“Catching Fire” by Suzanne Collins :: The Hunger Games

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Title: Catching Fire // Author: Suzanne Collins // Publisher: Scholastic Press

“The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay.” –Suzanne Collins, Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games

*A note, before I begin: This review contains spoilers. If you haven’t read the first book, this is not for your eyes. Go get The Hunger Games and read that first. 🙂

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Nothing is real, Katniss Everdeen. Their cheers are hollow, barely hiding the hatred beneath, the readiness for rebellion. That is the word of the hour, isn’t it? Rebellion. They hate this system, these Games you’ve played, and won. They are prepared to deny the tyrants, even facing death, for the hope of their future, and their children’s future.

Your life of pleasure means nothing. Your hunting days, spent by the side of your “cousin,” are past, though you may try to deny it. You are not a child any longer. Nor is He. And your new life- the eating of fine foods and wearing of warm clothes that so many others lack- it has no purpose.

Love is hard, Oh girl of many faces. You hide behind so many masks, hide behind so many layers of mistrust, it is becoming hard for you to see the truth. Which will you accept, Katniss? The friendship of a life long ally, who desires it to be more? Or the sacrificial love of the tall boy with the burned, loving hands. If you only put down the masks, perhaps you would see which is right.

What is your reason to fight now, survivor of tortures and deadly snares? Your family is safe- as safe as any rich in the shadow of the Capitol. The Games are behind you. You’ve nothing left but to forget. If you can. Will you? Do you even want to?

Rebellion! shouts the hungry and dying around you, Girl on Fire. No, the time for the spark is past, if they are to go on. You are The Girl on Fire no longer. The people need a sign, a hero around which to rally their forces. You must evolve, shed the flame and take on the feathers. Learn to fly. Katniss Everdeen: The Mockingjay.

This transformation will take time. You will feel great pain. But pain you know intimately. It is one more name in the ensemble that hangs over your head, fills your dreams, but you have bested it once. You can best it once more. Do not doubt this, Mockingjay. There is no time for doubt. A battle against an unbeatable foe will only be won in complete courage.

Know your friends, Katniss, and beware of your enemies. Behind the rose, you will find blood, and the clock will give you hope. Understand now that the Games will never really be over- they have only just begun. Hold fast your bow, huntress, and shoot straight if you value your life.

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Both of the times that I have read Catching Fire, I’ve been pretty conflicted. (Note the fact, though, that I’ve read it twice. :-)) Suzanne Collins writes like no other author I know of. And her story, the world she creates, is so realistic it’s disturbing. (Don’t get me wrong- I love it.) It is easy to care for her characters like so many do because she has given them life. Even more so because of her prophetic tone.

I liked the second installment in this Hunger Games series far more the second time through, and seeing as I haven’t read it for awhile, it was kind of like picking up a new book. I was anticipating it that much more. Digging into it again was like eating a popsicle in the summertime: Sweet and filled with flavor and color, but leaving you even thirstier then before.

There were more negative elements in Catching Fire than in The Hunger Games. Certain unmarried characters share a bed, but not for the sake of anything inappropriate. It is put down as a need of human closeness, and a survival instinct. But that doesn’t make it alright. Just… bothersome.

Also, as Collins puts Katniss in uncertainty as to who she really loves, it makes her come across as indecisive. An indecisive hero though, I feel, is bound for failure. It adds suspense, but altogether, takes away from the story.

In conclusion, and for clarification: I loved the book, would have liked it to be better, and anxiously await the chance to start on the next one. Tick Tock, Mockingjay. Time is running out.

“The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins :: The Hunger Games

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Title: The Hunger Games // Author: Suzanne Collins // Publisher: Scholastic Press

“And it is true, Peeta has always had enough to eat. But there’s something kind of depressing about living your life on stale bread, the hard, dry loaves that no one else wanted.” –Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

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Katniss Everdeen, District 12: Orphan, archer, stand-in mother. The only one who puts food on the table, protects her sister from authorities that want to take her away, make her run, let her die. Hunting-partner of Gale Hawthorne. And perhaps more, some day… if some day ever comes. Guardian, huntress, volunteer.
Tribute.

Peeta Mellark, District 12: Baker, student, observer. Despised by his mother, and unknown by the one he loves most in the world. Kind, giving without taking. Gentle, often-burned hands, strong of heart as well as mind. Eater of stale bread. Stolid, in love, powerful.
Tribute.

A boy and a girl, as punishment for a war they can’t remember, are torn out of their lives of hardship to face greater hardship still. Members of the Twelfth of twelve Districts dictated by the tyrannous Capitol, Katniss and Peeta  are forced into a televised fight to the death against two tributes from each of the other Districts, in an arena engineered to kill.

Taken to the Capitol to be cleansed of everything that makes them themselves, plumped up, trained to survive- and ensure that others do not. Equally horrified and amazed at the extravagance of what those in the Capitol have at their disposal every day. The murderers are beyond ease, and far beyond rich.

Thick stews and sparkling drinks are offered them, these two, destined to die. Smiling, uncaring fools pretend that they matter. Far from home, Katniss longs for a forest to hunt in, a sister to curl up with at night when it’s cold, but to no avail. Death will be the end, she knows, of mind, body, or both. Mentored by a drunken past-winner of the games named Haymitch, she fights each day against hopelessness, fear, and hatred. No. The hatred she does not fight. And knowing that she must kill the boy that came with her, the boy with the bread, is just another one of the Capitol’s little games that she can’t help playing. Can she trust him? Does he trust her? Does it even matter?

But too quickly comes the end, chasing her always and making her, in a convoluted way, its prey. Unwilling to except it, Katniss fights to escape, fights to get home to her sister, fights the Capitol with her omnipotent will to live. That’s what she is now. Fighter. The Games, her confusing feelings for Peeta, her memories of Gale, the Capitol- all of these become targets. Shoot straight, girl of arrow, love, and flame.

On the curtails of the confusion, suffering, training, preparations- the moment comes. It is time. Let the 74th Annual Hunger Games begin.

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It’s hard at first to nail down a book like The Hunger Games.  Was it a romance? A prophecy? A suspenseful thriller formulated in some “Make-bazillions-of-dollars book lab”? (p.s. It did. [p.p.s. Entirely deserved every dollar.]) This was, in fact, a re-read for me, something I don’t do often. I wanted, though, to give the Hunger Games the honor it deserves.

Suzanne Collins wrote it as a warning, a lens through which one might see the world in a different light, or no light at all. The Hunger Games allows you to see what you normally can not, experience the primal fear of an awful death at an unjust hand, the oppression of the masses for the luxury of the few. It gives new depth to love, murder, and pain, words which some novels use lightly. They are not meant to be written or read lightly.

I think, ultimately, that the category I would put The Hunger Games in would be “Real.” It allows the reader to see reality as it could be, and should never be. It urges the reader, “Pay attention to death, and those around you who live in fear. See the brutality of this world for what it is. But most importantly, love, and do so abundantly.” A curious message to find, these days, in a YA novel. (And it is that, by the way. I wouldn’t suggest this for younger kiddos. Or really anyone you’d call a kiddo.)

Out of place though it may be, this caution is a valuable message to we who live in a world where terrorism, communism, and murder are everyday occurrences. My advice to you is this: Read the book. Hear its message. See its truth. And work to make things different.

“Animal Farm” by George Orwell

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Title: Animal Farm // Author: George Orwell // Publisher: Signet Classics // Editor: ???

Favorite Quote: “All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.” -George Orwell, Animal Farm

Animal Farm by George Orwell is a depiction of the dangers of communism, as well as socialism. These ideologies will, Orwell warns through his infamous allegorical statement, lead one to believe that “All animals are equal… but some animals are more equal than others.” So the story goes:

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For years, the animals of Manor Farm have been taken advantage of; The hens’ eggs are stolen and sold, the horses are made to pull carts without pay, and the pigs are, well, slaughtered. After the death of the ancient and honored pig “Old Major,” the animals take up his call to arms, (Or hoofs, depending,) and take the farm back as their own.

For a time, there is celebration. But following the eviction of the humans, a question is asked: “Who will lead us now?” Rules are written by the pigs, (the most knowledgeable of the farm animals,) seven commandments to keep the animals’ rights justly protected.

In the times to come, however, these laws begin to… shift, almost unnoticeably at first, but with increasing significance. “No animals are to sleep in a bed” becomes “No animals are to sleep in a bed with sheets,” upsetting some of the animals who remembered it as having said otherwise. Squealer, an advocate of the pigs, quickly explains,

“You did not suppose, surely, that there was ever a ruling against beds? A bed merely means a place to sleep in. A pile of straw in a stall is a bed, properly regarded. The rule was against sheets, which are a human invention.” (George Orwell, Animal Farm, pg. 67)

He finishes off his clarification with a warning: “Surely none of you wishes to see [farmer] Jones back?” The other animals shake their heads. If the pigs’ sleeping in beds means no Farmer Jones, then surely they must have been mistaken.

Then, all the apples and the milk are given to the pigs. (“Day and night we are watching over your welfare.  …  Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Farmer Jones would come back!”) The animals shake their heads. “As long as we’re free,” they think. “No animal shall drink alcohol” now reads “No animal shall drink alcohol in excess.” (To the great rejoicing of the pigs.)

In fact, after some time, none of the laws read like they used to. The pigs live in the home of the farmer, doing things like “Filing” and “paperwork.” Freedoms disappear for all but the swine, and new rules are enforced by vicious dogs which follow orders only from Napoleon, the recently appointed President of Animal Farm, and a pig himself.

None but the oldest animals even remember the independence they once had, and even they, only hazily. They work on, not for the value of the work itself, but in fear of retribution. They eat little, and sleep less. And the pigs become more and more as the men they once despised. Or perhaps… envied?

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Animal Farm was enlightening (in a horrific, disturbing sort of way) as to the Soviet Republic, and the communistic view of the world. Upon finishing the book though, I said to myself, “I didn’t like it.” Which was not entirely honest. Indeed, I read nearly straight through it, pausing only with necessity. I did enjoy it. But the ending bothered me. It seemed to say, in effect, “There is no hope. All is lost.” And I thought to myself, “That just isn’t true.”

But after reading through the introduction of the book in hopes of clarification and extra info, I found just that. The cover page of the book reads, “Animal Farm – A Fairy Story.” Though it is a story of talking animals that take over a farm by force, one would have to be dull to examine the book in its entirety and dub it, simply, “A Fairy Story.” Yet this is exactly what Orwell (who was known to be the exact opposite of dull,) titled it. Why?

Because it wasn’t meant to be taken literally. Life for the creatures of Animal Farm is not a direct parable, but a fairy tale. Like a reflection in a fun-house mirror, it gives us an impossible (but enlightening, nonetheless,) view of a real issue. To the quote the introduction,

“…If it succeeds also, as Orwell set out to do, in a political as well as an artistic purpose, leaves us also with a feeling of rebelliousness against the truth revealed.”

And this is exactly how I view the matter, to be summed up in the words of Edna St. Vincent Millay: “I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.” Animal Farm was a fairy story, and to be viewed as being just that. A warning, but not a prophecy.

“A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens

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Novel Title: A Tale of Two Cities // Author: Charles Dickens // Publisher: Dover Publications // Editors: Paul Negri and Julie Nord

Favorite Quote: “He had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor to lie on beds of roses: if he had any such exalted expectation, he would not have prospered. He had expected labor, and he found it, and he did it, and made the best of it. In this, his prosperity consisted.” -Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

In part for the sake of clarification, and again in part for the sake of comic irony, I have decided to write this review as two reviews. One will be story focused, the other more technical. And of course, because it’s me, I’ll begin with story.

He is an average man in Paris, France, 1789. For years he has been oppressed- clothed in rags, over-worked, and under-fed. He spends each day trying to keep his children alive… but wishing that he could die. The government, separate from the people in all things except for the stealing of their goods, lavishes in luxurious homes, glutting on chocolates and other rich food, while he scrambles for the smallest scrap of meat or crumb of bread. How can he help but hear the silent echoes in streets, screaming dangerous words like Justice and Revenge?

The call to arms against the Marquis, an evil and foolish official, is stealthily taken up. Revenge comes fast, in the wake of much death and blood. But they who have been oppressed for so long are not easily satisfied. The hazy line between the afflicters and the afflicted all but vanishes, and once-peasants in new found seats of power become drunk in their retribution. La Guillotine rears her ugly head, and innocent men lose theirs.

In nearby England, a blameless captive of the French prison The Bastille, Dr. Alexander Manette is released, but his ransom price is heavy- his mind is all but broken. Only with the loving and constant nursing of his daughter Lucie and the help of an old banker is he able to recover. Meanwhile, Charles Darnay, a young immigrant from France, is put on trial for a crime that he did not commit. Proven innocent by a man (who looks curiously alike him, but could be no more different,) named Sydney Carton, he is freed to live another day.

Owing his freedom in part to Lucie, Darnay makes himself known to the Manette family, and spends more and more time with her and her father, as well as the banker (Mr. Lorry) and family friend Ms. Pross. But soon, family ties to France darkening his past, Darnay is called back to right the wrongs of his ancestors. He follows the call, unknowing of the angry citizens who intend to end his life.

Upon his arrival in Paris, Charles is immediately taken into captivity in La Force, a prison. Robbed of his rights, and forced to pay for his prison accommodations, he sends a letter to the Manettes for help. They arrive, along with Sydney Carton, in time to find that Charles Darnay is sentenced to a trial by the people, and likely following, a meeting with La Guillotine.

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Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities was a thick, edifying, entertaining, and beautifully written novel. His placement and usage of words to convey specific emotions and hidden meanings made the story valuable, and more than worth reading.

My favorite part of Cities was what I interpreted as the main theme: Recalled to life. A passage quoted frequently, esp. towards the end, was this:

I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me in me, though he were dead, yet he shall live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. (John 11:25)

This was used perfectly in terms of sacrifice, new life, and redemption. Being a Christian, I can further appreciate how important this theme was, though from my readings of Dickens, I am unable to tell if he meant all the marvelous things he wrote down. But, in terms of truth, they were dead on.

Also, his writing of love, and the ties between love and sacrifice, was revealing. I think if he so desired, Dickens could have written an entire book on this subject in itself. One might even go so far as to say that he did. I suggest it for historic purposes, as well as for simple interest. But whatever you read it for, you can be certain it will change you, and I hope, for the better.

“West Oversea” by Lars Walker: A Norse Saga of Mystery, Adventure, and Faith

Reading West Oversea was a strange experience for me. This is, in actual fact, the second Norse Adventure/Historical-Fiction book that I had signed by an author that lives near enough to me that I could walk to their place of residence. (One being written by my grandfather, and now West Oversea by a librarian that lives across the street.)

That coincidence being out of the way, West Oversea by Lars Walker is one of the two best Norse Historical Fiction books I’ve ever read. 🙂 Being the story of several travelers, I feel obliged to give you a bit of a fractured narrative. Here goes:

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“West Oversea.” For the Irish priest Father Aillil, these words meant the freedom of his sister, who was a thrall (thralldom being the Norse alternative to slavery) for most of her life. And all of his life he had thought of her, wishing he could have protected her from her captivity… When the opportunity came, he accepted with a rapidity that defied his land-lubber’s stomach. With him went an object of great power that gives him The Sight, the ability to prophesy. But will it show him things he is not meant to see?

Erling Skjalgsson leaves the land as well, driven out by a corrupt law and a brother he’d thought dead for years. With a demonic shape-shifter out for his wife and new-born child, he sets out for Greenland, searching for fortune, adventure, and a home. With a life of honesty-earned power and ease at his back, Erling the viking soldier takes to the seas. Yet a man may set out with one goal in his mind, the waters may differ…

Indeed, adventure, danger, fortune, and greater faith are found on the tides. And whilst the waters may differ, their God never will.

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Norse historical-fiction, man. It’s good stuff. 😀 Rich with Norse Mythology, funny looking names, and Christian faith, it was a very interesting read. I loved Father Aillil and the rest of the bunch from the start to the end, and am of the opinion that the middle passed far too quickly. Honestly, I can’t wait for the next installment. Well done, Mr. Walker. (If interested, one might find Lars’ blog at http://brandywinebooks.net)

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4 of 5 stars

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