Book #68: Mockingjay

Book #68: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

January 10, 2014


One night about a week ago, I psychotically stayed up late and put together my list of the 75 books that I aim to read for this year. Obviously, I've been able to check a few off already. I made the list tentatively (with pencil), but I am excited about the titles that I've included. Mockingjay was near the end of the list (not that I'm going in any particular order), but I ended up starting it when I was still at home during the cold snap, this being the only hard-copy novel that I haven't read on my bookshelf. I'd written before, in my post about Catching Fire, that I was hesitating to start this last book in the Hunger Games trilogy. But I wasn't disappointed.

It is tragic, though. The whole thing started not because Katniss wanted to bring down the Capital, but only because she wanted to save her sister from the Hunger Games. She did it all to save Prim's life. And (spoiler), Prim doesn't end up surviving. Ouch! Collins puts her heroine through hell in this last book, but in the messed up world of Panem, that's about right. Remember, these books take place a long time in the future. The society had to rebuild itself after destroying itself initially (typical theme of dystopian works, future society being fucked up because of our mistakes now), and while many of their technologies have exceeded what we have today (especially when it comes to weapons and objects of torment; that was seen during the Games in the other two works, and is seen now in the midst of war and in descriptions of prisoners' torments), they are primitive in many ways. At least, I want to believe that these violent, ruthless people are primitive, though looking around me, I know that such greed and terror exists in our world. It's something worth remembering that the important decisions made in history, even those done for good, have been motivated by either money or power (or both). Knowing this, it makes the actions of President Snow, and President Coin from District 13, too frighteningly realistic.

So I'm torn a bit. After Katniss (spoiler) kills President Coin rather than a convicted President Snow after the rebels have won the war (as I predicted she would), she is confined for several weeks, months, in her old room where she used to stay in the Capital awaiting the start of the Games. She is deemed mentally unstable, and much of her behavior in this book would support that. And yet, she's the one who makes the most sense. Haymitch, my favorite character in the series, sees that, as he enables her to kill the corrupt Coin. President Coin had seemed the lesser of two evils; a strict leader in District 13, she ran a tight ship but nonetheless seemed to be fighting for the right side. But she, like the Capital, used Katniss; Katniss became known officially as the Mockingjay, a symbol for the rebels' cause. Now, all through the last book, I found myself hoping that Katniss would get on board with the "cause," not understanding her hesitation. But I see it all now. Katniss only ever wanted to just live her life. She just wanted to live in peace, with her family, with everything that she needs and perhaps not much more. She just wants to survive. She's offended when she hears Peeta and Gale agree to this assertion about her when they think she can't hear them, but they are right. And there's nothing wrong with it. If we were all like Katniss, just wanting to live in peace, but able to fight back when threatened, the world of today would be better off, and Panem wouldn't seem so possible.

Anyway, so Katniss is confined, and while she's in torment (mourning the death of her sister, who was killed by Coin's orders with a bombing; everyone was led to believe that Snow had ordered it; not knowing what's happened to anyone she loves), she begins to hate the human race. She sees how evil wins the day, in the end; the heroes only win in stories. Though she's mostly out of her mind at this point, I found myself agreeing with her. Maybe I'm mostly out of my mind (haha?), but I don't have a very favorable opinion of the human race in general. However, I do believe that we are making strides forward, not back; though power and money are still the deciding factors, they don't necessarily have to be evil in themselves. So I was disappointed that, while we saw a very real, raw side of Katniss during her confinement, that we didn't see the events outside of those walls. That was just lazy on Collins' part, I think. Or, perhaps it's naive of me to think that Katniss would be able to explain the truth, and to convince them that following the mistakes of history (Coin had proposed having a new Hunger Games with children from the Capital, which sealed her fate at Katniss's hand) was wrong. Well, at least in the end things did come out for the better. A competent leader from District 8 was elected President, and Katniss and Peeta (the right choice, all things said and done) settled in to a life together in District 12. A peaceful life, but one in which they both have terrifying nightmares for years to come.

So, not a super rosy ending. Haymitch goes back to drinking, having been deprived while they were all in hiding in District 13. Peeta is still haunted by being tortured while being held prisoner, and Katniss's nightmares never end. So many decent characters died, and it was just too sad of an irony that Prim went. But I can appreciate that Collins kept it real, for the most part. Panem is a fucked place. There are lukewarm endings, full of hope, but much sadness. I love getting to see the inside of the homes of people in the  Capital, gaudily decorated apartments with streets that are just are garish. At one point, it's noted that most people in the Capital are drowning in debt; it should also be noted that they didn't have any freedom and rights, just lives full of vapid fun...as long as they toed the line. The crazy political structure of Panem is fascinating, and I had always been curious to know more about the people of the Capital, whose lives are so different from the people in the Districts.

One thing I should put here, though. I don't get how Snow (as he admits to Katniss during their one conversation in the book, the one that alerts her to Coin's evil ways) was so convinced that Katniss was the actual threat in the situation. Sure, she was getting pretty close to his mansion with just her squad of soldiers trained in District 13, but how could he think that she, a teenage girl, was the one to focus on? He had bombed 13; he knew she was there. Did he really not think to go after the people in charge there, who had kept their underground, completely independent society alive (if not thriving) for so long? Dumb ass! But it seems that his failing health may have had something to do with his poor decisions. It also seems that he was focusing much attention on torturing his victims from the Games (the ones, like Peeta, who hadn't gotten away) then on making good decisions in the war. He gave up too easily; or rather, he was too easily blind-sided. So I didn't buy into that whole deal. After all, though Katniss was the face of the rebellion, he as well as anyone knew the power of propaganda. Why was he so susceptible to it?

Besides that nagging detail, the trilogy was wrapped up neatly enough, for the fact that questions were basically answered. I found it entertaining, moving along at just the right pace for the most part, and full of intriguing details (like the crazy ex-stylist in the Capital who had had herself surgically altered to look like a tiger), but it also presents some dark, difficult, and real questions. I have to admit, I have not seen any of the movies, but I believe that the first one is available on my Netflix (though I love the shows, I feel like hardly any movies that I actually want to watch are on there). Second one's still in theaters, I guess, but I could wait on that. I'm not real big on spending all that money to go to a movie. Damned if I haven't been able to help imagining Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss throughout my entire reading of the trilogy, anyway.