The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins; Part 1/3

Several weeks after the reading-blog project was assigned, my partner and I still couldn't find a book we could agree on reading. In a state of panic, we decided to look at the "Recommended Reading" list where Mrs. Huss' English classes discussed good books to read. At first, it seemed a little silly to choose a book from the list because we were picking it from other people's opinions.

But after reading several chapters, I figured that The Hunger Games was probably one of the most fascinating novels I've read in years. Now, I recommend that others should also look through the list that Mrs. Huss put lots of effort in making because it actually is quite a useful resource.

In an undated future, North America is destroyed in a cataclysm of natural disasters. Out of chaos, a nation known as Panem rose from the ruins. Separated into 13 districts, Panem was ran by an all-powerful and rich city, Capitol, located within the Rocky Mountains. Authoritarian in nature, the Capitol enforced strict rules and harsh regulations over the poorer districts, which resulted in a rebellion between the districts and the Capitol. Abruptly, the war ended with the Capitol's victory and the obliteration of District 13. To prevent the districts from ever rebelling again, the Capitol set up a ritualistic fight-to-the-death, known as the Hunger Games.

The Hunger Games are an annual event where one girl and boy aged 12-18 from each of the 12 districts are to kill each other in an arena while surviving through harsh environment. The last survivor of the event would be declared winner and their represented district would be given an abundance of food and supplies. The Capitol created the Hunger Games as a way to threaten the districts, giving a clear impression that the Capitol could easily do away with any of them just as they did to District 13. As a way to punish the districts even further, the Capitol mandates them to watch the games and celebrate it like a holiday.

In Panem's poorest district, a teenage girl named Katniss Everdeen lived in poverty while trying to support her family by hunting and gathering outside of District 12's borders. Although hunting was illegal, Katniss was able to evade the law because even law enforcers were desperately in need of the foods she collected. When Primrose, Katniss' sister, became 12 years old, she was mandated to participate in Reaping Day (which Katniss has already participated in for years). Reaping Day was the time of every year where each district was to draw the names of a boy and girl to participate in the deadly hunger games. Out of extremely small odds and chances, Prim was picked to become the district's "tribute" for the games. And out of protection and dismay, Katniss rushed in voluntarily replace Prim with herself.

Once Katniss was transported away on a train to the Capitol, she met Peeta, the boy tribute of the district. As Katniss was prepared for the Hunger Games, she noticed how bizarre it was that the Capitol citizens viewed the Hunger Games more-or-less as sensational entertainment. Katniss believed that Peeta is only attempting to act nice to her only so she would be weaker for his advantage in the games. But in a televised interview just before the beginning of the event, Peeta revealed that he had feelings of affection toward Katniss, leaving her in total disbelief and confusion.

To be continued... in Chapter 10, Part 2.

Suzanne Collins, known for writing the acclaimed The Underland Chronicles wrote the impressive first novel of the Hunger Games trilogy in a similar dark tone of oppression and death. Panem's Hunger Games resemble one of the darker parts of America's past, the Vietnam War drafts. I believe that she was mocking America's government through the "Capitol" in the her novel by having the Capitol be so unrealistically bizarre, but still make it seem so similar to Washington DC. She is extremely good at providing imagery to parts of the book where she intentionally wants to bring out the most, while still making it understandable for a broad range of young adults.

And although I haven't read through the entire novel yet, I'm determined to read the entire series (already bought the sequels, haha) and urge Honors English class students to do the same. The Hunger Games to me was not just a science-fiction novel, but a tool to help readers delve deeper into understanding human nature and understaning why people have made such questionable decisions in history. The interesting action-packed hooks of the novel are also tough enough to keep me stuck reading the book for long periods of time.

Read the book!

The Green Mile by Stephen King

Complaints to One Mr. Stephen King, Regarding The Green Mile
or rather
Tiny Little Annoyances

First off, I'd like to let you know that if The Green Mile is your favorite book, I don't intend to offend you when I say it's been slightly annoying me, mainly for one reason: Redundancy. Part of why I think this is because it's the second time I've read these pages (The first time was two or three weeks ago, I barely remembered any of it). However, several things could and should have gone without being repeated, and the description could have been shortened or used later in the book (Though I don't know this for certain, I'm only on page 13 of 536). Overall, I'm not saying I hate the book, just that the book could be a little more...
...interesting.

And don't get me wrong, I do find it interesting. In some places, it's interesting in ways that it shouldn't be. Within five pages of chapter two, the narrator has mentioned his urinary infection three times. At the same time, he is remembering when John Coffey, who can be assumed to be the main character, first enters the state penitentiary. Each time he says something about his urinary infection, it's always equal to him saying something like, "My urinary infection was aggravating". It doesn't appear to serve a purpose, and reminds me of the book How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmarx and Sandra Newman; The authors use an example that they title "The Gum on the Mantelpiece", in which they mislead the reader into thinking that a piece of already chewed gum will serve some purpose in the story, only to have all the characters leave the room and have one character simply clean the gum off the mantelpiece later. It completely distracts the reader from the storyline. Quite simply, the urinary tract infection and piece of gum don't need to be involved in the story, and pull away from it. People want to hear about urinary tract infections and insignificant pieces of gum as much as they want to hear a full plot summary of some TV show they don't plan on watching from the show's biggest, most obsessive fan, or most resentful, cocky critic.

King's redundancy in The Green Mile also appears when he is describing John Coffey's size. While it is important to know how large a character is, it makes one weary when they are told the exact size,"six feet, eight inches" (King 10, 13), of John Coffey twice within four pages. In between, King uses words such as "huge" (King 11), and "big" (King 12). Yes, the reader is aware that someone who is six feet and eight inches tall is pretty big and huge. Using one paragraph, or even one sentence to express his size would suffice for at least one chapter. In regards to description, so far the book has been only that. Granted, it is important to know the setting of the story. But King's use of setting drags it's feet along for an entire chapter, especially since his first couple sentences, "This happened in 1932, when the state penitentiary was still at Cold Mountain. And the electric chair was there, too, of course" (King 3), doesn't bring the reader to want to find out much, other than to find out what "this" is. At the end of the chapter, the only thing really pulled out from it is that sometimes murderers die at Cold Mountain by electric chair. It appears that the barely introduced conflict has disappeared in the fog of the setting and won't be back for a long time.

Frankly, a last annoyance from the story is that so far, the reader has not been told the narrators name. While King takes the time to introduce minor characters who are unlikely to resurface and quickly force five new major characters on the reader, four of them all within one sentence, he neglects to tell the reader the narrators name. It would have been easy to let one of the characters address the narrator by his name in dialogue, after all, it happens often in real life. But no, Stephen King won't let the reader know his name. He even takes one of the characters, Harry Terwilliger, and has him address the narrator as "boss"(King 12), where it would be the perfect opportunity to tell the reader just who, exactly, is speaking.

Despite all these little things that buzz around my face, I can swat them away because even though The Green Mile has it's flaws, King has given the narrator a riveting way of telling us what is going on and what has happened in the past at Cold Mountain. And I'd like to read what else he has to say. Even if I know too much about his urine, but not one of the simplest things about him, his name.
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12/24/2010

I guess this is sort of like a backup blog post; I’ve just had this thought in the back of my mind for a while (By the way, I’m still on the same page as before).

Every single time Stephen King describes the state penitentiary in The Green Mile, I never get anything out of it. I’m sure he has some image in his head like this:

I tried to make it accurate, but I couldn’t figure out how it looked even after reading it three times. Maybe I’m just a little dense. What I see when I read his description is this:

…What I’m trying to say is that if you’re reading this book for leisure, you may get a bit frustrated at Mr. King.

"A Time to Kill", by John Grisham

The first thing I hope you noticed about my post is the title of the book, “A Time to Kill”, by John Grisham. If you didn’t, I would hope it’s because you were too busy being amazed that I managed to blog my post (or is it post my blog?) a whole three days before the due date (for those of you who didn’t know that the due date is in three days, now is an appropriate time to be hysterical).

About the title: notice any similarities to any other books we’ve read this year? I thought it was suspiciously similar to “To Kill a Mockingbird”, by Harper Lee. I haven’t finished the book, so I cannot state what the symbolic meaning of my book is, but there are, actually, quite a few similarities between this book and Harper Lee’s masterpiece. To begin with, a defining element of the plot in “A Time to Kill” is the rape of a ten-year-old African American girl by two white men. In Lee’s book, it is the rape of a white woman by an African American man. Also, the setting in both books is a prejudiced southern town. The reason is, of course, to add emphasis to the rape crime.

However, there is no ‘hero’ character in “A Time to Kill”. Rather, the ‘Atticus’ part is played by criminal attorney Jake Brigance. He is not nearly as righteous as Atticus, and his reason for taking the case is for the publicity, not because he feels he must to have a clear conscience (the court case in the Grisham book is between the father of the rape victim and the state; the father murdered both rapists). Because of this, though, the character is easier to connect to. It is less difficult for me to relate to a less-perfect, more realistic character than the ideal, perfectly righteous Atticus. Simply put, the lawyer in “A Time to Kill”, while not in any way an antagonist, is much more like you’d imagine a lawyer to be.

“A Time to Kill” is told in third person (limited), so, even though Brigance is the main character, he is not always present during major events. This further helps the story develop, because, with the intricate, interwoven plots (activist groups for or against the defendant of the murder trial) the reader would not be able to follow the plot fully by only following Brigance. Interest is also added to the plot this way, because the reader knows about upcoming events before Brigance, allowing the reader to be nervously awaiting the occurrence of such events. These factors have led to my having to force myself to only read enough for one blog post at a time. So far, the plot is extremely believable and exciting.

Overall, through the first hundred and thirty-seven pages of “A Time to Kill”, by John Grisham, the book is shaping up to be an enjoyable pleasure read.

Thirteen Reasons Why

I bought Thirteen Reasons Why a couple weeks ago, and the day I opened the first page, I also read the last words Hannah recorded, and the final words Clay listened to. The reason I read the book in one day, was not to finish it and move on, but because I simply could not put it down. I found the novel's plot very intriguing and exciting and because the story happened within 24 hours, I could not put the book down until I found out how everyone was so intricately bound together.

I found the plot to be interesting not only because it was a sort of mystery, but also because of the way it was told. I liked how the author wrote what was on the tapes, and then inserted Clay's dialogue and memories between the lines. The author also held my attention by not making the answers obvious, but rather, waiting until the very final chapter to tie all of the characters and stories together.

Although getting voted "nicest ass in the freshman class" may not seen very significant, the author did a good job of making simple events pile up, and eventually show the gradual hatred Hannah began to feel. Furthermore, although Asher used simple language in the novel, no eloquent vocabulary was necessary to capture the emotions portrayed in the novel.

Brave New World

So far: page 95 out of (technically) 231

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a very strange and surreal view on how the future could look like in our world. The people of Earth haven't moved to other planets, discovered other life forms, or made hover crafts, but there is definitely technology improvements. They live in a time called A.F, or After Ford. Ford, for now, I do not know who he is. He is a god, of a sort, but he created the idea of the caste system they use.

Instead of having mother's birth us, we are made in machines. They literally take the egg from the female and sperm of another male and make thousands of children per day. Each egg is successful, but what class they will be in depends on their mother. They have the ability to deprive the embryo of oxygen and other nutrients, making either an Epsilon, Delta, Alpha, or Beta. In the embryo, they are given vaccines as we would be given as children. Some are given alcohol as well to see the effects it causes.

If that wasn't enough, mothers, fathers, and families are unheard of. The children are raised in facilities where they are trained by hypnopaedia, or unconscious learning, and allowed to run naked amongst each other. They are raised with the brains of a ten year old at the age of three, and develop much faster. Take a puppy, for example. It matures physically very rapidly, but not mentally. Humans develop moderately fast mentally, but not physically. Their goal is to be able to mature fast physically and emotionally at the same rate.

The only morale in Brave New World, is that of Ford, and what they are taught young. They have paragraphs of their class pounded into their brain, and do not care for anything else. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, none of these exist. They are, more so, a blight upon our history. The thought of a God horrifies them.

Erotic behavior is also highly encouraged for all ages. It is even the most common thing, and to not have a lover is shameful. They laugh at how we consider it to be immoral and wrong to wait until we are much older. It is an... interesting way of thinking, to say the least.

This book, however, doesn't have a plot so far. It is more so a description with some characters to help explain than it is a story. Though highly interesting, I'm curious to see if it ever will have a plot. It has high potential for one, but it is not necessary. I am eager to finish the next few hundred pages and see how the book unfurls.

"The Chamber" by Johnny Grisham

So far: page one.

One page isn't very much, but this book gets right to it. Already, John Grisham has thrown in some racial prejudice as he talks about the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, yet in the page, the bulk of the prejudice isn't against African-Americans. Instead, I find it very interesting how the first character is Jewish lawyer, and this Jewish lawyer is in some major trouble. Specifically, Grisham is writing about a bomb plot and the three men involved in the bombing.

So, the first page is pretty abrupt; there is a lawyer, some violence, and already the slightest bit of suspense - just what I expected out of Grisham. While I wasn't surprised by his style of writing, I believe it is very good after one page and I look forward to the other 675 pages. On the topic of 675 pages, I believe an exciting, suspenseful style of writing is necessary when it comes to a book this long. If Grisham can take law, which is a potentially interesting topic, and make it an action packed and dramatic story, then I will be on the edge of my seat and each page will only get better and better. If not, then the excessive amount of paper will come in handy for a fire during this upcoming winter.

May this book be awesome even after the first page, and may Jewish lawyers have some peace.

Chris Beltrone (C-Bizzle)

How to Post Your Entries

Welcome to the blog!

Remember, when the first person is ready to post about a chosen book, click on NEW POST. Title the post with the title of your book. Write the first blog entry. That will be what everyone sees. After that first entry, every other entry about the same book will be posted under COMMENTS. In order to add a comment, whoever is posting must click on the actual post that is already there.

It is pretty easy folks. I look forward to reading your many insights.