - ahem - sexual proclivities. That proved interesting to report on for this little small town white-bread Midwestern kid, but his stuff is still a great read - Ballad of Reading Gaol, Importance of Being Ernest, and of course, The Picture of Dorian Grey.

[Solus]

I guess we should really just be thankful that the The Hunger Game books, like the Harry Potter books at least get kids interested in reading. 

[tombogan03884]

I guess we should really just be thankful that the The Hunger Game books, like the Harry Potter books at least get kids interested in reading. 

Even crap can serve a useful purpose.