Of Bread, Blood and the Hunger Games: Critical Essays on the Suzanne Collins Trilogy
2015; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 56; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2047-7708
Autores Tópico(s)Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis
ResumoHunger Satisfied. Mary F. Pharr and Leisa A. Clark, eds. Of Bread, Blood and The Hunger Games: Critical Essays on Suzanne Collins Trilogy. Greensboron: McFarland, 2012. 256 pp. ISBN 9780786470198. $40 pbk.Reviewed by Thomas MorrisseyIf had a fourteenth district, perhaps its residents could occupy themselves by wading into scholarly and pop culture tsunami triggered by Suzanne Collins's trilogy-there's plenty to go around. The title under review is one of several significant critical texts. Tom Henthorne's Approaching The Hunger Games (also from McFarland) and The Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of Pure Treason, edited by George A. Dunn and Nicholas Michaud (from Wiley), hit beach along with countless conference papers, study guides, a survival manual, and, yes, cookbooks. Veteran scholar Mary F. Pharr and graduate student Leisa A. Clark have produced a comprehensive and highly readable collection of essays that captures intellectual richness and ethical complexities of Collins's novels. Read this book even if you do not live in District 14.The text features a preface, introduction, and twenty-one essays grouped into four sections entitled History, Politics, Economics and Culture, Ethics, Aesthetics and Identity, Resistance, Surveillance and Simulacra and Thematic Parallels and Literary Traditions. There is also a bibliography of primary and secondary YA dystopian literature. In introduction, editors briefly make a case for importance of dystopian and apocalyptic YA fiction (no one reading this book would think otherwise), but they also emphasize how exceptional Hunger Games trilogy is, something that contributors establish throughout anthology.The six essays in Part I contextualize trilogy by exploring how books are rooted in and critique contemporary American life. Bill Clemente's lead-off essay, Panem in America: Crisis Economics and a Call for Political Engagement, makes a case for trilogy's successful revelation of social injustice in United States. The myriad references to Roman culture establish an unflattering parallel between past and present nations, while trilogy's ambivalent conclusion sets it apart from majority of YA texts, in which even a quasi-negative outcome is unthinkable. Katniss and Peeta suffer, and their vision of a better world is yet to be fully realized, but they persevere; Clemente tells us that, the novels argue that a refusal to become involved equals an abdication of responsibilities freedom requires (28). In Absolute Power Games, Anthony Pavlik introduces Umberto Eco's definition of Ur-Fascism, thereby giving a name to violent systems embodied in both presidents, Snow and Coin. Tina L. Hanlon argues convincingly for similarity of fates shared by miners in District 12 and those who have labored in America's Appalachian coal fields.The essays in Part II explore who Katniss is and becomes as a result of living in a society in which no one outside of a small elite possesses agency. That Katniss must be pushed into spotlight and shaped into a revolutionary symbol against her will demonstrates how hard it is for a person of conscience not to respond to a tyranny that invades every space in everyone's private life. I enjoyed Tammy L. Grant's Hungering for Righteousness: Music, Spirituality, and Katniss Everdeen. The essay is not just a catalog of musical interludes or references but, rather, an enlightening discussion of how music is a force that enriches individuals and that, under right circumstances, can move masses to action. No matter how many songs are banned, people will keep singing, and so will mockingjays that regime must be sorry they bioengineered. …
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