Book #18: Catching Fire

Book #18: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

March 31, 2013


I've always enjoyed reading. I am a licensed English teacher, after all, and going to graduate school to become a licensed Reading Specialist. I will admit, when I was in high school, I slacked off on reading for fun. But when I did, I wasn't really interested in Young Adult literature. I don't know, I think I was kind of a snob or elitist (or a wannabe snob or elitist), and I thought that if I wasn't reading the "classics," then I was wasting my time or something.

I took a class in my undergraduate years, in which we had to read dozens of Young Adult novels. My attitude turned right around; I am a huge fan of quality Young Adult literature, which is a good thing, because in my first two years of teaching I was actually able to have conversations with my students (all about ten years younger than myself) about the books that they enjoyed (and that I genuinely enjoyed, too).

I intended to read this book, second in the trilogy, quite a while ago. I had gotten all three in a set, around Christmas 2011, and I read the first one and got into it. Well, when gathering all of my personal books from my classroom last May, I realized that I still had my first and third ones...but not my second. So, it went on my "to-read" list, and here we are.

For anyone who might be reading this who is not familiar with the premise of The Hunger Games, here's a brief recap. It takes place in a futuristic America called Panem. This is what would be called a dystopian society. I like introducing adolescents to this genre, because it gives them a chance to generate and discuss essential questions about their own society and culture (eg, "could it really come to this?"). Panem is divided into thirteen official territories, the Capitol and Districts 1-12. These places are all spread far and wide throughout the continent, and from some of Collins descriptions in the book, you get an idea where some of these places are supposed to be (like, I would guess District 3 to be in Maine, or perhaps in Louisiana, while District 12 is clearly meant to be in West Virginia or thereabouts). The districts are more or less heavily guarded, to keep people from going in and out. People can not move between districts. Life in the districts is abysmal for most, who live in crippling poverty and must work hours every day in the various industries of their district (coal-mining for District 12). There's hardly enough food to go around. And they live in fear of the powerful President Snow and the people of the Capitol.

The Capitol is a stark contrast to the districts. It is a flashy urban utopia, where people live for pleasure, blindly following the newest trends and not seeming to care about much else. They certainly don't seem to care about the plight of their fellow countrymen. In a way, I think the people of the Capitol are also manipulated; rather than being left to starve to death or work themselves to the bone, they are instead distracted by the commercialism promoted and valued in the Capitol.

Life in Panem has been this way for decades. After an unsuccessful uprising 75 years before, a law was passed to punish the districts for generations to come, to make them pay for the deaths of people in the Capitol. Every year, two children (ages 12 to 18, I think) are selected from each district to compete in the Hunger Games. The winner will be rich for the rest of his or her life, will live in luxury in his or her own district, and will provide food for the people in their district for the year after their victory. The other 23 kids...die. It is a battle to the death, in a high-tech arena created by people at the Capitol. The arenas always have their own nasty surprises; in the first book, for example, mutated wolves attacked Katniss and the other kids.

There's also a lot of publicity around the Games. The contestants are dressed up and paraded around the Capitol, and questioned in televised interviews that are mandatory viewing in all of Panem. The winner, months after, goes on a Victory Tour to all of the districts, and is again paraded around for the entertainment of the Capitol...and as a reminder to the districts that they are powerless to save their children from the Games.

But in the first book, Katniss changes everything. In a desperate bid to save herself and Peeta, the boy from her district who is in love with her, she threatened to commit suicide unless they both could survive, pretending to return his feelings of love. Most of the people in the Capitol view them as star-crossed lovers, and undoubtedly, the demands of the viewers forced the man in charge of the Games, Seneca Crane, to allow this breech of the rules. But some people in the districts saw it as a defiance, and the evil President Snow himself threatens Katniss, knowing much better than she does the influence that she has in all of Panem.

Katniss, as always, is only looking to live her life and survive. Winning the Games has complicated her life a little, but the situation with Peeta is the worst. She cares for him, but she also cares for Gale, her oldest friend who has helped her to survive in the worst of times. I felt like the personalities of these two characters were fleshed out a bit more in this book. I found myself not liking Peeta much in the first book; in the second, he's become a favorite. He genuinely cares for Katniss, though he does play her game of manipulation in his efforts to save her (such as telling the people in the Capitol that she is pregnant with his child). Because Katniss and Peeta aren't safe after winning the Games. The 75th games, a Quarter Quell, have a cruel twist to them. This was supposedly written years ago, before the Games even started, that in the 75th, only former victors would be going in. Katniss is convinced that the Capitol is trying to kill her off, even though she is a public darling, because of her influence in the growing district uprisings. So, she goes into the arena determined to save Peeta's life, believing that he will be a better leader in an uprising than herself.

Because Katniss has always been so intent on survival, she often takes things at face-value. She has a hard time understanding jokes sometimes. And she has trouble "reading between the lines." For example, it took her a longer time than I felt it should have to realize that her mockingjay pin, a present from her friend Madge, was a symbol of rebellion against the Capitol, even though I'm pretty sure it was mentioned somewhere in the first book. And that Plutarch Heavensbee having a mockingjay on his watch was significant in that regard (I saw his involvement in the pending uprising from a mile away after that little clue). Her point-of-view almost allows for some dramatic irony; even though the story is told in the first person, completely from her perspective, the reader has some insight and perspective that she does not.

Collins created such a vivid, horrifying society in this trilogy. As I kept reading, I kept trying to imagine ways that I would get out of various situations...but none of my solutions were viable in Katniss's world. She really was completely trapped, first in District 12 (especially after the strict new Peacekeeper had the electrical fence fixed), then in the arena. Knowing that Katniss was helpless, yet knowing that somehow she would get out of the situation, made this a constantly tense read. I think I got into this one much more than the first, perhaps because Collins were able to really jump right into the story and not have to spend as much time setting up the world of Panem for the reader. But I am a little skeptical about the ending, and how it will lead into the third book. See, at the end of the Games, after Katniss shot an arrow attached to a wire and, though electrocution, destroyed the force field around the arena, she and a couple of other tributes who had been part of their alliance were rescued by Heavensbee and Haymitch, Katniss and Peeta's mentor. They were whisked away in a hovercraft, and are headed to District 13, the district that was supposedly destroyed long ago...but is actually thriving, and looking to overthrow the Capitol. But Katniss's former home has been destroyed, and Peeta has been arrested by the Capitol. Collins only has one more book to bring down an entire corrupt government, and have Katniss choose between her two loves (because not saving Peeta is simply not an option). I have heard some fans of the trilogy complain about the ending, so while I can't wait to read it...well, I will simply add it to the list for now, and when I do pick it up, I will approach it with some caution.

Jennifer Lawrence, the actress who plays Katniss in The Hunger Games films. She basically came out of nowhere when she got the part, and since the first film was released (the second is out later this year, I think?), she's won an Oscar (for Silver Linings Playbook) and is a freaking superstar. Talk about a girl on fire!

The famous mockingjay symbol from the trilogy. The story behind the mockingjays is that they were the offspring of the ordinary mockingbird and the jabberjay, a mutated bird created by the Capitol to spy on people in the Districts. The people turned this weapon against them, and when the jabberjays were abandoned, the mockingjays came into being. For the longest time it was a sort of symbol of defiance against the Capitol...this combined with Katniss's popularity has made it more prominent than ever as unrest really begins.