Do or Die

From Tots to Teens, StarMag

HOW brutal and blood-thirsty the ancient Romans were, gathering to watch people kill and be killed in terrible ways, even hunted and eaten by wild beasts. How unfeeling the public in Elizabethan England were, attending public executions and watching, with morbid fascination, as men and women were hung, drawn and quartered or burnt at the stake.

Could we stomach such violence and cruelty? Don’t we anyway when we watch some action and horror movies? Does it make a difference knowing that what we see isn’t “real”?

I think it depends on the viewer. I can’t watch a torture scene in a film because although I know the actor isn’t really suffering, I can imagine what it might be like to undergo the torture. I can imagine his pain. And what’s worse is I know that people are tortured in real life.

We get our fill of fictional violence, blood and gore on the telly and in the cinema, and in video games too. If we didn’t, would we welcome the opportunity to witness live executions and combat? After all, most of us enjoy the thrill of watching reality programmes: Seeing someone suck up half a kilogramme of real raw brain is so much more entertaining than knowing it’s in fact pureed banana with a dash of strawberry sauce, isn’t it?

The Hunger Games (Scholastic Press, 464 pages, ISBN: 978-1407109084) by Suzanne Collins capitalises on the popularity of reality TV and violent shoot-’em-up video games. It’s a comment on the voyeur in all of us, and how the media feeds on this and manipulates us for its own gain. It also asks how far humans would act and how much they would accept in the name of entertainment and monetary gain.

The book is set in the State of Panem, a dictatorship that lords it over 12 districts. Each year, two citizens from each of the districts are chosen for a yearly televised event. The 24 chosen ones are placed in a huge outdoor arena and forced to fight to the death. The person who succeeds in staying alive wins and is rewarded with personal comforts as well as food supplies for his or her district. The people of the districts are poor and constantly battling starvation which is probably why the event is called The Hunger Games.

The book focuses on Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old whose father’s untimely death in an explosion (their district is called the Seam because its main trade is coal mining) leaves her to care for her depressive mother and young sister, Primrose. When Primrose’s name is called at the Reaping, the ceremony that selects the contestants for the Games, Katniss is quick to volunteer in her place.

The other chosen contestant from the Seam is Peeta Mellark, the youngest son of the district baker. When Katniss was younger, Peeta slipped her some food that kept her family from starving. Although the pair never became friends, Katniss has never forgotten how the incident served as a turning point in her life. She feels indebted to Peeta and this is an inconvenient way to feel considering how they will have to try to kill one another in the Games.

Not only will the agility, strength and weapon-skills of the contestants count, each one will also be groomed and showcased to attract the public as well as sponsors who will pay for better training and food.

Predictably perhaps, not just gratitude but love complicates what Katniss and Peeta must do in the Games. However, it’s not a straightforward romance since Katniss has a hunting-partner back home whom she can’t stop thinking about. Also, Katniss proves to be quite a calculative young woman and her feelings for Peeta are largely guided by the knowledge of how a love affair between contestants would make for more exciting viewing, raise her popularity score and increase her chances of winning.

Katniss’s cold-blooded use of Peeta does not make her an unlikeable character because her compassion and courage have already been established earlier in the book. Also, her circumstances are exceptional and more than excuse her need to be selfish and hard-nosed. Gorgeous, gracious, generous Peeta, truly, madly and deeply in love with Katniss, and able to rise above the brutality and inhumanity of the situation and still be thoughtful and kind, inspires awe and admiration but is less interesting than the conflicted Katniss.

The Hunger Games is a fast-paced page-turner that is shocking yet moving, and also frequently grimly funny. There are graphically bloody scenes of death but it’s nothing a 21st century action film enthusiast won’t be used to.

This books is the first in a planned trilogy and it will be interesting to see how the story and characters develop. The second book, Catching Fire, will be published in September.

N.B The Hunger Games' paperback edition [right] has a cover you can fold so that either Katniss or Peeta graces it.

The book's movie rights has been bought by independent film studio Lionsgate (producer of TV series Weeds) and Suzanne Collins will be in charge of turning her book into a screenplay.