Review: Catching Fire

"Remember who the enemy is"

Having read the entire trilogy, I went into the Hunger Games with much anticipation and was greatly disappointed.  That said, I really didn't expect much form Catching Fire. When we last left Katniss Everdeen, she was reeling from surviving the 74th Hunger Games with her district partner Peeta Mellark.  To survive the games, Katniss had to kill people she didn't want to in self defense, watch as those she cared about were murdered, pretend to love Peta and finally, threaten suicide.

It is now time for the victory tour and Katniss is about to learn that her actions of self defense have consequences when she is visited by President Snow. It seems that the people have come to see her as a leader of resistance and to forestall an uprising, Snow makes it clear that Katniss must make people believe that she was not acting in defiance of the Capitol but desperately in love.  If Katniss is not able to pull this off, Snow warns that her entire family will be killed.

Katniss along with Peta and Haymitch Abernathy head off on a victory tour and though Katniss tries to play the role of love struck teen, District 11 honors her with by making the symbol of resistance after she eloquently eulogizes Rue and Thresh.  Everywhere Katniss looks, she now sees opens signs of rebellion in graffiti. Her world spins out of control when it announced that for the 75th Hunger Games, the district wants the victorious previous tributes to once again enter the arena and fight to the death.

Unlike its predecessor, Catching Fire spends more time giving us background on the characters.  We get a greater sense of the excess of the Capitol through things like forcing oneself to be sick to sample more food, even as residents of the districts are forced to hunt for extra food. It is worth mentioning that having Gale beaten for poaching as he was in the books, instead of standing up for an old woman would have better underscored this point. I further missed the more detailed discussion of the black market and barter culture which provides subsistence for District 12. Class and authoritarian government are two of the central plots in this series and Catching Fire portrays this well. One of the primary themes is how difficult it is for the government to use spin i.e. propaganda to control a populace in an authoritarian regime and just how easy it is for one small act of rebellion to inspire hope.  Once hope has been created, it cannot be extinguished.

Catching Fire (Hunger Games '#2) by Suzanne Collins

Since the film has been released we thought this would be a good chance to repost our review of the book to refresh memories and draw comparisons.

Catching Fire is the second book in The Hunger Games Trilogy. When we last left Katniss, the protagonist, she had been declared the winner of The Hunger Games along with Peeta, the other contestant of district 12. This win came at a great personal cost to her and was further complicated by the fact that on the return trip, she had to tell Peeta that she was unsure of her feelings for him.

Upon returning to district 12, Katniss settles into her new life. For the first time in her life she has the money not to have to worry about feeding her family; however, life in district 12 remains the same for everyone else. Her best friend Gale, now has to work 12 hours a day in the mines and so fills her time hunting for food to feed his family. For all that she gained being declared a winner, Katniss lost the closeness with Gale, a relationship that meant the world to her for five years. It turns out that having watched all of those tender kisses in the arena, Gale decided to declare his feelings for her with a kiss.

Katniss’ life quickly becomes even more complicated when she is visited by President Snow before starting on the victory tour with Peeta. He tells her that she become a symbol throughout the country thanks to her treatment of Rue and the fact that she threatened to commit suicide rather than engage in a battle to the death with Peeta. Snow tells her that the unity of the country is at stake, and on this tour she must convince the populace that her actions stemmed from being a silly girl caught up in love, rather than a desire to flout the power of the government.

For Katniss, it feels as though the very fate of Panem and the people that she loves rests upon her shoulders. She was only trying to survive and never meant to become a symbol to anyone. On the tour Peeta and Katniss agree to be friends and understand that for better or worse they are in this together. When they arrive at District 11 the home of Rue, Katniss thanks them for their gift and a man responds by whistling the very same tune that Rue whistled during the game. The crowd follows by saluting Katniss with the same salute she gave Rue before leaving her dead body. The government responds by shooting the man dead in front of Peeta and Katniss. As the violence increases Peeta proposes to Katniss in the hopes of having people believe the cover story of a couple in love but it is all for naught.

When Katniss returns to district 12 she meets two women who have escaped their district because of the violence due to open rebellion. They tell her that they are headed to District 13. Katiss is shocked because the government claims to have destroyed that district but the women claim that it is ruse and that in actuality the government reached a statement with District 13 because of their possession of nuclear weapons. Katniss begins to think of taking those she loves and escaping before things can get out of hand. Both Gale and Peeta agree to go with her but before she can actually formulate a plan to leave the government announces the quarter quell - a Hunger Game in which all former victors must participate in a special lottery and once again enter the ring.

The Hunger Games Makes The Top Ten Challenged Books in 2011

I don't know about you, but I have never understood the desire to burn or ban a book.  If you don't agree with the premiss of a story, the simple answer is don't read it.  The idea that free individuals in a so-called free society should not have the ability to choose their reading material is ridiculous. If it's a case of parental concern, it's a simple matter of keeping track of what your child is reading, rather than censoring it for everyone else. This makes to much sense for the small minded book banners of the world to consider however.

"The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) received 326 reports regarding attempts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves. The Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2011 include the following titles; each title is followed by the reasons given for challenging the book:" 


1) ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
2) The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
Nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

3) The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
Anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence

4) My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
Nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
5) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
6) Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint
7) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit
8) What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
Nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit
9) Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
Drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit
10) To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Offensive language; racism

Seeing the list of complaints against The Hunger Games Trilogy makes me wonder if these people have ever actually read the book.  Katniss volunteers to enter the games so that her sister does not have to.  She and Gale both apply for tesserae - an extra allotment of food for their families, even though they both know that by doing so, they exponentially increase their chances of being picked as a tribute from district 12.  After the death of her father, Katniss learned to hunt to support her family.  The majority of her motivation in this book revolves around her mother and her sister and yet somehow The Hunger Games is anti-family?

Faceoff: Twilight Versus The Hunger Games

Twilight

Protagonist: Bella Swan is the center of the Twilight universe and a more bland protagonist you could not find in any other series.  It probably does not help that the role is played by Kristen Stewart whose version of acting involves rolling her eyes, stuttering and biting her bottom lip to convey the appropriate amount of angst.  Bella essentially has no personality and all you really need to know about her is that she is desperately in love with Edward.   She is so in love with Edward that when he temporarily ends their relationship she takes to her bed like all good wilting flowers are wont to do in moments of crises.

The only time she acts against Edward’s wishes is when she decides to carry the White saviour baby to term.  She does not even pause to consider what giving up her life at the age of 18 to become a vampire means, but hey when it comes to the child, why have any doubt at all.  This is after all a classic Mormon love story. John Smith would be so proud.


World Setting: The story is set in dreary Forks.  Bella moves there after her mother goes on the road with her baseball boyfriend.  Little does she know that Forks is the ideal location for vampires because even the sun does not like the small town enough to shine on a regular basis. This means that Edward does not have to worry about sparkling in public.  [Note: I still have not forgiven Meyer for creating a sparkling vampire, and I don’t care that she blamed it on his venom]

Main Plot Theme:  The entire saga is essential a love triangle with Edward the stalking, controlling vampire vying against Jacob the werewolf who believes that the word no really means try harder.  

Conflict:  What conflict?  I suppose you could count the overly emo Edward who is convinced that he is evil.  

Inclusion/treatment of marginalised issues:  Twilight does have a disabled character and his name is Billy Black.  He is Charlie’s drinking buddy and instrumental in teaching the young werewolves how to deal with their change.  The werewolves in question are from the The Quileute tribe.  It would seem on the face of it that this is good inclusion; however, the Quileute people have no legends that match the one featured in Meyer’s book and so it amounts to pure fiction and appropriation.  It is further troubling that next to the whitesome and delightsome Cullens, they are poor and often constructed as savage.  

Review of The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games is expected to be the biggest block buster of the year.The movie is based on the novel by the same name, written by Suzanne Collins.  It's directed by Gary Ross and stars, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth. Other notables include, Amandla Stenberg, Lenny Kravitz, Donald Sutherland and Woody Harrelson.

The Hunger Games is set in a post apocalyptic North America, which has been divided into 13 sectors.  Each year, 24 tributes - 12 boys, and 12 girls are sent to fight to the death in the arena.  This is retribution for an uprising that occurred 74 years ago, and is supposedly meant to remind them of the horrors of war. When Katniss' sister Primrose is chosen, Katniss volunteers in her staid. Also chosen from district 12 is Peeta, the son of a baker.  Katniss and Peeta come from sector 12, which is a poor mining district.

They are provided with Haymitch, the only tribute ever to win from district 12 to train them.  Peeta understands immediately, that part of surviving is playing the game and being as likable as possible, while Katniss is only focused on the mechanics. Haymitch at first doesn't not seem very concerned with their well being and is only interested in getting drunk.

The capitol is very rich in comparison to the district. They have the latest in technology and the people seem to have time to groom themselves ridiculously. Katniss and Peeta prepare for the games, firm in the knowledge that only one of them will live, as there can only be one winner.  In the preparations, Katniss is stiff and it is only through the help of Cinna, the designer played by Lenny Kravitz that she manages to catch the crowds attention.

The novel is told entirely from Katniss' point of view, but the movie seems to tell the story without any introspection at all.  This gives the viewer no real reason to invest in Katniss or want her to win.  We know that she hunts for food, but we don't get any real sense of how hard her struggle is.  There is no background information on her relationship with Gale, and he could easily be her cousin, boyfriend or friend.  If I had not read the book, I would not have had any idea what their relationship was about.

Face Off: Tessa Vs Katniss

Face Off is a new weekly feature which will appear on Mondays. We intend to compare and contrast two characters. Sometimes, these characters will be examples of how not to do it and how to do it right. Sometimes, they’ll both examples of how very wrong you can be. Occasionally, they’ll both be awesome -  sometimes they’ve been randomly linked elsewhere.

This week, we’re looking at Katniss from the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins vs Tessa from the Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare, which have been linked in the Heroine Torment. It's worth mentioning that when you have a count down clock for the next book in the infernal devices series, whatever competition you are running can hardly be said to be unbiased.

One of the advantages of this Face Off, is that the site itself presents the strengths of each character.

Personally, one thing I’m not going to rate is the relative combat abilities of each character. One trope I think literature in general and Urban Fantasy in particular needs to realize, is that a strong female character isn’t defined by the number of martial arts she has mastered, the heat of the fireballs she can throw out of her ass, or the size of the gun she can shoot.  The very fact that we have to equate strength with the ability to be violent is extremely limiting, simply because it is one dimensional.   A truly great protagonist is one that is complex and examines the world around her, rather than letting events simply happen to her and then reacting. So, though Katniss could certainly kill Tessa several times over, we will put it aside.

So let’s look at who these characters are.

Katniss

Katniss is born to extreme adversity, having to risk her life to feed her family from a young age and living in severe poverty and oppression. She volunteered to participate in the Hunger Games to replace her younger sister, where she fought desperately to survive and then to keep Peeta alive as well. Despite having so little hope, she defied the capital and ensured both she and Peeta lived. Her act of defiance became iconic and she became the symbol of resistance, through all of the oppressed districts and  integral in the propaganda war against the Capital. Despite this, she recognised the oppression of her captors, kept her humanity, kept her ideal on moral lines that must not be crossed and, in the end, having lost nearly everything, she put an arrow through her own leader’s heart. I think it is important to note that for Katniss not becoming the oppressor even as she fought for freedom was absolutely imperative.

Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins Book 3 of the Hunger Games

Katniss has been rescued by the rebels and she is on her way to the now infamous District 13.  She has arrived with several other winners of the games, but unfortunately because they were separated, Peeta has been left behind. Katniss learns that her role in the rebellion is to be the Mockingjay - the symbol of the rebellion.  She is initially reluctant to take on this role until she is offered the opportunity to kill President Snow.

Though her heart is willing, they quickly realise that Katniss is not good at creating canned propaganda for the masses, and so she is forced to go to the front to take live action shots.  Once there, she visits a hospital containing non combatants and learns first hand that the people do in fact see her as a hero.  They strain to touch her, or even just catch a glimpse of her as she makes her rounds.

Through it all, Katniss must figure out whether or not she is destined to be with Gale, her childhood friend, who has come to take on the attitude that to win a revolution, one must think like the enemy, or Peeta, who has had his memories of her stripped and now believes that she is an enemy agent.  If that were not enough Coin, the leader of District 13 does not feel that she has Katniss’ support and has determined that Katniss has served her purpose and can now be eliminated.

The overriding theme in this book is the cost of a revolution.  There can be no doubt that the conditions under the capitol rule were absolutely atrocious; however, in their desire to over throw the capitol, few gave active thought to the kind of government that  would replace capitol rule. This is something we see time and again with revolution and also something that is so rarely examined. How many books or films end with the revolution winning, as if that’s the end of the story? What comes next? How does it happen? A peaceful, just government doesn’t just happen and revolution alone doesn’t guarantee that the new regime will be any more palatable than the old. It’s extremely rare and very encouraging to see this portrayed here - when there are countless examples in our own history of revolutions that replaced the old regime with one that was nearly as bad - and sometimes worse. In this book, we perfectly saw this example - a power hunger revolutionary leader using whatever means necessary to claim power and, in the end, she was indistinguishable from the regime she was replacing.

This descent was sealed by President Coin pushing for one last Hunger Games - only this time it would be the Capital’s children being murdered. The oppression is the same, only the victims were different - here’s the new boss, same as the old boss.

If the survivors of the destruction of District 12 had paid attention they would have seen that the restrictions in place in District 13 mirrored in many ways the same authoritarianism of the capitol.  The leadership was quick to torture people from the capitol and was so strict they issued punishments for daring to leave the cafeteria with unfinished food.  Each person was issued a scheduled which was imprinted on the arm on a daily basis that they were expected to follow. The fact that failure to follow routine was punished with physical pain and that their lives were every bit as regimented under the rule of Coin, should have screamed a warning to the rebels.

This is why one must consider the cost of winning and the deep flaw of the “ends justify the means” thinking. Gale was more than willing to take on the tactics of the capitol no matter who, or how many lost their lives. This can clearly be seen in the liberation of District 2.  While District 2 was definitely favoured by the capitol, the fact that they still were not free was quickly forgotten when the goal became the elimination of the Capitol’s source of weapons. By any means necessary at times has a place in war, but unless one is cognizant of the fact that this approach leaves little separation between the forces of oppression and the so-called freedom fighters, there is a substantial risk of becoming what you despise. In the approach to the liberation of District 2, Gale did not see human beings and that is exactly the way that the capitol viewed residents of the districts.  It is Katniss who sees the horror of his proposal and she realises that something in him has been broken. If we were left in any doubt about the growing similarity of the rebels and the Capitol, it was shown when Katniss didn’t know who it was who set the bombs that killed the children. The worst tactics of the rebels and the worst tactics of the oppressor had become indistinguishable.

Review: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Book 2 of the Hunger Games

Catching Fire is the second book in The Hunger Games Trilogy. When we last left Katniss, the protagonist, she had been declared the winner of The Hunger Games along with Peeta, the other contestant of district 12. This win came at a great personal cost to her and was further complicated by the fact that on the return trip, she had to tell Peeta that she was unsure of her feelings for him.

Upon returning to district 12, Katniss settles into her new life. For the first time in her life she has the money not to have to worry about feeding her family; however, life in district 12 remains the same for everyone else. Her best friend Gale, now has to work 12 hours a day in the mines and so fills her time hunting for food to feed his family. For all that she gained being declared a winner, Katniss lost the closeness with Gale, a relationship that meant the world to her for five years. It turns out that having watched all of those tender kisses in the arena, Gale decided to declare his feelings for her with a kiss.

Katniss’ life quickly becomes even more complicated when she is visited by President Snow before starting on the victory tour with Peeta. He tells her that she become a symbol throughout the country thanks to her treatment of Rue and the fact that she threatened to commit suicide rather than engage in a battle to the death with Peeta. Snow tells her that the unity of the country is at stake, and on this tour she must convince the populace that her actions stemmed from being a silly girl caught up in love, rather than a desire to flout the power of the government.

For Katniss, it feels as though the very fate of Panem and the people that she loves rests upon her shoulders. She was only trying to survive and never meant to become a symbol to anyone. On the tour Peeta and Katniss agree to be friends and understand that for better or worse they are in this together. When they arrive at District 11 the home of Rue, Katniss thanks them for their gift and a man responds by whistling the very same tune that Rue whistled during the game. The crowd follows by saluting Katniss with the same salute she gave Rue before leaving her dead body. The government responds by shooting the man dead in front of Peeta and Katniss. As the violence increases Peeta proposes to Katniss in the hopes of having people believe the cover story of a couple in love but it is all for naught.

When Katniss returns to district 12 she meets two women who have escaped their district because of the violence due to open rebellion. They tell her that they are headed to District 13. Katiss is shocked because the government claims to have destroyed that district but the women claim that it is ruse and that in actuality the government reached a statement with District 13 because of their possession of nuclear weapons. Katniss begins to think of taking those she loves and escaping before things can get out of hand. Both Gale and Peeta agree to go with her but before she can actually formulate a plan to leave the government announces the quarter quell - a Hunger Game in which all former victors must participate in a special lottery and once again enter the ring.

There were many of the same themes present in Catching the Fire as there were in The Hunger Games. Many of the themes of oppression and classism are similar to what we saw in book 1 - and don’t really need repeating exactly but they are extremely well done and continue to be writ large.

But one of the new themes we started to see was hopelessness and inevitability. Especially in relation to oppression. Here Katniss has won the game. She is supposed to be as privileged as it is possible for a member of the districts to be. for the first time she doesn’t have to struggle to eat, for the first time she doesn’t have to fight to survive. She knows her sister is as safe as it’s possible to be and her mother has the resources to run the business she’s always wanted. Yet despite this, she’s still not safe. She has the constant pressure of the President’s threat looming over her, all her stability is an illusions, subject to being revoked on a whim. Her safety was an illusion - and one that inevitably lead her again back to the Games. And not just her, but the other Victors who, themselves, seemed to be the peak of their societies - none of them were safe.

Similar to that, we see the change of control in district 12. The people of district 12 had a comfortable rut - it was hard, people were oppressed and people starved, but compared to district 11 they were relatively comfortable. But that all changes this book with a new, more brutal, more sadistic overseer who enforces the rules brutally. Again, that safety, that comfort they had is illusory. It can be removed at any time and it shows oppressed groups, especially under an authoritarian regime, can never really be safe and can never relax or take their security for granted.

And that safety was universally illusory. While the districts are the most obviously threatened, even Cinna, a respected capital native and the former head of the games were both killed at the whim of President Snow. If there’s one thing this book made clear it is that no-one is safe and in an authoritarian society, conformity is a necessity.

We’re also introduced to a topic that is developed in the next book - the power of a symbol, a symbol of hope. It also shows how dangerous a symbol, an idea is to an authoritarian government - how hard it is to truly quash an idea or symbol. In a way it is reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984 where Newspeak was created to destroy the very language of defiance because so long as people can think it, there’s no way to truly quash it. And so we see here the power of that symbol, of the Mockingjay, inspiring people in all these districts based on nothing more than a handful of berries. And, in turn it shows the measures the authority has to go to to try to oppress it.

Looking at that system, we also see a point that you cannot win in a system that is rigged for you to lose. Katniss won the Hunger Games but still lives with the threat over her life. Gale works 12 hours every day in the mines to feed his family - but still needs hunting to supplement their diet. even doing everything they can, everything they should do, they still can’t win.

And, perhaps most poignant in this series, we are faced with the inevitable truth about revolution - people are going to die. Always. There will be losses and there will be sacrifices and there will be people killed unjustly. Just like the last book, we see more people die and the losses that stain this series continue - there is always a cost.

This series continues to be great books that examine oppression and classism as well as revolution through a very stark and sometimes even painful lens. It’s an extremely powerful and impactful series that is gripping from the very first word.

Review of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

This series has been recommended to us several times, but to be honest, I was reluctant to read it because it is Sci-Fi and Y.A.  Technically, Fangs for the Fantasy is primarily focused on urban fantasy, and so I used that as my excuse to avoid this series.  After receiving what amounts to the umpteenth recommendation, I finally broke down to read this book, firm in the belief that it cold never live up to all the hype that it has received from the fangs community and the blogosphere.  Well folks, I was wrong.  This book was so amazing that I read it in one sitting, pausing only to eat and go to the bathroom.  It is a rare thing for any novel to captivate me this way, let alone a Y.A. novel.

The novel takes place in a future earth in a country called Panem, which essentially consists of what we would consider to be North America.  Panem is divided into 13 different districts, and a capitol which is ruled by an extremely authoritarian government.  Each year the Capitol, hosts a tournament called The Hunger Games, to punish the districts for an earlier rebellion.  Each district must surrender one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18.  They are placed into a special arena, where they not only must survive the elements, but each other. All contestants are drawn by lottery.

The two contestants chosen from district 12 Primrose Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. When Primrose is chosen, her sister Katniss cannot bear the idea of Primrose in the games, and she volunteers to go in her stead.  Katniss has been the main provider for her mother and her sister since her father's death in the mines.  Each year she puts more than one entry into The Hunger Games lottery, because it allows her family the necessary grain that they need to survive the year.  She supplements their food by hunting illegally, and trading the meat that her family does not consume for the basic necessities of life.  Peeta is the bakers son, and though he has never really truly known hunger, he has never known prosperity.  Life in district 12 is hard, and it is not uncommon for people to die of hunger, accidents in the mine, or disease.  Peeta is brought to Katniss' attention one day when he risks a beating to give her two loaves of bread to prevent her from starving.  Though she is grateful, she can never let go of the feeling of owing him.