ESL Blogs

I came back to EC just a few weeks ago but after writing my previous blog, I was absent for a whole week. I didn't want to go away, but I got The Hunger Games Trilogy and was so indulged in reading the books that I couldn't visit the EC as frequently as I wanted to. If you're somebody fond of reading, you must know how people and things come alive in your imagination. I mean reading the books makes you think, fantasize and use your imagination in a way that nothing else could ever do. You become a part of the story in one way or the other, even if you don't realize it. It's something you don't feel or do when you watch a movie. When I start reading a book, I never want to be disturbed. I only interrupt my reading when I have to do something really necessary. What makes me so glued to books is curiosity. "What will happen the next?" is something which doesn't allow me to go to sleep even.

         So I was telling you that I was busy reading The Hunger Games. The novels were very admirably written. Honestly speaking, I only like the books and movies with happy endings but I found these books great, although there were no happy endings save the third book where the end was pretty ok. I couldn't manage to finish even the first book of the Twilight series as all what I found in it was an account of the smell of Bella's blood and Edward's cold skin, however; I read The Hunger Games with great interest till the very end, so much so that I was determined to read even the acknowledgments given in the end of the 3rd book but didn't as I found them kind of boring. :D

        I personally felt that the flow of the story was such that none of novels could standalone. When I finished reading the first book, I felt I was in the middle of something and I had to read the next book immediately. The story was narrated by the main protagonist Katniss Everdeen, so basically one saw the things through her eyes. The location was 13 Districts and the Capitol in a country called Penam which came into being when North America was perhaps destroyed by some kind of apocalypse. The story was engaging and creative but at the same time engulfed in utter sadness. I read three books but for not a single moment could manage to smile. Even the ostentatious accounts of the ceremonies, food, clothing and architecture in the Capitol couldn't lessen the gloominess that surrounded each and every thing. There were, of course, some "good moments" but there weren't any "happy moments". There were absolutely none.

        There were some characters I liked and there were others I disliked. The ones I absolutely loved were Peeta (the most kind-hearted person), Prim (for being that mature at such a young age), Katniss' mother (for serving the humanity, despite being so brokenhearted herself) and Cinna(for being so ENIGMATIC! The only person I wished author had written more about and one of those I wished were alive in the end) and Rue(for being so innocent). I also liked Katniss, Gale, Finnick, Katniss' perp team, Plutarch, Boggs etc. I found Haymitch and Effie and few others pitiable. However, the one I hated the most was not Snow, the Capitol president, or any other Capitol resident, it was Coin, the district 13 president. She wasn't only a hypocrite but in my opinion the most cruel person among all. I didn't like her from the very beginning but I came to hate her particularly when she sent Peeta after Katniss so that he could kill her and when she ordered to send deadly silver parachutes containing explosives to Capitol's kids taking refuge in the barricade in front of the President Snow's residence, so ultimately killing the Prim. She was worst when she told Victors that she wanted to continue the Hunger Games. Probably the best thing Katniss did was to kill her instead of Snow. 

       Although districts were poor and hunger prevailed, I think what people did wasn't entirely justifiable. For instance, tributes could have refuse to fight each other and hence make the Hunger Games a failure right from the very beginning. I wonder why people didn't teach their children any such thing. (Was it so because they were scared the Capitol would destroy the entire districts? Maybe that was the reason behind.) Instead some of the districts, who were less poor, trained their children to become tributes and thought it was honorable to win the games. Also some of the districts weren't any less cruel than Capitol, like people of 2 who worked as peacekeepers and 13 who never intended to help other districts genuinely. Had the people of districts been a little different, I think Capitol would have never been able to enslave them for such a long period. But I guess I was wrong. It couldn't be as easy as I thought it would be.

       While reading, the only time I felt hopeful, not happy but hopeful, was when I read about Katinss and Peeta's children in epilog. So hopeful that I even wished them good luck! ::D

       While reading the story, I thought what it was that inspired the author, Suzanne Collins, to write such "violent" books. Were the novels only imaginary? They weren't anything but merely a piece of fiction? So when the real motive, in my very personal opinion of course, dawned on me, it sent chills down my spine. Is the world we live in any different from the Penam? Aren't there people dying of hunger in certain parts of the world, while in the others people are stuffing themselves with food, so much so that obesity has become one of the leading causes of death today? Don't we witness people searching for a piece of stale bread or a rotten fruit in garbage so that they could extinguish the fire ignited by hunger in their bellies while others waste and throw away food because it's too much for them to consume? Is this scenario any different from the districts' people dying of hunger while the Capitol ones turned into bulimics?

         Aren't power-hungry governments killing innocent children, children who don't many times even know what death is, in the name of bringing the peace in the world, in the very way the Capitol was punishing the tributes in the arena as a punishment for holding a rebellion a century before, a "crime' that they didn't commit. Children were forced kill to each other for what happened in their grandparents or perhaps their great grandparents time.

        Now a word about mutts. We fortunately don't see them about till now but will the circumstances remain the same in the future as well? I wonder they really will, especially after a certain country officially allowed the scientists to produce three-parents kids. Only future will tell if this and similar "experiments" benefit the humankind or we would witness a generation of mutts inhabiting our dear planet.

Thanks a million for reading, if you really managed to read it. :D

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For Lady Anne! :D

Look Anne spelled with an "e", The Hunger Games aren't something like The Harry Potter Series or The Twilight Series. Though I loved The Harry Potter Series, like other adults excluding you probably, it was written basically for kids. I can't say exactly for whom author of The Twilight Series wrote those strange tales to read, although I must admit that the movies were better and pretty watchable. However, The Hunger Games are something worth reading. They weren't intended as juvenile fiction, rather they were labelled as young-adult fiction. I personally think, they fit more in adult literature. In fact, I won't let a child to read them. There are plenty of good books out there for them to read. They could be as destructible for a child's mind as violent video games and movies. :D

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P.S. I need the opinions of those who watched The Hunger Games Movies. I heard they were great but I'd like to know if they're violent beyond imagination. Actually, I hate too much bloodshed in movies. In the books, Katniss narrated the story and she didn't witness all the killings in the arena or wasn't always a part of war which was fought between the Districts and the Capitol. Is it same in the movies? Thanks in advance for your precious help.