Banned Book Week: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. ISBN: 9780439023481.

So about a year ago, this book was challenged by a parent in New Hampshire (link under the Banned image). The complaint being that her daughter, in 7th grade at the time, was having nightmares and the children were being exploited, having to fight each other to the death and all for "entertainment" purposes. First of all, congratulations on having a child who isn't desensitized and therefore had a proper response to this novel via nightmares.  Second, while the Hunger Games may have devolved into a form of entertainment for people in the Capital, and a couple of other Sectors, for the most part it was a very political method of keeping an oppressed population in line.

And while I agree that the slaughter, or even exploitation of, children for entertainment is despicable, sweeping it under the rug will not prevent it from happening or negate its existence. All that will do is create an atmosphere, or at least a bubble, of ignorance of the issue. Which, even though I disagree with this approach, is the right of a parent. Parents do have the right to allow their child(ren) to live in ignorance of certain issues up until that child reaches the age of 18... although most children over 13 have figured out how to get into whatever the hell they want to get into anyway and so by that age your only option is to keep them locked in the basement. I think that by 7th grade, children should be aware that bad things happen to young people and could potentially happen to them. I recognize that those are not comforting thoughts for a child, and really uncomfortable thoughts for a parent, but unfortunately we don't live in a world that is safe for everyone. So, even if you live in the suburbs of New Hampshire and your daughter hasn't been exposed to child on child murder/brutality or exploitation of children by adults, it might be best that she is aware that it does in fact happen in the world.

There are several reasons for this: it will allow her to form an opinion about it; it will allow you, the parent, to inform the opinion that she forms about it; addressing the fears causing the nightmare will be much more effective than ignoring or preventing those fears; and perhaps she will become impassioned by the idea of ensuring that the children of the world, our world, aren't subjected to the same fate as fictional children in a land faraway and once upon a time.

Let's be realistic. Raising our children with limited exposure to violence is still a privilege. If it is something that concerns you, as a parent, so much that you don't want your children reading about it -- in a safe and secure situation, nonetheless -- perhaps you can do more to tackle the real life problem rather than addressing its fictional counterpart. Because really, the real violence and exploitation should be far more distressing to you as a moral being than the fact that someone wrote about characters in a book killing each other. Working on it with your child may even help with their nightmares... Just a thought.

LibsNote: Previous read, blog posts can be found here.
*Banned Graphic provided in part by Barefoot Liam Stock, with permission.



because children died for "entertainment" purposes.



Day 163: Mockingjay

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.  ISBN: 9780439023511.

Collins' take on the role of media in this book is absolutely fabulous.  In fact, I think someone could write a very well written college-level paper about the Media as Character and manage to astound their professor if they were ambitious enough.  With three books' worth of material you could easily write about 15 pages and include an analysis of the personalities of different news and "news" shows.

I'm actually very happy that there as no internet in the Districts or the Capitol.  It would have made the dumb complacency of the Capitol highly unbelievable.  With a tightly controlled televised media, it's easy to pipe whatever thoughts you want into households and make people swallow it.  Since there was no communication between districts, you had to accept the information as true, or know that it was fabricated and altered, but not how.  No one was able to fact check, so it was nearly impossible for anyone to start a rebellion because no one really knew how bad it was except for their own little District.  Not that I think the internet would have helped form a revolution, but it would have potentially created a more informed citizenry.  Our civilization is complacent in different ways.  We seem to enjoy being uninformed and somewhat stupid, but I think that's a different topic.

I was actually surprised that the rebellion decided to use Katniss in pretty much the same way the Capitol used her during the Hunger Games.  In fact, I was surprised that Kantiss allowed this.  I suppose I shouldn't have been; by this point it probably felt natural to have cameras follow her around.  I'm not saying I didn't expect the Rebellion to use her for publicity, but sending her into combat situations with cameras seems like a very risky move to a group of people concerned with losing a sustainable population of humans.

Sure, we throw camera men, etc. in to combat situations, but we have billions of people where the world Katniss lives in probably only had thousands.  We're also not used to the idea of watching live combat situations for entertainment (unless you count boxing, a handful of other sports, and cop shows).  It seems to me that the Rebellion would want to distance itself from the Capitol as much as possible, but then when you're trying to reach an audience I suppose you work with what's best.  Kind of makes you think about the TV shows we watch and have foisted on us, not to mention the kind of news they try to feed us.

An excellent spoiler-free review can be found over at books i done read.  I have previous posts about Hunger Games and Catching Fire.  Click the shiny links.

Day 162: Mockingjay

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.  ISBN: 9780439023511.

Holy crap.  That was not the ending I was expecting, despite all the griping from other book bloggers I've been reading, or skimming really in an attempt to avoid spoilers.  It's definitely a worthy ending to the series, and I think will be appreciated much more once people calm the fuck down and get over the hype.  I will agree that the tacked on epilogue was very end-of-Harry-Potteresque and I hated them both.  They were unnecessary, the story was over, I don't need to know what happens after everything is wrapped up.  That's what fan-fiction is for.

Now I'm going to get on a soap box and start yelling at people.  Here we go.

Cut out the Team Peeta, Team Gale, Team Whatever bullshit!

Ahem.  Thank you.  Seriously, you have no idea how much this annoys me.  Sure, it's cute when they do the sketches on The Daily Show.  However, it is obnoxious and insulting when grown women (in particular) do it and not much better when teenager girls do it.  You wanna know why?  Of course you do, because I'm ragey and hatey and it makes for good blogging.  It's insulting because it assumes that (in this case) Katniss only has two options and that she can't make valid decisions for herself, so we, the audience, ought to barge in and make them for her with yelling and shouting and fan-girling all over the place.


Oh, but she's a fictional character, so it's okay to have a little bit of fun with it, etc.  Okay, so it doesn't have a direct influence on a real person's life, but I don't think this is behavior we ought to be encouraging women to participate in.  They may end up distrusting their own judgment regarding their selection of mates, and the idea of using a system as childish as Team X or Y kind of makes me sick to my stomach.  It also removes any sort of autonomy or power or even responsibility from the person in question to make her own decisions about her future.

Without giving away too much about the end, I think Katniss made the right decision for her, because it was probably the first and only decision she actually made on her own. In fact, I think Collins tried to slip in some "OMG STFU about the Team shit" herself when she has Katniss make this statement very early in the book: 

"The very notion that I'm devoting any thought to who I want presented as my lover, given our current circumstances, is demeaning."  Page 40.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.  Yes.  For the first two books Katniss was consistently told us she had no interest in getting married regardless of how she felt for anyone because she didn't want to bring children into a world with the Hunger Games.  Rather than applauding her maturity in this decision (when she seems to avoid being mature about much else, granted - teenager), people are yelling and screaming and fawning and pressing for her to choose one or the other and right now.

They're fictional characters and they're going to end up with who the author wants them to end up with, but they're also stand-ins for real human beings and we need to respect who they are and who they represent as people.  Don't get pissy when they make the "wrong" choice, it's not your decision to make and we read to grow.  Watching other people make the wrong choice is often more helpful than having them live perfect lives, and often a lot more exciting.

I am decidedly Team STFU, by the way.  And maybe a bit Team Buttercup, but who can go wrong loving a cat?

An excellent spoiler-free review can be found over at books i done read.  I have previous posts about Hunger Games and Catching Fire.  Click the shiny links.

Day 41: Catching Fire

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.  ISBN: 9780439023498.

I had to rewrite this post, I tried writing it once when I finally got to the public library in Tennessee.  By that point I had been awake for over 12 hours (most of which were spent driving in the rain), and it showed.  So hopefully this post will be a little more, um, coherent and a lot less rambly.

During the first novel, Katniss pretends to be in love with Peeta, the other tribute from her district.  Later we discover that it's genuine on Peeta's part.  Katniss continues the charade until the Games are over because it gains her sponsors (people who would send needed supplies into the arena).  Because she and Peeta become national celebrities, they have to pretend to be in love again anytime there is a new Games.  I'd give you more details as to why, but that would give away more plot than I'm willing to; besides, this isn't a review.

Of course, Peeta and Katniss's relationship makes me wonder under what circumstances would I be willing to feign love or romantic/sexual interest in someone.  We'll go ahead and assume that in order to save my life I would be willing to play the part, but there are so many other circumstances where a relationship could put you into a better situation than you're currently in.

In my case, I think I would be willing to marry someone for financial comfort/luxury (this is assuming that I hadn't met my fiance yet, etc., etc.).  I am not going to lie to you or myself: if I could still maintain some level of freedom and individuality, I would be okay with marrying someone I was not in love with.  Now, I would have to find them at least reasonably interesting and be capable of maintaining a conversation with them, but as far as everything else goes it wouldn't really matter to me.  I would still have a life outside of the marriage, and giving up on the possibility of love isn't really a new idea for me.

Maybe this sounds cruel, and a little bit gold-diggerish, but it's actually a more traditional sense of marriage, except there's no male hand in it besides the one I theoretically choose.  Ultimately, marriage is a contract between two consenting adults to live their lives together and share their households.  If both parties profit, one receiving financial comfort and the other receiving physical affection, sexual satisfaction, and companionship, I don't actually see anything morally wrong with this.  Ideally, both parties would be aware of what the other party is about and gracefully step down if and when the opportunity for real love shows up, but in the end what real business is it if someone does marry for financial comfort?  There are so many reasons to be in a relationship, I can certainly think of worse reasons to marry someone.

Having said that, I do think there at least needs to be a level of compassion and comraderie.  I would never marry someone I hated; hell, I avoid spending even five minutes with people I hate.  Life is too short for that.  But there have been men, and even women, in my life whose company I've enjoyed enough that if they told me they wanted to take care of me for the rest of my life and all I had to do was marry them, I would be lying if I said I wouldn't at least think about it.

Whoops, I hit publish too early.  Feel free to ignore this one if it showed up on your readers twice.

Day 40: Catching Fire

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.  ISBN: 9780439023498.

First of all, I would like to apologize for the recent slew of guest posts.  For those of you who read regularly/know me personally, you know I was in Tennessee for a job interview, and, well, I ended up staying an extra day.  You know that flood in Nashville?  Yeah, I got caught in that.  Luckily I was in no direct danger, but I was not actually able to get to the university's campus, so we ended up having my interview in the hotel lobby.  If I get the job, I will have a great story.  If I don't get the job, I am going to bitch about it forever.  Or at least until I get hired somewhere else.

So what does all of this have to do with Catching Fire?  I can't help but feel like I'm going through some of the same things that the tributes of the Hunger Games went through.  I'm obviously not being thrown in with a bunch of other candidates and fighting them to the death, but in some ways the situation feels just as dire.  The person who doesn't get the job is much poorer for it, despite the fact that they may be an excellent candidate who just had a really bad interview, or didn't write an outstanding cover letter.  You're facing people who are trying to find things they don't like about you so they can eliminate you from the pool of applicants.

And in some ways the kids in the Hunger Games have it a little easier, because they know who they're facing.  I have no idea who the other candidates are, where they come from, what their background is, or what their skills are.  I have a fairly beefy resume for someone so young, but I can't compete with someone who's been in a cataloging position for 10 years...except that it'd be cheaper to hire me.

The interview process itself reminds me a lot of the preliminary bullshit the tributes have to go through for the Hunger Games.  There's the total makeovers, where their bodies are stripped of hair and their nails are redone and hair cuts and new clothes, etc.  Here are just a few of the things I did for the interview that I don't normally do: wore a skirt; bought and wore panty hose; shaved my legs more than once a week (I wear pants, why would I shave my legs more than I have to?); painted my nails with clear nail polish; wore a full face of makeup (if I want to look nice at work I'll usually just do my eyes); and woke up before 7AM.  Not to mention there's that urge to act like the person the search committee is looking for rather than acting like myself.  For the most part I have tried to be myself through the entire interview process.  I am as honest with my answers as possible, even against the advice of the many, many online resources that tell you not to do certain things.

For instance, during my interview there was a portion where I had to review a catalog record for mistakes.  I said, "Wow, it's been so long and I'm not quite sure, but I think this is what's wrong."  The director of the library actually told me that he was glad I said I wasn't sure, because he'd rather have someone who would look it up rather than plowing through and making mistakes in the catalog (which can royally mess things up).  It's funny, because I don't think he was supposed to say things like that.  Normally in an interview you'll have no idea how the search committee feels about you one way or the other, but since we happened to have the interview off campus it seems that maybe they were a little more lax with me.  But there is always a question of how much of yourself do you present to the search committee.  Do you tell them what they want to hear and hope they don't know you're lying through your teeth?

As hard as it is, I think it's better to be honest and lose a potential job than get a job that you hate.  After interviewing with the university in Tennessee (I'll tell you the name if/when I get hired), I am more confident about the position than before.  I think this is a very good sign both for myself and the university if they hire me.  I think we'll both be happy together, and to be honest that means more to me than how much they're going to pay me.  I love that I got along so well with the search committee, I love what little I was able to see of the university before the bridge leading into that side of town flooded, and I especially love that they were willing to come meet me in a hotel lobby despite the fact that work had been cancelled for them and they very well could have asked me to come back later.

So now comes the part where I'm actually in the arena, so to speak.  Somewhere there's another candidate or two trying to "kill me" and get "my" job.  In some ways I will feel bad if I get the job, because for all I know the person I'm taking it from has three kids they have to feed, whereas I'll only have myself and my fiance.  But then if I don't get this job I'll starve.  Maybe not literally, but my life is poorer without work; in fact I'm almost loathe to call it much of a life at all, because it is missing that key element which will make it complete for me.

Day 23: The Hunger Games

 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  ISBN: 9780439023481.

I don't often stay up late to finish a book.  Even when I have trouble sleeping, I usually avoid reading because the very act seems to keep my brain too alert to drift off.  Instead, I usually turn on my computer and that alone seems to make me tired, probably because I most often associate it with work. 

Recently, I've found my sleep schedule off.  This occurs more frequently due to my unemployment. It's been difficult to prevent myself from sleeping in till noon and/or napping the day away, so occasionally I have to reset my schedule.  The Hunger Games kept me up last night.   I was already having difficulty sleeping, it was 10pm, and I hadn't finished my 100 pages for the day, which was fine, because I usually stay up until 11:30 or midnight.  But by the time I did finish those 100 pages, I was too wrapped up in the book to put it down.  I found myself reading the last page at somewhere around 4:46am. 

There were days in high school when I would do this all the time, particularly on the weekends.  I didn't have a whole lot of friends, and I just wasn't all that into partying, so unless I was going to a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show I was probably at home on the weekends doing homework or reading.  And sadly, I can't remember the last book that kept me up late at night. 

There's something sort of special about that, though: participating in that kind of adventure of the page when everyone else is asleep.  Last night, the world was quiet and dark, and there I was, reading away with no fear of interruption.  Even the cat was off somewhere sleeping.  I was alone, curled up on my futon mattress on the floor.  Occasionally some nocturnal bird would chirp and I would wonder how close to dawn it was.  Stories somehow seem more real at night, and Collins' writing drew me into The Hunger Games in a way that a lesser novelist couldn't have.  The darkness seems to make it easier for me to connect with the character and the setting, as if the very intimacy of the situation makes me closer to whoever or whatever I'm with at the time.  The act of reading in the dark, the midnight hours, makes me feel like that book is mine alone and that it's the only world I have in that moment.

Day 22: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  ISBN: 9780439023481.

I'm still at the beginning of the book because I've been distracted recently.  I'm going to have to start running around like crazy because I managed to swing a second interview with that university in Tennessee.  I'm excited because it's my first professional interview with an academic institution (not counting ITT Tech).  I have to relearn all the stuff I forgot about cataloging because I had no real interest in being a catalog librarian, but a job is a job and I'll still be able to do reference at this place.  Not to mention there are suit pants that need to be tailored, nails to be taken care of, and my car could use a serious oil change.  On top of all this I landed an odd job working for a professor here at Bowling Green State University.  This has given me much needed cash for...well, things like my oil change.  So forgive me if my posts aren't as thought provoking over the next month or so, and if I switch to a weekly schedule, it means I'm employed and you should be happy for me.

Anyway, Katniss was describing how she collected food for her family from the forest.  I've never had to do this, although I enjoy being able to recognize a handful of plants (including poison ivy thanks to my somewhat recent brush with it...literally).  My fiance is also fairly quick to recognize almost anything local to Ohio and has a vast knowledge of things that are kept in the dark and grown in animal dung.  

It occurs to me that I don't necessarily have the knack for finding edible foods in the wild, but I do have a similar trait, which is remembering people's dietary preferences/habits.  This is a bizarre thing because my brain is normally the consistency of swiss cheese and you never know what's actually going to be retained.  Well, this is one of those things I happen to retain.  I suppose since we are a social species this is evolutionary necessary and important information, but it's the damnedest thing that I can remember that Joey is a vegetarian who doesn't eat honey, Sue is allergic to tomatoes, and Janet is on Weight Watchers.  It actually got to the point where at one job I was consulted anytime food was brought in for certain people so things could be left to the side, or a low sugar cake could be made for the diabetic, etc.

A strange glitch with this, uh, ability is that if dietary preferences are changed or I learn about them later, I'm slow to remember them.  For some reason, if I meet you within a week and I learn that you don't like cilantro that becomes a Major Point of Interest in what I remember about you.  In fact, I can forget your name and remember that you can't eat strawberries.  It really is kind of like a strange super power and I sort of wonder if anyone else does this, or if my brain is just wired funny.  I also wonder if it might have a more sinister background, and part of that is probably because I'm reading a book like The Hunger Games where people are trying to kill each other.

Maybe this ability to remember foods people can't eat was a way for people like me in primitive societies to knock off newcomers to the cave that they didn't like.  I mean sure there were probably some benefits to keeping the regulars healthy, but then why is it easier for me to remember it when I first meet people?  There's little advantage to remembering that Grandpa hates asparagus when the entire clan knows this, but if the new guy is a jerk and I know he can't eat peanuts I'd have the power to make his life a living hell at the least and possibly send him into anaphylactic shock if I really didn't like him.  I'm not saying I would ever do this, but why, why does my brain remember this stuff?  I like to ask these questions and try and figure out the biological/neurological/evolutionary advantage. I think it's important to question our own thought patterns and weird psychological phenomena.

So yeah, sorry about the kind of weird post, but I hope it was sort of entertaining and I was having fun thinking of different foods that kill people and what not.  Do you have any weird "things I seem to remember about people for no reason" abilities?  I'm interested, tell me.