The inevitable Hunger Games thread

Collins is not only in possession of the most gruesomely inventive imagination since Hieronymus Bosch. (As David Plotz noted in Slate's discussion of Mockingjay last summer, the series is practically a Kama Sutra of violence.) She also has a precision engineer's sense of how to make her complex narrative structures work: Action-movie directors could learn a thing or 10 from her about how to construct elaborate yet perfectly suspenseful plots. But more impressive is Collins' fierceness. No one is safe from the story she wants to tell, and if that means offing some beloved, underage characters in alarming fashion or ending the series on a note she must have known was going to be divisive among her fans, so be it. Collins doesn't talk down to her young readers or sugarcoat her plot for them; she knows they're as bloodthirsty as her adult fans. By combining a bracing ruthlessness with old-fashioned storytelling skills, Collins cracked the code for making truly compelling—-and profitable—-fiction for all ages.

http://www.slate.com/id/2299513/

ppl in mainstream media outlets writing about genre fiction: classic or dud?

although that's more of an advertising notice than anything, i suppose

the hostility to this book is more interesting than the substance of the complaints

no, you are

why don't you start an anti-hunger games thread, thomp?

that would be slightly less ridiculous

no, you're ridiculous

obviously

but you're out of line rude. on a young adult fiction thread. which is interesting to me

no, you're interesting

do you kick kids reading harry potter books, thomp?

how dare someone enjoy something you're too good for

a book you apparently couldn't be bother to finish, either. interesting!

where did i say that? also, please limit your posts in this thread to those i can respond to in the form "no, you're (x)"

"hunger games feels v schematic -- the world-building feels very back-of-an-envelope, and then katniss spends the entire time explaining it to the reader."

possibly accurate for the beginning?

you're wonderful, by the way

aw, thanks

& no, katniss (& collins) are guilty of that the whole way through: explaining every concept in the book's world as if they had been asked to explain it to a slow foreigner, rather than letting it be explained by the narrative. i.e. lots of narrative units along the lines of 'i went to the (whatever the black market is called) - that's the black market that exists in our town for reasons x and y.' 'i had been selected for the hunger games - that's the games that we have in which children are made to kill each other, which exist for reasons x and y and z.' even once it's just the children-kill-each-other part of the narrative there's still bits like this: 'i noticed i was next to a nest of (whatever the genetically modified bees were called) - those are some genetically modified bees that some guys made, once, that did this.' there's a lot of things you could call this: bad world-building, telling not showing, talking down.

the idea that there should be a thread for people who don't like the books because you don't want them on your thread is kind of a silly one. reminds me of this:

Lady Gaga needs her own thread

she only has two threads and they are both dedicated to metacritical analysis of her career in the context of contemporary pop mzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

― musically, Friday, November 13, 2009 1:24 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i can't wait to read this thread of non-analytic posts

― see-those-tit-ies (J0rdan S.), Friday, November 13, 2009 1:27 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

but, i mean, remy pretty much murks the first book here --"woefully ignorant of the larger literary tradition or canon. it is written in present tense and basically free of any device or craft beyond basic storytelling aptitude. it perpetuates the same limerence-drenched soap-opera shit that's saturated YA for the past half-decade, and does a lot of the ham-fisted world-building that passes for 'imaginative' and refuses to allow the reader to experience wonder, confusion, or ambiguity." these are not substance-free complaints! this is a fairly thorough summary of what is wrong with it!

'gravity's rainbow' is written in the present tense. 'war and peace' proceeds as though the reader knows nothing of napoleon's russian campaign. one of the joys of tolkien's work is his exposition. what is a tesseract? i'm curious what larger canon collins isn't referring to. it's easy to indulge animus

a tesseract is some kind of four-dimensional shape iirc, but i'm not entirely sure why that's relevant

it's relevant because there is a tradition of making things up in young adult fiction, and explaining them. like hunger games. and mutant killer bees

i'm not sure you've understood the nature of my complaint -- i'm saying, if you introduce mutant killer bees, don't have your narrator (who already knows what mutant killer bees are, and cannot within the bounds of the fiction be addressing anyone who does not already know what killer bees are) spend two pages explaining that they are mutant killer bees, and giving a brief history of them -- just let them be mutant killer goddamn bees! the reader will pick up that they are goddamn mutant killer goddamn bees when they go around being two foot long and stinging the shit out of people! the reader will go 'oh, huh, those must be some kind of mutant killer bees'

this syndrome is especially grating in present tense: "i stop and look at the mutant killer bee about to sting me, and as i think about what to do i also form every single fact i know about these mutant killer bees in my head as i would had i been set a school assignment about it"

are you an expert in young adult literacy? because you're not necessarily the target audience for this narrative you find so beneath you

that works equally well as an argument that you're not qualified to judge it as good, unless you are actually yourself an expert in young adult literacy (if you are i just clowned myself (in this discussion about a kids book (on the internet (oh god))))

but, really, if you want to argue that that is actually not bad writing, because children are stupid and incapable of picking up on contextual clues, go ahead

thing is, your example is really bad. she was contemplating for hours about whether or not to make use of the mutant killer bee hive. shouldn't someone think through a life-or-death decision like that?

and without going into my professional qualifications, i have, let us say, some degrees in relevant fields

i am not challenging your reception of this book, by the way. you're entitled to your own opinion! i'm challenging how goes-without-saying universally applicable it is, and how that needs to applied to every positive comment someone might make about it

this is currently the most retarded discussion on ILX

and yeah, i'll cop to being basically an expert on YA

if by 'expert' you mean 'guy who reads a lot of, writes a lot of, markets a lot of, and analyzes professionally a lot of' YA books. i don't think i'm all that bright or nothin'

aha thx remy

i just ordered these btw, will probably start a thread once they arrive / i read them:

Dispatch estimate for these items: 3 Aug 2011
1 "The Forest of Hands and Teeth"
Carrie Ryan; Paperback; £2.80
In stock
Sold by: Essjays Enterprises Ltd
1 "The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking)"
Patrick Ness; Paperback; £3.96
In stock
Sold by: Essjays Enterprises Ltd
1 "The Monstrumologist"
Rick Yancey; Paperback; £1.74
In stock
Sold by: Julies Bookshop Ltd
1 "Ship Breaker"
Paolo Bacigalupi; Paperback; £3.77
In stock
Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.

'the forest of hands and teeth' is written in the first person present. there is lots of exposition. hope you like it

i'd be very curious to read something you've published, remy, despite your retarded territoriality here

i'm not territorial, i'm just feisty

finished the first of these, starting on the second. maybe i'm just an old curmudgeon, but whenever the focus shifts to the love story, my interest plummets. it's not like the dystopian aspects are particularly sophisticated or coherent (the president travels to district 12 to threaten katniss personally, but she isn't under constant guard or anything? it's imperative that katniss and peeta create this "oh we're in love" narrative to quell an uprising, but they don't bother to, like, send a PR person along to make sure it works?), but i am much more interested in those parts than instance #48 of katniss fake-kissing peeta and then wondering whether or not she likes him.

katniss everdeen, more like katniss everannoying

finished "mockingjay" finally. despite being written in first-person present-tense, it completely lacked a sense of immediacy. on another thread i said "catching fire" read like a script treatment, but this felt more like someone trying to describe the plot of a video game -- practically a whole book of telling and not showing. the ending in particular felt crazy rushed, like the manuscript was overdue and she just dashed off an end to be done with it.

I felt like the writing quality got worse as the series progressed. All the places and events of big action paled to the arena in the first book.

i was bitchy about these books but i'm feelin' this trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-5ANq4sAL0

yeah, great trailer

truth is j-lawr's character in winterz bone is pretty similar to hers here - fatherless child of the underclass fightin' for fams. maybe that's every YA adventure character though?

more the latter, but some similarities

even the ozarkian setting

reddening what was your beef with the books?

No John Hawkes, no credibility.

I've got a couple of posts about it upthread, right before the trailer. Basically I liked the first one, except for all the fake making-out between Katniss and Peeta. After that, I thought the quality of the writing declined; huge swaths of the last book are just summaries of what's going on told in a flat, reporterly fashion, which killed the momentum and emotional resonance for me. And Katniss's relationship with Prim is given such short shrift after book 1 that I thought the end of Mockingjay was manipulative and unearned.

i agree with you about the end, and i think i would have preferred the books without all the romantic twilighty stuff, but i still think it's sort of an amazing series. unbelievably bleak for a ya book, or is this the way they all are now?

Yeah, I think my main issue with the books -- feeling distanced by the writing -- is going to be kind of "solved" by the movie treatment. The end of Mockingjay didn't engage me like I wanted on paper, but with actors carrying the emotional heft, and seeing all the effects? I find myself REALLY looking forward to it.

Basically I liked the first one, except for all the fake making-out between Katniss and Peeta. After that, I thought the quality of the writing declined; huge swaths of the last book are just summaries of what's going on told in a flat, reporterly fashion, which killed the momentum and emotional resonance for me.

Thats pretty much where I sat on the first one, really liked it as a fun, light read without all the relationship stuff. Haven't read any of the others yet, mostly because I'm afraid of diminishing returns.

i like how you guys hated the MUSHY stuff

haha, I don't know, after reading a summary of it in the first place, I wanted to read about brutal killings and survivalist stuff, not mushy romance

"ewwww i hated it when they kissed and hugged"

I didn't like the mushy stuff in context of the book: the main dude is in love with Katniss, but she kind of has feelings for another guy, but the people watching the Hunger Games are invested in them having a romance and it increases their chances for survival