Will it scar your child’s psyche?
I hadn’t even heard of the book before the movie came out, but it sounds like the whole series might be a useful corrective against the increasing fascism in the country.
7 thoughts on “Hunger Games”
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I don’t know. Seems like the subtext might be that kids are forced to compete (in the marketplace of capitalism) by the MAN. Almost seems to ask, “can’t we just get along and help one another and share all our goods and property?”
It has the same subtext as Rorschach inkblot #25. That’s what makes it good.
The real problem is that it’s the same dystopian future the media’s been pushing for 20+ years, with increasing intensity. “Life in the future will really suck, but we’ll all get to wear cool grungy post-apocalyptic clothing, so it’s all good.”
Book reviews you can use:
To quote my second son (age 12). “The first book was cool, but the later ones were just a bunch of whine whine whine.”
From my first son (age 14) “LOTS better than those stupid sparkling vampires!” They second boy piped back up “Would you like some cheese with that wine”
No I haven’t read them yet. I suppose I will this summer.
Good writing (and, in the movie, directing and acting), unlikely to scar the psyche of anyone with a double-digit age. And, yes, Katniss Everdeen is a much, much better role model than Bella Swan. I might even put her ahead of Hermione Granger.
But as for anti-fascism, I suspect it is not terribly useful on account of the tale’s fascists are too ridiculously over-the-top evil. By the start of the second book, they can literally be identified by the scent of fresh blood on their breath, which even most literary vampires manage to avoid.
If the message is, “Gosh, boys and girls, you ought to fight uncompromisingly against everyone who goes about carrying a giant neon sign saying ‘I am EEEEEEVIL!'”, that’s not going to help much in a world where actual evil people are really pretty good at disguising their nature and intentions. And if, seeing generic uncamoflaged evil on the page or the screen, you imagine the message others will take away is to be on guard against the specific political philosophies presently associated with Pure Evil(tm), it doen’t actually work that way.
Harry Potter at least had the Ministry of Magic as an example of lesser (and genuinely well-intentioned) evil masquerading as good. I know at least some younger readers picked up on that; not sure if enough did.
Well, the third book introduces the complexity that the rebels she joins are perhaps worse totalitarians than those she’s fighting, brutally enforcing strict egalitarianism instead of vast inequality. I’m hoping that lesson isn’t lost on the young readers.
At least it isn’t more “Twilight”.