The Hunger Games (Dooh Dooh Dooh Doooo)

Reading Response #?

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins


Let me level the playing field, Here is the wiki link but I doubt that you'll need it.

So in this dystopian trilogy, a Girl named Katniss, lives in a strange world (Panem) built on top of the remains of old civilization. (ahem America) I am reading this book for a whopping 3rd Time. Anyhoo, I am reading this again for a dystopian literature book club, which is where you will be able to find my posts in the future, on another blog. Link SOON TO COME, but back to the capitol.

 So anyway, the world is set up into separate districts by what their production is. Their only reason to exist is to fuel the capitol with supplies. The capitol is run by a 'president' snow, but it isn't quite descriptive of how much power he has as 'president.' Several years ago, (74 years) District 13 (Graphite Mining) rebelled against the capitol and many died. When the capitol eventually won the war, and obliterated District 13, The capitol invented The Hunger Games, in which each district would give up it's young, to fight to the death... on live T.V!

 Alright, the rest of the story goes, with Katniss, and a strange boy (Peeta) from her past, being entered into the Hunger Games Battle. They pretend to be in love, to keep each other alive. Peeta always loved Katniss, but Katniss loves Gale her hunting Partner... Another teenage love triangle. (that makes most of the second book unbearable) I'm not going to explain the story any further, but some great Hunger Games fanatics wrote on the wiki, so just check up there if you haven't read it.

Katniss, has a kind of despicable character type. I can't exactly explain it so well if you haven't read the entire series, but Katniss sort of plays everyone, which doesn't make me feel sad for her. I mean she is fighting for her life out there, but you can't have the best of both worlds... or it'll bite you back, and that's just what happened. Now many people may disagree, but I don't like Katniss. She is not a good person, but that's really what makes this so fun to read.

I also don't really like the world Suzanne Collins has made, why is everyone in the capitol so rich when they don't have jobs, or do anything. Also, why does everyone trust the capitol (at least for the first book) when the capitol turns your children to killers?

Thanks For Reading! (I'm not gonna attempt a joke here <---)
-drat

Post Script:

Do you believe that a society could work if some people just stood around like cows in a pasture, living off the work of others?
 

Ray Bradbury #2 (Fahrenheit 451)

Wikipedia Page <-- Click Me
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Sorry for not posting. My weekly routine was disrupted by Hurricane Sandy, so I waited for the next Wednesday.

As usual the wiki page is up top. This is going to be an odd response, because I am writing about the entire book. Fahrenheit 451 is split in three parts: The Hearth and the Salamander, The Sieve and the Sand, and Burning Bright.

The hearth and the salamander sets the story in a time in the distant future with an off and on war raging, where Guy Montag, a fireman for the city, meets his new neighbor, Clarisse McClellan. She moved in with her intellectual family, which is unusual for the time period. She talks to him about how she walks about and notices things. She speaks of how many kids her age are just killing each other, in car wrecks and other 'accidents.' It's obvious that kids like Clarisse are a dying breed of children that still ask questions. However, the fireman in this dystopian land aren't the suppressors of fire, they're the starters. It's their job to start them in the homes of book owners, because intuitive insight that is written, has become outlawed. Montag's strange relationship with his wife is also brought up in this first part. At the end of this piece, we become aware that Guy has been keeping a hidden collection of books in his house over the years. At the end he and his wife Mildred start to read out of some of the books, with their last few fragments of curiosity.

The sieve and the sand starts with Montag reading through the pile of books. Montag starts to discover the greatness of books and decides he needs to take charge. He storms off to a friend he met long ago: Faber, an out-of-work English Professor. Faber gives Montag an earpiece so he can help him figure out what kind of character Guy's Chief (Beatty) is.

The last section: burning bright, is when the firehouse is called to Montag's house, with orders to burn all the books inside. Beatty tells Guy to burn it down himself and throws him a flamethrower. Montag follows through, burns down his house. He than faces and kills Captain Beatty, burning him with the flamethrower. The rest is really just a chase to the edge of the city, where Montag meets a group of homeless book aficionados, who plan to reteach the world. Then, suddenly war is made certain, and the city gets bombed. Starting a new world from the ashes.

One of Bradbury's favorite tricks is where he uses a metaphor in a metaphor, where he has one character bring up a metaphor in conversation, and what that character says is really another metaphor. Follow that? It's okay if you don't,  I'm not sure I completely get it myself. This book as well as other Bradbury books, are quick reads, but don't miss a word, because it can make things very confusing. when Faber is first mentioned, I guess I incidentally skipped it when saving my page, so the character came out of the blue, so I went all the way back again.

Anyhoo, if you haven't read a good Sci-fi book in a while, read something of Bradbury's, you won't regret it.

Thanks For Reading! (It's amazing you could follow that, you probably couldn't)
-drat

Post Script:

What do you think would happen if we ran out of questions to answer (on earth, in society, in any specific field etc.)