Book Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy

I probably would not have paid attention to this fad if someone had not explained to me the premise of the books and encouraged me to read them. The big question for me, of course, was what will these books have to say about poverty and hunger? Will they contribute anything useful to the public conscious?

Throughout the first book and part of the second, I was pleased. It was a typical dystopian set-up, but with some more contemporary considerations given to reality tv, the entertainment industry, and celebrity, along with a few interesting connections between ancient Rome and the present (e.g. the practice of throwing up between courses and bulimia in the present day). What I liked most, however, was the very explicit connection between wealth and poverty: the Capitol citizens were wealthy only on account of the fact that everyone else was exploited. The people in the districts were not hungry because they were lazy or unenlightened, but rather because production was organized by and for the benefit of a wealthy elite. In the same vein, I really appreciated the way in which the technological advancement of the Capitol was juxtaposed to the more “traditional” lifestyles in the districts. “Development” is always uneven and it is more the product of exploitative relationships than a stage of cultural evolution. Finally, I was happy that the trilogy explored the means by which violence is ideologically justified in the political sphere and then glorified by the entertainment industry.

Of course, at this point there were still some things that troubled me. Most importantly, the fact that power seemed to be concentrated in the hands of a single figure: President Snow.

As I progressed through the rest of the trilogy, those qualms became more pronounced. President Snow was behind everything and killing him was the key to changing the social order. Yet even here, I appreciated the fact that Collins considered the way in which revolutionary movements may replicate the structures they seek to overthrow; still, though, it was a single figure, Coin, who was the problem.

I liked the fact that Collins raised important questions concerning the sacrifices one must make to enact change and the necessity of violence to achieve those ends. She illustrated how easy it is to forget that the “enemy” is also a father/mother/sister/friend... But then it wasn’t clear at the end of the last book whether any of the violence was, in the end, justified. Was life better in the districts? Would it have been better if the rebels had not waged a war, if they had not caused that avalanche, if Beetee had not designed those weapons? Could there have been any other way to free themselves from Snow’s rule?

Not that I have a problem with a story being open-ended. However, if the districts were, in fact, in a considerably better condition (which I do think Collins implies), it would have been nice for her to reflect on whether the same results could have been achieved through non-violent means, since she has spent the entire book probing and problematizing the use of violence. If you are going to question violence, then you should also examine alternatives to violence.

Furthermore, while I do think a certain amount of violence was necessary for Collins to illustrate the disparity between its effects on a person in the “front lines” and the audience reactions engendered by political propaganda and the entertainment industry, she went beyond the point of necessity. She did not use graphic violence sparingly. The violence became gratuitous (really, a second Hunger Games?). I remember being disgusted by the novel A Clockwork Orange and then subsequently reading that Anthony Burgess admitted to making the book so violent partially because he took some pleasure in writing the violence. Like A Clockwork Orange, The Hunger Games trilogy often feels like violence purely for the sake of violence.

Collins also inadequately addresses the question of the conditions that cause the new structures to replicate the old. Was it simply the fact that Coin was self-interested from the beginning? Was the death of Coin all that it took to build a more just world order? Of course, this is all compounded by the fact that Collins views power as a characteristic possessed by an individual, rather than an institutional, structural feature. For example, the technology and lifestyles of the Capitol were previously enabled via exploitation of the districts. Yet, conspicuously absent from the books were the industrialists, CEOs, financiers, and middlemen who make such an arrangement possible. What was their role in the new world? Was having a representative in the government enough to protect the districts from exploitation? Were any sacrifices made in the realm of technology in order to ensure a more equitable social order?

Without any attention to these issues, the take-away from the trilogy becomes the fact that, while horrific, violence actually worked to transform society. A couple of key deaths and, boom, life is better. Simple as that.