Hunger is no game

LATE, AGAIN

I am not a leading edge culture consumer.  More often than not, I buy books used and see movies on DVD.  Still, the cultural noise will seep into our home, and movies based on popular books will interest our children.  Then, I have a choice to keep ignoring the hype or to investigate.  Movies can often be the 'carrot'  to entice reading: Sure, we'll go to the movie, AFTER you read the book.  That worked wonders for the Lord Of The Rings series.  But, not all movies are worth seeing, not all books worth reading.  There is help out there for those with the parental duty of culture content sifting.  

The Hunger Games movie coming out this month is The Next Big Thing.  As a natural pessimist, I have a soft spot in my heart (or head, some would say) for dystopian literature.  Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and 1984 all imperfectly gave glimpses into a future that much of modern society is living now.  Dystopian lit shows what happens when the utopians are in charge.  Hunger Games fits the genre: life in dystopia is either miserable or narcotically shallow for the vast majority, while the 'Brights' enjoy all the perks of running the machine of Government.  Still, Hunger Games languished on my 'list' until a couple of weeks ago when a good friend asked if I had read it yet.  That jump-started me and I procured the Hunger Games trilogy.  [I continue to buy printed books to stave off B&N's ultimate demise].  Aided by Suzanne Collins' terse style, simple language and just enough turns of plot to keep me interested, I finished Hunger Games in a few hours.  The next two will follow.

SMALL STORY, BIG QUESTIONS

The Greeks invented tragedy, Shakespeare perfected it, and Hunger Games is tragic as well.  The linchpin of the plot -- the "reaping" of two representatives from each of 12 Districts for a fight to the death -- is tragedy by definition.  In spite of a sometimes obvious plot and shallow characterization, Hunger Games is effective because Collins weaves into the tragedy themes that people in every generation must come to grips with: Can I trust?  Who is a reliable friend?  What is worth dying for?  Among all of humanity, does my life matter?  Of particular interest in our era:  Can anyone make a difference when the paths of life are tightly controlled by ever-present bureaucracy of governments?  Hunger Games also latches onto our fundamentally morbid curiosity: will Katniss - the central character - die?  If so, how?  If not, what will she have to do to survive?  Life and death are the ultimate drama.  

WHAT ARE YOU HUNGRY FOR?

Out of the significant themes in Hunger Games, this is what struck me:  The real hunger in Hunger Games is for human relationship.  Two of my most respected authors, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Natan Sharansky, record the effect of police states on human relationships, where trust is at a premium and most interactions with people go on at two levels: the public one lived for the consumption of the watching eyes; the hidden, private one furtively snatched at rare opportunities to meet that hunger for human companionship.  Hunger Games portrays this well.

As I read Hunger Games, it occurred to me that Katniss is a metaphor for a generation of young women struggling with love hunger.  The parallels are striking:

• A missing father 
• An overwhelmed mother 
• The need to be strong to protect herself and her family.
• Uncertainty with male relationships, what they should mean.
• Wanting to trust, but afraid to risk.

I have seen in myself and my sisters the impact of a missing father and that effect cascading and multiplying into the next generation.  While the forces that combine to fragment family relationships in Hunger Games are somewhat different than those in our society, the corroding effect is real all the same.

The significant choices by Katniss, with Gale, Rue, Peeta and others in the story come out of this tension between simply surviving, and feeding the hunger for love.  Katniss  has learned to wall herself off from others.  To survive.  Yet, the only time her existence has meaning is when she risks herself, her life, to invest in another person.  For love hunger is not satiated only be receiving love, but also by giving it.

As the "game" moves on, relationships end when a person literally outlives their usefulness.  This utilitarian view from a position of strength (I will let you live as long as you are useful), is contrasted with Katniss and her response to someone in need or her own position of vulnerability.  With her sister Prim, with Rue, with Peeta, Katniss makes choices to risk her own life for someone else.  We aren't told why.  Yet, the truth of a sacrificial 'greater love' shines through.  Yes, in some ways, people are stronger alone.  But, as Katniss continually discovers, they are less than human.  At the crucial finale of the competition, she prefers death to loneliness.  As the book concludes with an incomplete resolution, Katniss is being forced back into solitude by the ever-present mechanism of state and by her own confusion over who she is in the context of new relationships.

WHO SHOULD READ IT?

So, do I want my 13-year-old reading Hunger Games?  Not likely.  At least, not soon.  I would much rather her enjoy the real models she has of life in her own "village", and the understanding she has of real suffering the she knows is happening both close at hand and in distance lands, rather than embrace an adrenaline-enhancing teen thriller.  'Little Women' (Lousia May Alcott) or Jane Austen novels provide a better fictional path to understanding noble choices.  Katniss makes what seem to be right choices out of some unexplained instinct or momentary impulse, whereas older literature assumed a framework of right and wrong that formed the basis for decision-making, even if the choice to do right was supremely difficult.  

Does Hunger Games pass the 'noble, pure, praiseworthy' litmus test?  Well, no.  The gore is gratuitous, typical for our era.  Good is situational and faith absent.  That a young woman would be enamored with dazzling apparel when hours away from facing death seemed unreal.  Of course, I'm a man and there is a reason it is called the 'feminine mystique'.  Why then, would it be a good use of time for a mature teen or adult to read Hunger Games?  Simply because every few years, some cultural phenomenon becomes a significant part of many people's reality.  To be in the world means having some awareness of Harry Potter, The Matrix, Hunger Games.  I can rage against it, or make use of it.

Utilitarian aspect aside, there is no point in my denying that Hunger Games, like dystopian literature in general, is pleasurable for those gloomy souls among us who occasionally appreciate a tragic, melancholy tale.  Which is a round-about way of saying, I liked it.