Currently Reading: The Hunger Games [SPOILERS]

Have you ever read the entire prophetical book of Jonah? From beginning to end, I mean. Not the Sunday School version, where Jonah gets spit out of the fish's mouth and joyfully runs to Nineveh to call on it's citizens to repent, which they do, and danger is averted. End of Story. Except that is not all when you read the real story in the Bible. Following his venture into Nineveh, Jonah runs up onto a hill and waits to see God rain destruction on the heads of the people... despite their repentance and God's promise of salvation should they do so. In light of Jonah's attitude, God offers this little real-life parable: He causes a plant to grow tall in order to offer shade to Jonah as he waits for brimstone to fall out of the sky. God then causes a worm to eat the plant and Jonah is left with his burning rage over the destruction of the plant and a still-intact Nineveh.

I know you want to know what this has to do with The Hunger Games. Here's my point: God comes to Jonah and asks, "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" As in, is it worth it to be so angry over this one plant? To feel such rage and grief for it's demise? You can almost hear the outrage as he screams back, "Yes, I do well to be angry!" And God essentially asks the prophet, "Then don't you think that I should also feel that grief for my creation, for the 120,000 men, women, and children who live here, and their cattle, also?" And that is how the story ends. It's meant to prompt the reader to make a decision, to have a response, to be changed: WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

That's how I felt at the end of Mockingjay, the third installment of The Hunger Games trilogy. This was not an easy series to read; there is a lot of violence and Collins raises some fabulous but weighty questions that not every teenager (the intended audience) would yet have the maturity to navigate. Reading these books opens a flood of emotions and at the end I felt just as washed out, overwhelmed, and unsure as Katniss sitting in her kitchen. But that may be the point; for so many of  us, the realities of war and psychological trauma are pretty distant. Collins brings those terrors and the tremors close enough to taste the grief and pain. But at the same time, the little voice is there: what would you do?

So my thoughts after reading The Hunger Games? Some things stand out immediately: First, the biggest impression I have after reading Mockingjay is the need to not short-circuit grief. Every time Katniss gets close to having an emotional crisis or encounters painful truths, someone sticks a needle in her arm and keeps her under sedation until the understandable rage passes. For the sake of the plot, this seems to move things along and it makes sense, given the circumstances, that the District 13 officials aren't especially interested in allowing Katniss - or anyone else - time to grieve. Yet you see the deep wounds fester and poison her fragile state. Again, perhaps this is the double-edged sword of war: physical wounds require immediate attention, but the deep psychological and emotional wounds can more easily, and forcibly, be ignored. But they linger forever. If you are unnerved at the end of Mockingjay, it's probably because anyone who comes that close to war and violence will be unnerved. It seems that rather than to wonder why we feel this way, it is the intended outcome of the story.

Katniss, the main character who also narrates the trilogy, is generally positive; her actions and motivations are human, mixed and at times selfish, but she is also conscientious and feels compassion towards friends and some of her foes. Throughout the series, you see her grow in self-awareness of what she believes or what compromises her values. And she grows in the ability to trust - both in trust for others and of her own conscience. Trust may be a lot more important of an issue than we think. I suspect a lot of young adults struggle with trust issues - and when I say that I 'suspect' this, what I mean is that the number of times I have heard Millennials talk about their lack of trust in other people, I extrapolate that it is a major issue. And so I expect that many young adults can empathize with Katniss in this area. You can clearly see the strain that indecision and mistrust places on relationships; you can see how it pains everyone involved. I'm not sure how to think any further about the triangle of relationship between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale. But perhaps they are a good place to start thinking more deeply about this issue?

On the other hand, the tenuous hold we have on the conscience, and the ability to say "No!" to something that compromises and crosses strongly-held beliefs is enforced. In her last action as the Mockingjay, Katniss makes a decision that is radical and deeply disturbing. Yet... perhaps it is the one thing that may save her world from continuing down the path to utter destruction? She understands that something so wrong as the Games cannot be allowed to take place again, cannot be allowed to continue. Perhaps what Katniss understands is that appeasement does not lead to peace? There has been such pressure to be "tolerant" or to have absolute "equality" that what many young adults actually feel is the pressure to be silent when they disagree with the prevailing mood of the society around them. I very much believe that we are to treat all of humanity with kindness and civility; and I very much believe that Katniss' action is of a rare kind, only to be undertaken in the most dire of circumstances. But what I can affirm in the starkness of her decision, in Peeta's gentle hopes, in Gale's determined obstinacy, is the decision to speak up. We should all be so courageous as to be able to say, in our case with gentleness and peace, "No, I can't agree to that."

I have wondered whether a lot of teens felt so keen of a connection to this story because it in some way felt familiar. In the post-9/11 world that they have grown up in, some of what Katniss and others experience may seem more common to the young adult crowd than perhaps it does to an "older" reader? I was a college Freshman in 2001, but someone who is almost half my age (fifteen to sixteen) would have practically no memory of getting on airplanes without full-body scans or a world where we weren't constantly hovering at "threat level: orange" such that the violence that still seems so stark to me may not be quite as jarring. Or at least, isn't as unexpected.

Collins tells an impressive story:  the motivation of the individual acting to save their fellow man, the atrocities of war and of totalitarian regimes, the haunting questions, who is our real enemy and how do we ever heal from this evil? These have been the subjects of some of the best literature of the twentieth century and Collins successfully brings those matters into the twenty-first with fast-paced and insightful story telling. And for that I would recommend these books with the caveat that they are are not for everybody and certainly not for every season of life. I'll admit that it was probably not wise for me to read this last book in a time where I'm already struggling with sorrow and feeling low - it made emotional stability difficult for several days. But then, I have a pretty decent ability to enter into suspension of disbelief and that means I'm probably going to have some sort of intense emotional response to a good story. You've just got to go in aware.

I do have a few critiques. One of the things that most bothered me about Collins story was that Katniss and Peeta's relationship perpetuates the myth of a sensual yet chaste relationship. That somehow the physical intimacy of sharing a bed, that the intimacy of proximity and the heart, shared in those vulnerable moments, can somehow remain isolated and not grow into something more. I understand that Collins may not place the same emphasis on protecting emotional and physical purity, but when we hand this book to our daughters, what are they reading? Much like the Twilight series (which no, I have not read), there's a weird sort of sensuality that doesn't cross a "line" but still is unhealthy and has to be addressed.

In terms of Collins writing and style, the story is fast-paced and engrossing. But it was her explanation or attempts to "evolve" the language that jarred me from my engagement. For example, the explanation of 'morphling' as a pain-reducing drug, a clear reference to morphine, was frustrating because the reader should be able to make the connection; I felt talked-down to after this break in the story and the flow of the story felt disrupted. There is also an inconsistency in the way Collins uses this change in language over time (a real phenomenon); the language surrounding other elements of our contemporary society, such as televisions or telephones, doesn't seem to have changed despite their supposed rarity or antiquity in Katniss' world. This may seem like a nit-picky critique, but anything that reminds me that I'm reading a book is fair game.

I admit that I struggled with the ending of the series. It felt like too much of an easy way out; too quick, too neat. Katniss, the Mockingjay, the very image of the rebellion, is shipped off to her home, seemingly left alone by all but a handful of people. No authority, whether real or ceremonial, is thrust upon her; she is seemingly abandoned by the world she helped to save, or else that world has seemed to unanimously agree to leave her be. Equally, the relational tension between Katniss and Peeta seems to be overcome with just the flick of a page. Nothing is said about the work it had to have taken for them to be able to once again be friends, let alone to share the rest of their lives together. Maybe Collins felt that this part of their lives was outside of the range of her story? But it made their reconnection seem too cheap and easy. That is unfortunate, because they have a relationship that seems beautifully redemptive.

What I did appreciate about the end of The Hunger Games is the reality that in order to achieve and maintain the freedom and liberty won, Katniss anticipates having to teach her children the lesson of what kind of suffering had been a reality in her life, of what she hopes will never be a reality for them. The truth is that her hard-won peace cannot last forever, and that if she does not want to see the ravages of war and injustice again, she must continue to work hard in order to teach the next generation to live justly. This is the question we are left with: What are you going to do? How are you going to live in this world? With an eye for pushing against evil, suffering, and making room for restoration, goodness, and beauty? In the words of another Old Testament prophet, What does God call good and require of us but to live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?

Recommended Reading:
If you are interested in this idea of how language can influence the reality of a story, I highly recommend Dr. Tom Shippey's J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century.

If you are interested in thinking more about how your beliefs can come together with the way you live out your life, I enthusiastically recommend Dr. Steven Garber's The Fabric of Faithfulness and Mrs. Edith Schaeffer's Hidden Art.