First there was Harry Potter, than Twilight, and now, Hunger Games. I didn't jump on the bandwagon of the other two, but somehow I got caught in the trap. I've never been much of a reader, however recently, with as much traveling I've been doing, I've enjoyed a good book. I don't have to wait till I'm in flight, I don't have to worry about the battery dieing, and I'm never asked to stop reading even while landing. I guess you could say, in some ways, its given me the control that technologies have somehow taken away. This book, this story, this adventure, well....there was no putting it down. Had it been on a kindle, I may have been arrested for resisting to "power down"
I had decided to purchase the book on a unsuspected trip to Walmart. The wait for my busted tire was expected to take an hour, so rather than wait in a small room, I hopped the fence to the closest form of entertainment I could find; Walmart. I walked the aisles and began piling my cart with unnecessary items. Socks, a food processor, two bottles of shampoo, and at the checkout stand, Hunger Games. There, it looked at me with its black cover and delicate gold bird. Even the cover looked intriguing, and for the low price of $6.50, I grabbed it.
I walked back to my car, paid for my busted tire, and had to proceed with my day. There would be no cracking the pages tonight. It laid on my floor near my backpack, piled with the other items I had put aside in packing for my trip to Austin. As I laid in bed, it kept staring at me. It felt like Jumanji, thrilling, but scary. What was in this book that was driving people mad!! All my associates at work were raving about it. They would talk about the characters, in which I originally suspected were real people, until I was told that in fact they were just talking about Hunger Games. I was hearing of book clubs, and fan pages, websites, and by now I'm sure Halloween Costumes. It was time to find out what was up.
All packed and ready to go I headed to the airport. After I passed security, I immediately whipped it out of my satchel, and began reading. At first I was confused. I was trapped in the past, but in the present, and in the future..this was a sci-fi ish book..oh no.. I never do well with these. As I continued to read on I began to attach myself to the characters, their emotions, their families, their historys. My mind as it does was trying to figure it out. What was this in comparison to? Probably something political (i'm aweful at politics) maybe a time in the past (history? i can remember sooome facts) or maybe this was just something fantastical, and I should just enjoy it.
I'll be honest..i'm only half way through . I plan to read the rest tonight and tomorrow and watch the film on Monday. At this point, I've come to a few interesting observations. My main observation was this. In the increase of Reality shows, we have seen a dieing, a sacrifice of true art. I'm not saying war is an art, but we have certain individuals, being chosen (whether we like it or not) to be made into something, they are not ready for (ie Jersey Shore, American Idol, Housewives of...) Now of course this seems far fetched. The examples I listed are people who subjected themselves to a show and then we made them something.. but the key is ...we the people made them something. We made their importance..imagine if we somehow couldn't / didn't. Would actors, get to be actors? Would that art grow? .... I still have some thinking to do on this idea.
The other observation, although maybe obvious, I thought it was fascinating, how quickly and how popular something like a book can become based on character relationship. Not just any character relationship, life or death relationship. We as the reader are interested and curious on who is going to die, who is going to live. Are there any "bad guys" in this book? Are we in fact the "bad guy" by passing biased judgement on these characters. We are hooked to find out who dies! We secretly want Gale and Catniss to be lovers, and we want Catniss to win, and we don't want to think Primrose will ever die, and we want Peeta to be bad so she jabs him, and we want everyone to be aweful and Catniss and Gale to end up together..and i pretty much said that twice cuz thats what I'm thinking...however.. i hear there's a twist.... I suppose I"ll continue to be conflicted as well as enjoy the ride..
Here's to the 2nd half.... of the Hunger Games
*Ps...i'm already upset that her sparkly dress is not in the movie..or maybe it is but the movie is showing her with a one sleeve red dress that looks like something from the 80/90's...eww....I think i'll be better off writing about the costume design and interpretation...now enjoy posting strange things about things I don't understand:)
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