The Hunger Games

F. R. Leavis (if I recall correctly) noted about Lady Chatterley’s Lover that is was a failure as a novel, but it did have a serious moral intent.  Since the novel did stand trial for obscenity (ah, how times have changed), this sort of critical discrimination is important.   The novel is pretty bad, the point being made (industrialization is soul destroying) has been done better elsewhere, and the prurient parts are tedious, but even still, to simply call the book pornography is really missing the point.  Moreover, to simply label it pornographic is rather ironic, since the point being made in the novel is that the rise of the Industrial Age has destroyed our ability to enjoy erotic attachments.

Enter The Hunger Games.

I bought the trilogy for Clara as a Christmas gift.  We both read it shortly thereafter, and  we both enjoyed the series.  The quick review:  nice idea, not well written.  The pitch is a mess: one part political thriller, one part action movie, one part romantic love triangle.  Clara clearly liked the second part the best, hated the third part, and did not understand the first part.  (Indeed, about halfway through the second book she was expressing sympathy for the Evil Emperor, which either means my daughter is an incipient totalitarian or does not understand political subplots (I think it is the latter, but I am a bit worried that this is a case of my desire altering my perception of reality).)

As a trilogy, it is also very uneven.  The first book is far and away the best.  It’s a lot like Card’s Ender’s Game in this respect.  The cleverness is all in the construction of this giant game, which is more than it appears to be.  But, once the scene pulls back and we start seeing more of the world beyond the Game, the storyline loses momentum, at times devolving into outright tedium.  (The comparison to Card isn’t entirely fair—the second and third books in The Hunger Games are good enough to merit reading, while the rest of Card’s cycle is just plain awful.)

So, for months now, I have been merely thought of these books as pleasant diversion over Christmas Break.  Then comes the movie.  The images of little fangirls screeching in anticipation is funny—obviously the love triangle works better on pre-adolescents than on their elders.  (Think Twilight.)  There was an amusing Wall Street Journal article about how the movie studio was trying to make sure adolescent boys would also go see the movie—they were worried no self-respecting 16 year old boy would want to see a movie in a theater packed with swooning 13 year old girls.  So, the trailers play up the images of people doing exciting things like shooting arrows.  Anyway, an amusing cultural phenomenon.  Or so I thought.

Then about a week or so ago, Janet started asking me about whether this book was really appropriate for children.  A book about a game in which children must kill each other on live TV for the enjoyment of the population at large did not strike Janet (or those to whom she had been talking ) as Age-Appropriate.  (I’m not sure what age would constitute the threshold for that premise, but that’s another matter.)   The first time she asked about it, I just shrugged it off.  But, when she asked a few more times, I figured I should really write up a review, explaining why the trilogy is not inherently immoral.  (Not that Janet will ever read the review, mind.  She doesn’t read this here blog.  On principle.)

The Hunger Games is like Lady Chatterley’s Lover (not a review the publisher is likely to put on the book jacket, by the way).  It is making a very serious moral argument in a flawed vehicle and the critics are focusing on the vehicle, missing the moral argument, and indeed, in an ironic twist, the critics are acting exactly the way that the Evil masterminds in the book want the ignorant population in the book to act.

The moral argument:  the constant spectacle of violence in the modern age is destroying our souls.  As we become increasingly desensitized to violence, the stakes need to be constantly raised.  (Have you watched TV recently?)  Not only have we become more accustomed to violence, we have developed a taste for watching violence for enjoyment.  (TV, anyone?)  The Hunger Games imagines the future:  a giant reality TV show with violence as the theme.  Survivor to Big Brother to Jersey Shore to the Hunger Games.  On top of that, the Evil Government has designed the Game so that everyone will have a rooting interest—in a nation divided into districts, contestants are chosen randomly from each district, so that everyone has a stake in hoping a contestant from their district, someone they may know, will win.  There is even an audience participation portion of the program, in which your district, provided it can raise enough money, can send aid to contestants during the Game.  Moreover, the Games are not some fair fight on a neutral battlefield, but are carefully crafted so that the drama will be enhanced.  One contestant is a great archer—OK, there will be a bow and arrows waiting to be found.  But wait, the contestant who is archer is now shooting people from afar—OK, we’ll give armor to the other contestants.  The rules keep changing as the game progresses, forcing new strategies at each stage. To win, one must not only be skilled, but resourceful and clever and able to adapt quickly.  One also must be ruthless.  The ultimate sporting event.

Ah, but wait.  Children are dying in this game.  Actually, children are being murdered by other children in this game.  Isn’t that horrifying?  Uh, yeah.  That’s the point.  The Evil government in the book wants you simultaneously to get absorbed in the Game and to think it is all a horrifying, terrible, monstrous game.   If you focus your attention on how terrible it is that these kids are dying and murdering each other, maybe you won’t notice that life outside the Games, the life everyone is leading on a day-to-day basis, is really shockingly brutal and horrifying.  In the world of the books, the government is a nasty totalitarian empire.  The population is being starved into submission by a ruthless police state.  And yet, when people complain about the life they lead in the book, and when people out here in our world complain about how violent the books are, it is the Games they mention, not the brutality of living in a totalitarian police state.  By diverting your attention away from the political, your anger has been diverted into a rather safe channel.

The books are unstinting in their depiction of the brutality of this society, and yet, we still just notice the Games.  The protagonist, Katniss, is a very unlikable character.  Clara hated her—in part Clara was hoping she would die in the Games so that the books could be about a character she liked.  (I suspect in the movie Katniss will be dashing and charming.)  The violence of the Games destroys the lives of everyone who participates, even the winners.  By the end of this trilogy, nobody is happy.  Even though the good guys win, nobody is happy. (Another thing that will undoubtedly be changed when the movie trilogy is finished.)  It is a field littered with lives which have been destroyed by the violence. 

But, can a book with a central plot line in which children kill one another be morally acceptable reading for children (or adults)?  Ask William Golding, or any of the myriad of teachers and parents who have assigned this book.  The Hunger Games is in another sense a modern incarnation of Lord of the Flies.  I have never heard of someone objecting that Jack's hunting of Ralph or the deaths of Piggy and Simon make the book morally unsuitable.  Everyone seems to acknowledge that the book's moral purpose is something other than the mere depiction of the brutal murder of Simon.

A serious moral argument, then.  A critique of the modern world.  So, why does anyone object?  For exactly the same reason that people objected to Lawrence’s book.  Some people read Lawrence for a cheap erotic thrill (indeed, one of my professors in grad school once announced he was reading the book for exactly that reason).  Some people read The Hunger Games purely for the violence.  Some people also read the trilogy for the love story.  Some people read it because everyone else is reading it.  Some people don’t read it at all.  Yet, in the end, why people read the book does not change the underlying moral seriousness of the trilogy.  

The Hunger Games a deeply flawed trilogy.  But, in more capable hands, it could have been extremely good.  And that is something you can’t say about most books written these days.