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/lit/ - Literature

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2567476 No.2567476 [Reply] [Original]

So I'm trying not to be an elitist, to read a little bit of everything, and pick up The Hunger Games. And sure enough, the characters are sympathetic, the world is imaginative enough to keep me interested, and the writing practically reads it by itself. I sat up until 6 AM finishing it. At times it's harsh, but then at others it's so warm.

But then ... And now I don't know what to say, because when the main characters finally do live through the game, forget all the dead children, the grandest tragedy is that the main character faked her love for Peeta to win the viewers sympathy and receive prizes ... Yet how can I not think it's wrong to care about this after Rue's burial where we're constantly made concious about the cameras watching, and I'm thus made to feel bad about caring about Rue, because ... How am I any better than the viewers of Panem, accepting the entertainment I'm given at its horrible premises ... I mean, it's a book about children killing each other, yet the love triangle it creates is the biggest issue, the dramatic realization of its creation the way to end the first novel, deserving of such emphasis? It's almost ridiculous.

I'm not saying it's a bad book, but Battle Royale was digestable because it was a satire. The fact that one is enjoying the game much like the viewers of it only makes it ... deeper. With The Hunger Games, I'm given nothing such ... Instead I'm put in a conflicted situation where I'm not sure if I think it's moral to read anymore, and the book itself is what got me thinking like this, yet I'm still very curious about what happens in the two next books ... Thoughts?

>> No.2567478

>read kids book
> analyze as an adult's book

>> No.2567480

Bad things happen in other books. Worse things even. While I understand that the meta aspect of the audience in this book is what made you start thinking about this in the first place, what makes this book fundamentally different from any other book where horrific things happen to the characters.

If it's not moral to read this book, then it follows that it's the same for a vast amount of other works

>> No.2567481

>>2567480
>... to the characters?
herp

>> No.2567483

>>2567478
> implying Tweens to Teenage people are stupid.

>> No.2567490

Because other books fucking care. To compare it to something else young adult, Harry Potter takes four books before a student is murdered in our presence, and the main character then spends the entire following book distressed. In The Hunger Games, the effect the games had on Katniss's social life is emphasized over the atrocities she committed and were committed ... It's nearly as if the book considers itself the second best thing to a real version of the games themselves. I'm also disturbed by how the main character is consistently kept pure by having her kills be accidents, or happen in light of things that are so horrible, her kills make sense. For example when she bows down the boy that captures Rue, and when she mercy kills the last guy standing after monsters have been torturing him for an entire night. The whole thing is so unnervingly hypocritical and disturbing ... I can also not get over that Peeta volunteered to finish off the girl in the beginning, when he was pretending to be one of the Careers and they had walked away from her, thinking she was dead, but had heard no canon fire. I know I just complained about the character's unbelievable purity, but this is just ugly. Could he have at least defended it somehow?

>> No.2567492

You're not an elitist for disliking a book. You're an elitist if you get really angry that other people like it.

>> No.2567493

>>2567492

But I don't dislike it. I'm just trying to figure out if I can get the two other books without feeling immensely bad about myself O_o

>> No.2567495

>>2567492

No, you're simply elite if you understand the writing to be a joke.

>> No.2567499

... and further, if you are distressed by the lemming psychology void of discerning taste that has intruded upon what used to be a relatively dignified form of artistic expression.

>> No.2569050

Please please expand on your BR comment

>The fact that one is enjoying the game much like the viewers of it only makes it ... deeper.

How does someone enjoying it make it deeper?
On the level of it being satire, or a social comment?

>> No.2569091

>>hunger gaems
>>deep

lol wow. The day /lit/ was trolled by the best. 10/10 would read again.

>> No.2569117

>>2567492
Is being an elitist really a bad thing?

>> No.2569157

>>2569091
so OP reads the hunger games, which takes him until 6am, and we're the ones being trolled?

>> No.2569178

>>2567476

wait, wait, wait - you're trying to tell me you sympathize more with a murdering sociopath (katniss) than with her hypothetical audience?

...

get help.

>> No.2569514

Read the series through the forcing of a friend of mine. The first two books are decent enough, but the third is awful. Very few if any redeeming qualities about it. I got recommended The Running Man by Stephen King after I read it and it is absolutely incredible. I'd definitely advise reading it if you even half enjoyed The Hunger Games.

>> No.2569844

Read them.
Enjoy your mind fuck.
Get back to us on this shit, seriously. You come, you make thread, we read. Capiche?

>> No.2569853

fuck off capitalist scum OP

>> No.2569880

Oh look. This thread again.

>> No.2570443

>>2569050
GIIIVE MEE ANSWEEERS OP

>> No.2571536

>>2570443
DO IT OP

>> No.2571766

To be honest, the next 2 books have more shocking shit up their sleeves, and far deeper than the first one. Character development grows, as does the relationships between them do as well. Trust me, keep reading. I wasn't satisfied until I had finished reading the last book.