Catching Fire

I'm reading Catching Fire now, and continue to ruminate on Suzanne Collins' choices.

How is this dystopia like and dislike from our society.

The fence around nature. I guess I'm in America that has a lot of public parks, but I feel like you can't put a fence around all of nature, and I guess that's the point. 

Katniss (named after a tuber you can eat) is a reserved woman who is a shrewd hunter. She is guarded, protective, caring for others. She marshalls her resources, is strategic. She imagines that a romance story will save the life of Peeta and draw the most support in the game of life and death where patronage can be the difference between life and death. So now she is trapped in this lie, and needs to perpetuate it. 

This is how teens feel, to play the game of life. Really all humans.

Does society need this blood sport, the blood letting, to curb the rebellious spirit? You'll have to answer that question yourself.

North America is split up into districts. Peeta doesn't want to be left out of crucial information, but nobody informs anyone, there are lots of surprises.

Fiction is made up, right? Well, the people of Myanmar are holding up the District 11 salute to protest the coup that went down there, because the military got insecure.

I can't find the clip but I have this vivid memory of someone in the press asking Jennifer what it was like getting dressed, and having makeup put on for the Oscars, and she was either in character, or oblivious to the parallel with her role getting dressed in the Hunger Games. 

In a way Katniss as a heroine is demystified. She doesn't think she can do it, doesn't have conviction, doesn't feel she is a leader. She is human and does not aspire to more.

Hunger is the interesting pivot to contrast the poor and the rich in capital city. And what is more basic than hunger and feeling stuffed. I was waiting for them to vomit so they could eat again and indeed they did. Hunger is a feeling we've all had even if it's just a missed meal. It's visceral.  

In a way, if it really worked, that the blood letting of two individuals from the 12 districts, and one survivor would cure the blood lust of humans, then it would be worth it. But, of course it's covering up a corrupt repressive regime. 

"May the odds ever be in your favor," is a fatuous slogan because the odds are stacked against them. Cinna sees through that in the movie, that simplifies and makes things a little easier to see in black and white. In the games, the outcome is one survivor. So the odds are stupidly against you. What can you do to change the odds?

Katniss is sexless perhaps because it's a YA novel, or because she's focused on surviving. Or maybe they are connected to her deepest feelings and can't be manipulated. But they can be changed by circumstances. When she kissed Peeta near the end of book 2 she feels it deeply. But that is because they are both fighting for the other to survive. It's the virtue of selflessness. They are both willing to sacrifice for each other. It is the greatest generosity, to give up one's life. It is through selflessness that we express our love. Katniss is not unfaithful to Gale to appreciate the love in front of her. This is the cruelty of life. Love isn't something we can control. Not the deepest kind, not the true kind. These are the kind of conclusions hormone raging teens love to come to. Ditto for adults. The meaning comes in waves, like the wave that is sent to kill the tributes.

I get absorbed in books, and before I was absorbed in this book, I was absorbed in a book on Emerson about before that about Margaret Fuller. It was history, literary history, explorations of a life, friendships and many interesting things. And when it's done there is a void. I can still contemplate the book after I've read it, but it's the act of reading it that creates the most meaning. When I'm done there is void, what to read next. 

Motivating people who know they are going to die soon is tricky. We're all going to die, but we hide that knowledge from ourselves. Somehow Hamish had created a web of connections that help keep Katniss and Peeta alive. And they are both living to sacrifice themselves for each other, their future potential children.