This blog is a place for classic literature only. Austen, Keats, Gaskell, Dickens, and the like, are my favorite topics. Having finished my first semester of Mass Communications graduate courses, I decided to pick up something popular and easy to read, putting down War and Peace just for a little while (shame on me, I know...I don't know when I'll ever finish that novel). I decided to read The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. A friend of mine--a lover of classic literature who has not read the trilogy--called the series "brain candy," or something fun, something easy, something that doesn't make you think too hard, something that really doesn't matter as far as what books you've read. I had the same sentiment about the books before I began reading them.
I had already seen The Hunger Games movie. I enjoyed the movie, and I thought that the plot was inventive and clever, but to me, it was just another trendy movie with dazzling young stars and great special effects. Admittedly, because of its unique plot, the movie did make me curious about the books. Before I gave the series too much credit, though, I remembered that The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay are contemporary young adult books, which made me so smugly ask myself, how profound and deep could they be? Granted, I love the Harry Potter books, and as intense as The Deathly Hallows is, the darkness and the light balance out well, and one can read the books with a reinforced idea of what is right and wrong, rather than making one question and decide what's right and wrong, which conveys less profundity than the moral issues presented in great works like Anna Karenina. To me, a lover of literature, and admittedly, a literature snob, any novel dubbed as "young adult" automatically has been branded as "brain candy" and something that marketers will do their damnedest to water down and make cool so they can make a profit. However, Collins' Hunger Games trilogy made me seriously question my generalization of contemporary young adult novels.
The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay all embody themes that are important for not just young people but for all people to delve into. The series brings the reader into a futuristic world that has been turned upside down by rampant social injustice, twisted politics, and an overall deficit of human compassion, empathy, and authenticity. The fact that the novels are futuristic is what gives them their surprising depth. When the horrors of the future are displayed so well, so clearly, one cannot help but wonder, "Could this happen to us?" The ridiculousness, the horror, and the shock of how some of the characters are might make the reader automatically dismiss the ideas presented by Collins as pertinent to our world, but on the other hand, the very worst characteristics of Collins' characters are disturbingly realistic. The haunting images, horrible circumstances, and absolute human evil in the series evoked the same sort of emotions and questions that Brave New World stirred within me. Collins does counter the dishonorable with the noble, much like Rowling in the Harry Potter series, so the story is not all bleak. However, countering the bad with the good takes incredible strength from her characters, who sometimes deviate from what is considered good or lose their lives because they have done what is good. The world of the series is a world of gray, not black and white, and Katniss Everdeen, the main character, must make sense of this world by searching deep within herself, her friends, and her family, and fighting for what she believes is right, which, in a world of gray, is complicated.
"Brain candy" may apply to some young adult books and of course, some adult books as well, but The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay do not fit into this category. I recommend these books to both teens and adults alike. Reading these books can help readers of any age to rethink media ethics, war, politics, and overall, what we consider true entertainment.
