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 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 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 26: a general update

Hi, this is a cop out post, sort of.  I think we all need breaks every now and then.  I won't tell you I'm getting burned out by this project, because I'm actually not.  In fact, I think this has been more valuable recently than writing cover letters. I don't know whether it will lead to anything in my professional life, but it has been immensely useful in improving my writing abilities and my critical thinking skills.  I don't think I've experienced one of my bouts of depression/poor self-esteem since I started it.  So to the people reading this, thank you.

I'd like to talk a little bit about what I plan to review in the near future to give you a kind of sneak peak, and if there's anything particular you'd like me to touch on regarding the reading, now is the time to let me know.  I'm also excited to announce the prospect of guest bloggers.  People who are still interested in being guest bloggers should feel free to contact me by leaving a comment with some kind of information, or emailing me at acampb8@kent.edu.  At this point there are few enough people who are interested to allow "regular" guest bloggers, but I'd like to keep it open for newbies to join in too.   Ideally I want to get to a point where there's a guest blogger once a month to once a week.

So here's what I'll be reading (maybe) and why
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.  ISBN: 9780671027346.

This one actually makes me think of think of an Antioch friend of mine.  It's also been described as a modern day Catcher in the Rye.  Well, I hate Holden Caufield, but maybe this won't be so bad.  It does seem like the kind of book I should have read when I was "the right age" for it. 

Rx by Tracy Lynn.  ISBN: 9781416911555.
I liked the idea of there being some smart kid who was not only selling prescription drugs to kids, but also diagnosing them.  This will be interesting in conjunction with my recent reading of the non-fiction We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication.

The Mermaid Chair by Susan Monk Kidd.  ISBN: 9780143057420 (audiobook).
I've read another one of her books and it wasn't too bad.  I'm saving this for the road trip to my interview in Tennessee May 2nd-3rd.  Audiobooks prevent me from playing radio roulette and getting frustrated with commercials.  Since this will be an 8ish hour road trip I'll get plenty of listening done.  Otherwise I'm not terribly excited about this particular novel, but it's popular/well known enough for me to feel professionally obligated to read it.

Watership Down by Richard Adams.  ISBN: 9780380002931.
I'm not sure why I never got around to reading this in high school.  It comes highly recommended, and since it's one of my fiance's favorite books I felt the need to bump it up on my, "I really need to read this before I die" list.

Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood by Maria Tatar.  ISBN: 9780393066012.
I am one of those crazy people that loves to read about reading.  I especially like to read about how literature/stories change the way we think about the world.  Reading was especially crucial to my development as a child so I'm interested to see what the academic thinking on this is.  Also, it was recommended by Neil Gaiman, speaking of...

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  ISBN: 9780061551895 (audiobook).
Yeah I know, I haven't even finished Smoke and Mirrors yet, but I was really excited about this book.  And even more excited to find it while browsing in the teen "to-shelve" cart at the library.  I love happy accidents like that.  I especially love getting audiobooks by Neil Gaiman, because they are always read by him and he has such a wonderful voice...  I also have a kind of sick fantasy where I like to pretend he's reading specifically to me.  If there was an auction item to have him make a cup of tea or cocoa and read a bedtime story for one night, I would very much want to win that auction.

The Plague Year by Jeff Carlson.  ISBN: 9780441015146.
Uh, I got nothing on this.  I must have added it for some reason.  Probably because I really enjoyed The Hot Zone by Richard Preston and I'm hoping for something similar.  Plus, I haven't read a medical thriller in awhile; I think the last one was Next by Michael Crichton about a year ago.  I highly recommend Next to anyone interested in ethical issues surrounding genome patents. 

The Meaning of Wife by Anne Kingston.  ISBN: 9780374205102.
This has one of the best covers I've seen on a feminist book.  Anyway, I was interested in this because I'm planning to get married and I don't think I've read a good and comprehensive explanation of what it means to be a wife as a woman and a feminist.  I'm at least interested in seeing what some of the issues might be, and maybe it'll give me tips on how to keep the balance of power at least somewhat equal.      

Catching Fire (Hunger Games #2) by Suzanne Collins.  ISBN: 9780439023498. 
Holy butts, the waiting line for this was something like 50 people.  I guess some people just place holds on their library's copy in the Wood County system rather than selecting "any copy."  I was seriously not expecting to get this sent to me so soon. I'm going to try to space out series in the blog to try to keep topics from being boring or repetitive.  Or maybe you'll just get stuck with more Smoke and Mirrors while off tearing through sequels.  Just be glad I'm not planning to read Wheel of Time in the near future...although that might be an interesting year long project for a separate blog... most likely not mine.

So that's what I have lined up so far.  Please feel free to comment about any of these readings.  If you think my reading has been a little too focused on one subject or another, by all means recommend a book for me to read.  If you can't think of one, check out my To-read shelf on Goodreads and look for an interesting title.  I've been a little over enthusiastic with my book ordering recently, but if someone actually makes a request I may bump it up on my reading "schedule."  Speaking of, if I don't end up discussing all of these, it's because the book was too bad to finish or did not particularly inspire me to write anything about it.

What are you reading right now?