This week at the Library: Hunger Games, Hunting, and Baseball

I started this year off by finishing The Hunger Games: its finale, Mockingjay, utterly consumed my attention. It's the story of revolution, a war against the oppressive Capitol which erupted in the course of the 75th Hunger Games, a teenage deathmatch used by the state to humble its constituent districts.  But somehow, forcing people to revel in the deaths of their children produced more than a spark of resistance, and in Mockingjay, war wages. But the war isn't between the evil Capitol and a shining city upon a hill: the rebellion and its leader have been hardened by decades of of war, and to them Katniss is a pawn to be used. Largely alone, Katniss has to overcome both the enemy and her 'allies'.

I've utterly enjoyed this series, though there were times in reading Mockingjay where I stopped reading, partially to  recover from the tensity and grimness, and partially to put off the ending: when engaged in a drama like this, who wants it to stop?  I can see this being a series I read again. They're action thrillers, essentially, with some character drama thrown in and a fair few brilliant one-liners, mostly from Katniss and her mentor Haymitch. The relationship angst is unobtrusive, and there's virtually no actual Romance, which almost never reads well -- at least, to me. I know there's a market for bedroom scenes on paper -- someone buys those bodrice-rippers in the supermarkers, and the 50 Shades of Grey books -- but I'm not of it.  The series will be a highlight, to be sure.

I also read another short baseball book, Michael Shaara's For the Love of the Game. I would wager that practically no one knows Shaara outside of his The Killer Angels novel, which covered the battle of Gettysburg, the movie of which spurred his son into becoming a historic novelist. For the Love is written in Shaara's style, right inside the character's head, with their scattered thoughts forming the text of the book. Stream-of-consciousness writing can be grating, but with Shaara I'm drawn in completely. Here, he tells the story of an aging baseball pitcher who has spent his life with one team, the Hawks, who has one last game to prove himself.  I'm not a sports fan, but I enjoyed it all the same.

This past week saw my first bit of nonfiction: Steven Rinelli's Meat Eater: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter.  I've never hunted in my life, unless you count wandering down the street with a slingshot and the naive ambition to see if I could hit some birds  with it -- and I invariably brought a book to read on my childhood fishing trips. But I'm mildly curious about both, and so enjoyed Rinelli's tales of hunting, trapping, and fishing. The book is entertaining in its novelty: I'm sure even seasoned hunters in my area have never hunted mountain lion (which Rinelli shyed away from, thinking it to be not enough of a challenge)  or pondered the taste of bear meat. According to him, bears taste like their diet, which is nice if you eat a blueberry-diner, but not altogether pleasant if you munch down on a beast that's been indulging in carrion. I had no idea people still trapped animals for fur: that kind of thing is straight out of the history books or Little House on the Prairie. But according to Rinelli, not only does a fur market exist, but it was rather healthy until the 1980s.  Rinelli covers not only the kind of hunting average sportsmen engage in, but the adventures most only dream of -- canoing and hiking far into the wilderness in pursuit of beasts few have laid eyes on. The adventures are complemented with reflections on outdoor life, in which Rinelli muses on the ethnics of trophy hunting, or what constitutes a 'challenge'.  For those interested in the lifestyle may find it, as I did, a vicarious jaunt into the wild.

Next week should see my first 'conventional' nonfiction reads for the year, as I'm halfway into Brian Fagan's The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300 - 1850 and anticipate getting into Home from Nowhere, shortly after that. Considering it's the sequel to The Geography of Nowhere, and concerns new urbanism, I may be so entirely distracted by it that I read it first.

It's a good bet.

Catching Fire

Catching Fire
© Suzanne Collins 2009
391 pages

 When Katniss Everdeen stepped foot into the arena of the 74th Hunger Games, she didn’t expect to leave alive,  let alone a victorious symbol of rebellion and hope against tyranny. She defied the odds and the rules, but she won all the same; there’s no business like show business. Now they want her back for more.
In Katniss’ world,  a depraved Capitol forces twelve subordinate districts of the nation to each send two of their young people to compete in gladiator games to the death. Perhaps the greatest comfort of having won the games is exemption from having to compete again…but when the 75th anniversary of the games’ being instituted rolls around, the powers that be decide to prove to their subjects that “even the mightiest” are no match for the power of the state. For the 75th games, the competitors will be drawn exclusively from the ranks from past victors…which is unfortunate for Katniss, because she’s the only female victor from her district. The leader of the Capitol, President Snow, sees Katniss as nothing but trouble…and as she prepares to fight for her life once again, she sees these games as a deliberate attempt to kill her without anyone being the wiser. Fortunately for Katniss, Capitol isn’t the only power with secret plans.

Though initially dismayed by the plot – Katniss having to survive the games again? – the games are a bigger story's  ignition point, bringing a sea of tension to a rolling boil, and matters get decidedly interesting. Even if the plot were a rehash of the first, it might still be worth reading. This year’s contestants aren’t all  teenagers: most of the victors were adults, slowed and damaged by the years, and some are addled or elderly. Katniss may be a prime target, but she’s also young and still wired for action from the last Hunger Games. Still, nothing goes as expected.

The Hunger Games trilogy continues to provide a fast, unpredictable, and thrilling read, with characters that fascinate. It suffers only mildly from being the bridge between The Hunger Games and Mockingjay. Character drama plays a larger role here, but it's not tiresome: Gale, Peeta, and Katniss have all put in their time as characters already, so they're allowed to fret over some romantic tension...but even so, they're all three bigger character than that, and each in turn swallows their stress and goes back to doing what needs to be done in the larger scheme of things -- resisting the Capitol.

I cannot wait for more.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games

© 2008 Suzanne Collins
 378 pages           

 Once every year,  two teenagers are chosen at random to represent their region in a nation-wide game….the Hunger Games. But they’re not competing in track and field or spiking volleyballs to earn metals:  they’re fighting to the death. And you thought high school sucked.

The Hunger Games is the first in a science-fiction trilogy set in a dystopia future wherein the United States is gone, replaced by a country known as Panem. Its central city, Capitol, is rich beyond measure, and rules with an iron hand twelve outlying districts, all impoverished. There used to be thirteen districts, but when it rebelled against the state the insurrection was brutally put down…and to ensure that no other district bucked the reins again, Panem instituted the Hunger Games, forcing two kids from every district to compete against one another, fighting one another until only one survives.

Katniss Everdeen is a voluntary contender in the games, fighting so that her young sister Primrose doesn’t have to. She is, in effect, taking a death sentence: the odds are long that she will prevail among the 24, because other, wealthier districts train their children for the yearly games and see them as a place to earn wealth and glory.  Katniss’ home, District 12, is a poor mining area: they see the games for what they are, the murder of children for the glorification of a malevolent state. But Katniss is up to Capitol's challenge. Orphaned by her father and functionally abandoned by her mother,  she shouldered the burden of  responsibility for herself and her sister, defying the laws to hunt secretly in the woods bordering her district and bringing home food for her family . It takes courage to live outside the law, but Katniss is determined to survive. That, and the survival skills she's learned pacing the woodlands in search of prey,  are her best hope.

The Hunger Games is not a happy story. It is brutal and intense, both in terms of action and the emotional turmoil readers joining Katniss will go through. The physical challenge is daunting enough:  Katniss is not only compelled to fight against 23 other teenagers abandoned in the woods, having to provide her own shelter and food, but the Capitol authorities, the “Gamemakers”, constantly imperil the contestants,  altering the weather and sending monsters to harry the tributes. The young people create alliances to survive, but temporary physical advantages carry their price: it’s a lot more difficult to kill a friend, and a lot easier to be killed by someone you regard as an ally.

Happy it isn't, but The Hunger Games proved more compelling than I expected it to be. Katniss is an indomitable central character, feisty and self-reliant. She never whines, and though she has vulnerabilities she doesn't waste time dwelling on them.Other characters, like the mysterious Rue and the brooding Peeta, prove able additions to the cast. She's easy to root for, even when forced to make difficult decisions. And happily for a teen novel, there's not a lot of dwelling on romance -- although it does factor in, and will become more important in the sequel.  

This is essentially a story about courageous young people in harrowing circumstances, attempting to survive not only 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune', but the Capitol's attempt to destroy their own sense of humanity. It's a fast, thrilling read, peopled by strong characters whose maturity gives the lie to the conflation of adolescence and silliness.