Aira Emma

CHAPTER TWENTY

Proof that Peeta really does love Katniss: he didn’t roll his eyes or groan at the lame-ass goat story. Nay, he was attentive, even asking about the RIBBON.

This is how we know Peeta is an artistic and lovely soul and Katniss isn’t exactly…imaginative. Maybe I’m being harsh, but I thought that story was completely bor-ing, even the part about hunting that she left out. I could see that The Tale of the Goat was supposed to be a heartwarmingly simple, homespun tale of a nice gift, but something about it was just too dull to spark my interest. Not enough detail? It just felt flat to me. Maybe because I am having a hard time caring about Prim and Gale. Especially Gale.

But Peeta asks just the right question to show he’s listening, he hears her, he sees her, he loves her, etc. etc. etc.

Srrrrrriously. This guy’s good. EVEN WHEN HIS LEG IS BASICALLY ROTTING OFF AND HE HAS A SUPERHIGH FEVER.

I have a big soft spot for share-a-sleeping-bag camping porn, which is basically what this is to me, probably because I spent so many summers camping with my family reading YA novels and imagining the day when I would snuggle in a tent with a nonthreatening yet semi-outdoorsy boy and we’d crawl out of our shared sleeping bag in the morning and make toast over the campfire in the morning and go on a refreshing hike.  This fantasy really kicked up a notch in seventh grade, when I read Carolyn Macker’s Love and Other Four-Letter Words, which features an encounter between a refreshingly healthy-bodied heroine and a camping trip and a nice/funny/charming guy who shared her interests. This fantasy was reinforced every summer that I did NOT go on wilderness or canoe trips with my peers but instead went to arts camp.

You don’t get many sleeping-bag worthy guys in the drama department.

You also don’t get ANY guys when you’re in rehab (I’m almost at 30 days purge-free! FUCK YEAH. Feeling like myself, getting my life back, returning to Chicago next week, hopefully getting a new job…..but that’s not related to HG).

So I’m jealous of Katniss and pissed that she’s so closed-off. I really think I’ll like her more in the movie, where her body language can make up for her general refusal to play along with Peeta in a cute and real way.

Smart to make him eat the sleepy-time berries, though. Once again, Katniss’s practicality is her most redeeming quality.  Hope shit goes down well in TWENTY ONE.

(what am I saying? I’ve finished the trilogy already. I know what goes down. Oh well.)

P.S. Peeta took the time to learn Clove’s name. It’s a little thing, but it shows how he humanizes his opponents whereas Katniss refuses too. For some reason this strikes me as more honorable/noble.

“Fanfare for the Common Man.” Because they’re almost to the Capitol, where shit gets real.

I almost chose “Simple Gifts” from “Appalachian Spring.”

I’d love to see a trailer for The Hunger Games set to either…maybe a Katniss-shooting-things animated montage set to the latter.

Full Disclosure: I’ve read through chapter 5 (although I’ll still be doing one chapter per day), and if I could animate or film my friends, I’d do a makeover montage set to “Hoedown.”

Oh Copland…COP-LAND…which brings me to my next post, which will be on Dystopian Discussion Topics!

to the sea and the sun: The Dislocated Room

It was night for many miles and then the real stars in the purple sky,
like little boats rowed out too far
begin to disappear.
And there, in the distance, not the promised land,
but a Holiday Inn,
with bougainvillea growing through the chain link by the pool.
The door swung wide: twin beds,…

(Source: lathyrism)

Chapter Two

Response:

This chapter proves that Collins is a deft writer — she shows the reader Katniss’s character, rather than simply describing her. Katniss relates to the world through hunting. Therefore, when she is shocked to hear her sister’s name called, she communicates the emotion with the memory of a fall while on the hunt. While this book is written in first person (so we’re spared phrases like “the clever and crafty Katniss arched her back” or whatever), I still think Collins is particularly effective in her spare, clear prose.  I’m jealous of simple yet effective writers: “One slip. One slip in thousands. The odds had been entirely in her favor. But it hadn’t mattered.” It’s just good, unembellished storytelling. I can see why people would want to read this book in treatment or hospitals…life does just fucking suck sometime.

On a personal note, that is where I first encountered The Hunger Games: a girl I met in treatment was “obsessed” with the series, just like Stephanie Meyer. But I really respected this girl (Carly)…she was (is) from Texas and has the most amazing practical, positive attitude despite having some pretty crappy things happen in her life.

But back to the text: sure, there are some overused phrases (“the blood drained from her face”…how many times have I read that?), but they serve the truth of the narrative. I’d probably be more annoyed if Collins tried to find some clever way to say things, especially in light of the high stakes. She writes like an actor! I like the phrase “small, stiff steps” and ESPECIALLY enjoyed the subtly of Prim’s ducktail blouse — the absurd, dark detail echoes the “quack” scene in the first chapter, which had previously struck me as kind of boring-generic sister bonding.  But I guess that’s how it is with sisters: stuff that’s funny to you two in the moment can leave outsiders yawning. I know my siblings and I enjoyed an extended joke about being hosts of a show called “Does it Burn?”…maybe in District 12, quacking is fucking hilarious, like my favorite scene from The Last Station, where the old Tolstoys make chicken noises before having sex (Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren can make ANYTHING hot). Anyway, way to win the poignancy points, Collins.

There’s the obligatory “WTF?” explaining of how volunteers can take a Tributes place, but AGAIN Collins lifts this out of the generic with sly skill…Effie Trinket is not described, but rather revealed through subtle details, like the pink hair and the use of the phrase “bet my buttons,” which I thought was pitch-perfect.  AGAIN, we see how the choice of a simple verb matters so much in children’s lit, elevating a book from the elementary school bookfair bargain bin to Newberry reading lists: Effie does not say things, she gushes or trills them.  There’s a point where this can feel forced (cf. lips being “brushed” across every conceivable body part in Twilight and the tendency of characters in Harry Potter to moan). 

The silent crowd is also a powerful image (ooh SILENT MAJORITY! OOH!), and I like the lore of the three-fingers gesture, too. It makes the reader feel included, learning the customs of the land in the book. I remember the thrill of chanting “moony, wormtail, padfoot and prongs” under my breath before my brother had reached that point in the third Harry Potter…little things like that hand sign, magic words, symbols you can doodle, make all the difference to a bored or lonely adolescent reader.  ”It means thanks, it means admiration, it means goodbye to someone you love.” FOLKLORE ROCKSSS.

And then, just when we’re starting to get sentimental, Collins WINS AGAIN with the Haymitch pratfall.  Just like Shakespeare, she knows when to send in the clowns. NICE.  Double win for Haymitch’s use of the word “spunk,” and later extra double plus bonus points for Effie’s “tenuous hair situation.”

Now we meet Peeta. I like Peeta a lot.  Here is why:

1. He has a girly foreign-sounding gay name.  But how much you wanna bet he gets teased? Hells no. You don’t fuck with a guy named Peeta Mellark.

2. He’s a farmboy. Like Wesley in Princess Bride.

3. “You can see his struggle to remain emotionless, but his blue eyes show the alarm…” SENSITIVE! Not full of swagger, SENSITIVE. Yet strong.

Peeta’s like the highschool football star who’s actually nice.  I picture him as a young, blonde Kyle Chandler type.

AND THEN…we get the legend of the bread. Which I will be dissecting in a separate psychoanalytic criticism section. I need to do some research, but…spoiler alert: the bread is his penis.

Vocabulary List Chapter Two

Ch. 2: blind (n.), protocol, valor, gruffly, condone, spunk, plummets, gleefully, tenuous, radical, racking, luscious, clatter, weal, flit, spasm

I lifted the lid to the baker’s trash bin and found it spotlessly, heartlessly bare.

—

The Hunger Games, Chapter 2

I’m liking this more and more. I love the rhythm of that line.