The Hunger Games

For almost two weeks after reading the final book in the Hunger Games series, I had trouble sleeping - often lying in bed with scenes and emotions from the book filling my head to the point of sleepless anxiety. Weird, right? Especially coming from a girl who as soon as the last page of any book (good or bad) is turned has already forgotten half of the scenes in the book. 


So why the dramatic emotional angst over the Hunger Games? Why do I feel slightly angry and betrayed by the time I gave to that story? Why do I cringe whenever I hear people talking about how much they love it?


It's taken me quite awhile to find the right words to explain, even to myself, why I dislike this book so much.  I have found myself relying on four specific quotes that truly help me pinpoint my struggle.


The first quote is from one of my all time favorite plays, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: "Audiences know what they expect and that is all they are prepared to believe in." I connect this quote to one from the movie, Shadowlands: "We read to know we are not alone." As a reader, I expect a book to tell me something about the human experience, which in turn will help me know that I am not alone in this world. That is, I guess, all I am prepared to believe in. Yet when I finished the Hunger Games, I felt as if it was trying to tell me that the human experience was one without hope - a never-ending cycle of violence and corruption and loss of love - and I have never felt more alone after finishing a book.


The third quote is a dooesy, but it's one of the most beautiful dooesies ever written.  It's from William Faulkner's Nobel prize acceptance speech:


     "Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat…I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

I believe that Suzanne Collins is an excellent writer. But I believe she used her gift to make a weird political statement and completely lost the truth of the immortal soul of man. She sounded the last dingdong of doom and left a puny inexhaustible voice, still talking –one that had simply endured, not prevailed. Katniss was left enduring through her repetitive game of listing the goodness she saw in others, a game that could not prevail over her lasting fears.

The final quote is from, of course, Sam and Mr. Frodo:

*Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
*Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
*Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
*Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

The Hunger Games did not show anything good worth fighting for.  Instead, it showed a world that would eventually fall back into killing each other, broken heroes who lost the only thing they were fighting for, unrepentant characters who never found hope.  Gale got a fancy job in the district he hated, Haymitch was still a drunk, Katniss and her mother never mended their relationship, Plutarch still wanted power, Effie still lived on schedule, Katniss had children she did not want, she feared bringing them into the world and feared telling them about the world. I cannot find a glimmer of hope in any of these outcomes – not even the light of the dandelion(Peeta) to bring her(Katniss) through the fire – because Peeta had no light because he wasn’t really Peeta anymore but rather a hollowed shell of what he once was. Perhaps the good worth fighting for then is that the world may be a hopeless, evil, chaotic place but we can still live quiet lives as ghosts of our former selves?

I do not know what life experiences Ms. Collins has had - I do not know the depths of her sorrows or her joys, but I am left wondering why she chose to write this book the way she did. I know some people have been able to dig deeper into this book and find a glimmer of hope, a moment of peace. I admit that I have tried as well, however my efforts must be unsuccessful seeing as how it's been almost a year since reading it and whenever I hear it mentioned or see it, I feel an immediate wave of depression and sadness. Does anyone really want to write a book that has that effect on people? I am not trying to suggest that every book needs to be rainbows and roses, I actually enjoy sad books but perhaps it is because the hope I find in them shines all the brighter. In The Hunger Games I wanted a prevailing bright hope, but was left with a puny, enduring voice.

Where was my prevailing bright hope? Where was my Sam to carry me to the top of Mount Mordor when all was lost? Where was my unknown narrator who reassured me that in this life, this heart of darkness, I was not alone? Where was my forgiveness between brothers who killed each others fathers? Where was my Sonia who brought me food in prison? Where was my conquering of giant windmills for the sake of honor? Where was my Mr. Darcy who found the power of humility?  Where was Asher's loyalty to truth and his efforts to balance the world? Where was good ol' Huck who could not pray a lie? Where was little Sydney who made the ultimate sacrifice? Where was my Boo who came out of a life of isolation to save two young children? Where was the Count and his ultimate realization to trust in God?  Where was my Scarlett who never broke, never gave up, just like her beloved land?  Where was the compassion that led Ender to save, destroy, and begin again?  Where was the professor that offered a simple umbrella?  Where were the Joads, who suffered tragically not from physical nature or economic misfortune but from their fellow human beings and yet still chose to reach out and save one of them? Where is my John Proctor who would not compromise his name, even at the point of death? Where was Liesel's book full of tales of compassion and courage that haunted Death itself? And where, may I ask, was my little scarred wizard who was saved by his choice to love?

Well, Ashley, you might say, these are all fictional stories and The Hunger Games was trying to be truly realistic because life doesn't always have a happy ending full of shining hope. Okay, well then how about some "realistic" questions. Where was my Viktor Frankl, who in the horror of the Holocaust and losing everyone he cared for still found salvation in love? Where was my mom and dad, who have found hope and happiness every day amid the difficult battles of life? Where was my William Wilberforce who fought for over 26 years to abolish slavery?  Where were my handcart pioneers who felt the angels pushing them along? Where was my Chilean miner who stopped in a dark tunnel to admire a white butterfly which saved his life?  Where was my George Washington who gave up unmatched power for the good of all? Where was my Tim Tebow who just keeps giving back? Where was my Clark family who adopted 21 children no one else wanted?


And where was my Second Coming (all of our very realistic ending) where every knee shall bow and every tongue confess?  This, after all, is why we are drawn to stories of good and evil, stories of hope and heroes and happily ever after. Because we know despite all odds that good will eventually and irrevocably win. We sense that same truth in the happily ever after stories, and frankly, I do not want to waste my time on any other kind.