. . . . . entries for 21.3.12 . . . . .
[Spoiler alert? Anyway, don't read this if you haven't read The Hunger Games but plan to.]
My favorite thing about The Hunger Games - the whole series - is not the action (Battle Royale, I guess?), the graphic visualizations (Madame Bovary, sometimes), the romance (I can't help but see Twilight here), the occasional creative turn, the politics. (No, not even the politics, the weirdly-Orwellian-by-the-end politics.)
My favorite thing is the sheer, crushing moral self-awareness of Katniss. Of destroying through action and inaction and taking responsibility, of seeing hers as the hand that killed even when she was distant from those dead. Of hesitating to kill those she loved out of mercy and recognizing her selfishness, her failure to live up to her word to them. And still, and still, wanting to end harm at the end of it all; rejecting a thirst for revenge and trying, instead, to create the world in which she could bear to have children. And she did.
And if that self-awareness brought her so much pain - and it did, more than any arrow she shot - it's no wonder we all don't have it. It's no wonder that, looking at those books, I see an allegory aligning so neat and plain with the world I live in. No wonder at all.
. . . . . entries for 14.3.12 . . . . .
Another Hunger Games thought: is this a social upheaval book/series? I don't know, not having read the second and third books, but from the social hubbub around it, it seems not to be - even though it has some of the components lined up for a good awareness-making dystopia.
There was a time when I wanted so intensely to write books that would help shape their readers' views of the world, to make their readers better (the way Terry Pratchett has done for me). I wonder if that clawing my way into living in fiction, working in fiction, would be my way of living. I really don't know.
This weekend: read the first book of the Hunger Games, much of it while listening to Talisman. Now I almost constantly have Summertime stuck in my head, with images of Katniss hunting outside District 12, losing her father, saving her sister, standing on her starting place in the games, backlit and panicked and rising up singing.
This morning: realized (1) we already live in that world, just more spread out and not as openly barbaric (which is worse, so much worse, because the evils are invisible and distant from their work and ourselves); (2) if I were called to the Hunger Games, I would die practically immediately; (3) I would like to fix both #1 and #2.
It also reminds me of that line from Wall-E: "I don't want to survive, I want to live." I want to get around to living, and I don't want to forget only to remember again.
. . . . . entries for 8.3.12 . . . . .
Ugh. Sometimes I feel like a zombie, sometimes I sound like a zombie, and not the type that goes to a jamboree.
come home?
.:people:.
{ting}
she looks like the real thing
{mari}
out and about
[kelsey]
THIS IS AMERICA
{yianni}
stop being depressed
{alisa}
other
[shannon]
close and far
{frank}
islands where no islands should go
[cassie]
eating knowledge
{colin}
my dm
[emily]
shoulder to the wheel
[brian]
nostalgic for fantasy
[nicole]
industry insider
{elle}
angry enviro
[matt]
never heard of miyazaki
[pirate dan]
are you reading this?
[olga]
distracted
[messiah dan]
messiah/believer
{max}
approach focus
[natalie]
wait a minute
[susan]
solitude
{greg}
manbeargreg
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.:skin:.
turtles! turtles! by araglas
(heavily modified by yours truly)