Catching Fire

[shipperx]

Finished Book II of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire. Now I'm shocked that these books were marketed as young adult (I would give it a teen rating)  and I simply have no idea how they're going to make a PG  movie out of this (movies always seem more graphic than books for me).  It's brutal. I suppose the lack of sex is how they explain it, because I think it being a YA series is the only thing that keeps sex out of it.  On a character level, with death this omnipresent,  I can't help but think that someone would be jumping someone else's bones.

Katniss in hunter mode reminds me of a young Aeryn Sun.  They both have that cold, steely competence, but where the 'love triangle' is concerned she reminds me one freaking hell of a lot of Buffy Summers.   She's constantly breaking Peeta's heart in the most casual of ways, never realizing that she's doing it until it's become painfully obvious to everyone else,  and, like Buffy, is utterly clueless in making sense of her own emotions.  She sublimated them so deeply, buried under so much emotional damage that she's suffered that she can't make heads or tails of what she feels.  Unlike Buffy, she's not even afforded opportunities to try.  

This gladitorial Battle Royale-thing is beyond barbaric, making this one seriously dark universe for these books.

It's kind of crazy, though, how appealing I find Peeta to be  (Jeez, the character is what? 18 tops?).  Let's hear it for the beta heroes!  He wears his heart on his sleeve.  He has all the access to his emotions that Katniss doesn't have (which I guess is why I find it so painful whenever she breaks his heart).  I love that he isn't threatened by her strength, and I love the way that he loves her even when it cuts him to do so.

And boy it's easy to identify with Katniss's furnace of hatred for The Capitol. They're sadistic. .  President Snow needs a visciously brutal death.  The man may as well preside over the fascist empire as bad as 1984's... only with the added horror of reality television.   

I'll probably get into a more in depth discussion of it all when I've read Mockingjay... which will no doubt be this weekend.   Suzanne Collins did write a page turner.

Comments

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

It's funny that you mention Aeryn, because I've always pictured Katniss as a very aged-down Claudia Black :D (Unfortunately that won't be an option for the film!) Isn't Peeta lovely? I fell in love with him in the first book when he told Katniss that he knew he was going to die, but he wanted to die as himself, not as some kind of monster created by the Capitol. Awwww! (Maybe he's a young John Crichton?)

I do think it's basically just the "no swearing/ no sexytimes" that make these "young" adult! I can't wait to hear what you think of Mockingjay.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Physicall and self-possession-wise she does seem very Aeryn-like. That's sort of the niche she occupies in my head. And for some reason (I don't even watch the show!) Finnick is the guy who plays The Green Arrow on Smallville (It must have been something in the physical description because, like I said, I don't even watch Smallville). And EW saying they'd cast Robert Downey Jr. has Haymitch has somehow landed him as the Haymitch image in my head.

And I do thik the YA basically boils down to no sexytimes and no swearing because certainly thematically and emotionally (as in the emotional toll involved) it's quite adult.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Hehe, love it that we're reading them at the same time, I have a 80 pagess or so left on Mockingjay.

The books really are page turners and I agree that they are quite brutal.

There are sometimes things that are a bit blown up, like the political importance of the berry stunt (which is so easy to spin both ways).

I think in a way the books are genious and I'm glad that they are marketed to YA, because in our time the message that media is an instrument of manipulation and oppression is incredibly important.

I hope Suzanne Collins writes a lot more books, because she's a writer who is already incredibly but still has room for getting better. I found the premise and the world very interesting. The different cultures, the different views on food in the districts and the capitol. The casting of the western society as a parasite villain. It's all fascianting.

Problem is that she can't handle the scope sometimes, she's awesome at small scope, but the big political impacts always feel a little forced and often the tales of the rebellion are a lot more tell than show.

So basically when she has them in the confined space of the arena she's at her best, but to me the books are most interesting outside of it.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Yeah I was thrown by a loop at the way the berry incident was supposed to be such an act of defiance. That was a stretch as indeed it would've come across very "Romeo and Juliet" to an audience not as an act of political defiance. I think had that been its intention in the novel it should have been a bit more... defiant. As it was, it really did come across as pure desperation which could just as easily, if not more easily have played as Romeo and Juliet-like adolescent love.

I actually thought her refusing to kill, on top of Thresh sparing her was actually more defiant.

And, yeah, I do think the parasitic nature of the Capitol is what makes it such an interesting fictional world.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the books have a few such moments, where a desired effect should take place (uprisings and such) but somehow the causes seem a bit meager and Snow seems a bit lame for not acting more strategically. They are evil and ruthless all right, but they are bit dumm for the sake of the narrative some times.

But it's a minor flaw compared to all the great things in the books.

Did you start Mockingjay yet? (I'm finished now).

[binsoup.livejournal.com]

really? PG-13 movie? the books i will let my kids read if they want, but a movie based on the series? i'm not sure. according to my own crazy home-grown parenting rulebook, i can be a liberal when it comes to books, but should be a borderline fascist when it comes to movies and television. it has to do with the differences between print and cinema as media and as experience.

btw, i like your summary.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It's weird I know, but I totally agree. There's just something different in medium. I'm as chicken as can be in movies, but I can easily read the scariest stuff in novel form. And I really have no problems with the violence in The Hunger Games because there's a purpose in it being there. But for the movie to carry the power of the book, it really would need to be shown as brutal. It will be difficult to strike the balance so as to adequately portray how terrible it is and yet not make it too horrific for a PG-13 rating.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I think a movie of the material could be very interesting as well as very difficult to make, even aside from the rating issues.

The books bring up a lot of issues about reality tv, about that unrealness of what we see not only in entertainment but in the news too. I think a lot of these scenes where reality conflicts with the desired on screen narrative is hard to do on film.

Kaniss playing at loving Peter for the camera while not being in love with him (but maybe slowly falling).

The brutality is another issue, because you can't cut it down without damaging the material. In a movie the viewer would be cast in the role of capitol citizen even stronger than in the books.

[peroxidepirate.livejournal.com]

Drive-by comment, here; I loved The Hunger Games, too, but haven't had a chance to read the others yet. Would you mind putting the Mockingjay commentary under a cut when you get there?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'll keep everything spoilery (including reaction) behind the cut. Above the fold I'll stick to basic set-up for the original novel (about as much as you'd get from the book blurb on Book 1). I wouldn't want to spoil folks who haven't read the rest of the series.

[peroxidepirate.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thank you! :D