Book Review: Hunger Games

I'm a huge sucker for dystopia futures. Add in a dark (and very unfunny) parody of modern television shows, such as Survivor and Man Vs. Wild? That's three things I am very much into; it's a sure bet I will like the end product. Unfortunately, a whole lot of good ideas does not a great read make. I've seen many reviewers dote on Suzanne Collin's Hunger Games with perfect or near perfect scores, glancing over or ignoring faults and problems. It's good, but not great.

The Blurb: 

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games," a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed.


(Compliments to Amazon.com)

Concept:

The Hunger Games's concept is one of the most viceral and gut-wrenching combinations of ideas I have read in a long time, and is unquestionably the major driving force behind its commercial success. The Highlander "there can be only one" mentality drives emotional jeopardy into the stratosphere, so the reader doesn't have to be particularly invested in the character to find the book impossible to put down. Obviously, The Hunger Game's inspirations are a mix of ABC's television series "Survivor" and Roman gladiatorial fighting: both gained popularity by twisting a similar knife into the viewer's emotions.

In other ways, Hunger Games is simply the right idea published at the right time. Works such as Hatchet or Tunnel in the Sky predate the survival TV shows Hunger Games draws inspiration from, but those largely relied on the author's repute for their success. Hunger Games came at precisely the right moment to twist the traditional survival formula and up the tension with the real prospect of death.

Although in many ways it would make for a more interesting story, it is difficult to imagine a bloodsport as cruel and violent as this being done by a representative democracy, and it would have fundamentally changed the conflict. Only a truly callous and bored people would tolerate such a thing if they had a choice, as in fact, the Romans were.  As is? The reader can easily understand why a totalitarian regime would create the Hunger Games: it separates the districts into winners and losers  keeps bad blood flowing between them, and in general keeps them from cooperating and revolting. The big, bad government antagonist is derived from the games, not the other way around.

Characters:

It's a good thing Hunger Games is a page turner, because the concept which makes Hunger Games great also actively inhibits character development. Many of the characters have personality, but between the rules of the Hunger Games themselves and the first person narration, we rarely see more than glimpses of them because we literally spend no time with them.

That's not to cast judgement, but to point out that the high concept idea tithes the other aspects of the story, that it shows...and it's still a success.

The biggest problem I have is that Katniss herself--our narrator--is a projection character, or a character with a deliberately obtunded personality so that the readers can "inhabit" the character. A blank slate. The technique works, but on the whole I don't like projection characters. In most fiction, blank and boring are bedfellows.

And yet it still works for two reasons. First, the action is constantly moving in Hunger Games, and with external dangers constantly abounding you probably won't spend much time thinking about Katniss. Second, because of the dangers and constant movement, Hunger Games is a very fast read, and much like you don't have the time to get to know the supporting characters, you won't spend enough time with Katniss to notice how dull she is.

Prose:

The prose is well below average. Not bad, but notably lacking. This is almost certainly a result of Katniss's projection-character status and the first person point of view. Katniss isn't exactly a child, but she is poorly educated, and it would feel woefully out of place for her to turn a phrase or to describe something in a traditional manner. As Mark Twain rather conclusively proved, these don't necessarily translat to poor prose, but it does make elevating the prose significantly more difficult.

Consider this taken from the first chapter:

"Our house is almost at the edge of the Seam. I only have to pass a few gates to reach the scruffy field called the Meadow. Separating the Meadow from the woods, in fact enclosing all of District 12, is a high chain-linked fence topped with barbed-wire loops."

Dull. Dry. Informative. Uninteresting.

And again, the weakness is nullified by the page-turner tension: you don't notice the poor prose because you're too focused on the content. In a sense, the prose is even an advantage, making the text eminently skimmable so you can burn through the reading even faster and notice even fewer of the flaws.

Missed Opportunities:

Hunger Games is somewhat clumsily thought out. Katniss explicitly mentions early on in the book that her father crafted the bow she uses, and then she goes through the book using a bow the producers indirectly provide her. From a purely symbolic point of view, I would have had her craft her own bow, as well. Crafting her own weapon would have been a sign of rebelliousness, that she could win the games on her own without the help of sponsors or producers, and would have been a welcome addition to the mockingjay image.

Also, I must explain the "Rue is black?" controversy, because this one is definitely the author's fault. Yes, Rue is explicitly described as black several times. Why did readers still think she was white? Because every time Katniss sees her she compares her to her little sister, Prim. Prim is explicitly described very early in the book as a pale-skinned blonde.

Well, there's your problem.

Verdict: "Very Good" Silver

This book makes a very good shot at getting a gold, and while it's certainly intense enough, it is a blessedly brief one-note ride. Good, but not great.

Hunger Games is a paradox. Many of the individual components of the story are a technical failures, and yet the story itself is not only a success, but a best-seller. It's because Hunger Games knows what its strengths and weaknesses are, and makes decisions to play to its tense plot and away from its weak prose and characters.

But that can't be said about the sequels.