Okay, so maybe this is overdue because it seems like some of the rage of The Hunger Games has passed, but it has been on my mind lately. I am going on a trip next week and was taking suggestions on what books to read, eventually settling on The Help. I had a couple of people suggest The Hunger Games. I will be passing on that suggestion and I will not be seeing the movies, and this is why.
I don't have a problem reading about dystopian societies (no agency, forced perfection, etc.). I just finished reading Matched by Allie Condie and really enjoyed it. I have read The Giver by Lois Lowry a couple of times and have had a lot of reflective thought because of the things it described. These books, in an odd way, have given me a greater appreciation for freedom of choice and for the beauty that is found in imperfections.
When The Hunger Games was first so immensely popular, I took the time to read about the basic plot outline. It seemed pretty okay except for the whole main point- that the kids picked out from their community have to fight to the death to win The Hunger Games.
That one thing right there is why I won't read the books or see the movies when they come out. For me, it just takes it to a whole different level of disturbing. Childhood should be a time of blissful innocence- playing with friends, laughing, making sidewalk chalk pictures. There is enough competition in sports and school and other areas where talents can appropriately be expressed and encouraged.
I get that there is a chance in the hunger games to bring rewards to their community and family as the games go on, and I get that this is an extreme example of what happens when the government has too much control, but I just don't want the image or idea of children having to kill other children scratched in my brain.
All that being said, I don't begrudge anyone who has read and enjoyed the books! We each have our ideas and limits of what we can handle reading/seeing and no one's is necessarily better than the other. I'm just sayin' why I don't want to read them.
5 comments:
same goes for me. i'm not interested.
I agree completely.
You will want more than one book for an international flight. I went through 3 on our trip. The Help is a pretty quick read!
I respect your choice not to read the Hunger Games but at the same time, I think you should give the books a chance. There's more then meets the eye. The books, particularly the first book, draw interesting parallels to society today and not in the big government way either. The books are riveting. You mention children and the innocence of childhood but the children in the Hunger Games are not "children" in the traditional sense. Like so many children in the real world, these kids have never known side-walk chalk and blissful innocence. Their world is hunger, poverty, tyranny, fear, loss and grief. The Hunger Games is a series about what it means to be have courage and what it means to sacrifice for love and for liberty. The HG parallels so closely the recent events in the Middle East and WWII and classical Rome, it can really be looked at as a illustration of human civilization. I hope you will reconsider reading the HG. I don't think the lasting impressions will be of children killing children. I think the lasting impression will be the closer introspection of who you are as a person and who we are as a people.
Um . . . not to dissuade you from your opinion, but there is some missing context in the analogy. The society is a collection of 12 city-states, though Distict one actually has all the power over the others because of a war that was fought generations before. The hunger games are not sough after by the other 11 districts, but forced on them by the ruling district as a reminder about keeping in line, as a way to gain extra food rations, and as a way to exert the cruelest kind of power over others--through their children. The 11 districts are then required to WATCH edited portions of the Hunger Games at school as propaganda.
Maybe you totally knew this already, but what I read here makes it sound as though everybody is on board with this horrible level of reality programming. The game itself if the central part of the dystopia. The first in the series isn't just a great science fiction story, it is also a great coming of age story. The book is all about relationships being created and destroyed. The main girl is only in the hunger games because she volunteers to take her 12 year-old sister's place. Her life is monstrously re-shaped by her decision .. . .
Again, not trying to convince. Just provide some context. Let me know what you think of "The Help." It is on my to-do list for later in the year.
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