Scarfs, Arts, Texts
Saturday was Saint Patrick’s Day and aside from some extra greenishness I did not celebrate one bit. Like I need a holiday to drink beer!
And then Sunday my pal Steven came over and wowed me with his graffiti/illustration. I think I need to mention here how important/amazing it is that basically.. all my friends are creative in one way or the other. And not just creative, but really good at being creative. I am routinely impressed and very proud of my friends for their endeavors, I only wish they’d update more/showcase more of their things..
Yooou can totally get library books on your nook/kindle/ipad/whatever. Just in case you didn’t know. Because I didn’t, and then I started, and it is awesome and I rented and read Will Grayson, Will Grayson which I talked about yesterday and which made my day on Thursday. But today has been excitement about THE HUNGER GAMES !!
I have a conflicted love for the Hunger Games (but what do I love 100% unconditionally, really) in which I think the first book is rad, the second book is okay, the third book is a complete disappointment which bursts open the flaws in Suzanne Collins’ technique and leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. But because I am an adult, I didn’t start a grassroots campaign to change the ending of Collins’ intellectual material, Mass Effect fans.
Digressing, a huge part of why the last book failed was because Collins was trying to describe the scope of war and rebellion through the eyes of an ineffectual character who had no real idea what was going on or what she was doing. Because- cage combat aside, Katniss has literally no idea of what to do in a real life war situation and it shows in a way that is painfully obvious. Which is- you know, understandable, except for the fact that we are treated to a cavalcade of truly idiotic decisions stemming from her ignorance and none of them are called out because we are privy only to the innermost emotions and rationalizations of Katniss Everdeen, not all the other people who are wondering why they are following this massive fuckup. Listen I can take her mistakes- in fact, I relish them whole heartedly because it shows she’s not a super machine from the future sent to vanquish foes? But I cannot take the sheer ridiculous blind faith everyone else has in her, when it leads to the eventual and obvious demise of people who trusted her. People who should have known better, and maybe they did, but we’ll never know because we’re stuck in goddamn Katniss’ head.
First person narrative is so easy and perfect for YA fiction because, well- how hard do you have to try, really? Not at all- until you come to the crescendo of your franchise and realize that there’s not much that a limited character like Katniss can do or say about something as huge as an society being torn down. With that in mind, I am really excited for the movies to not be through the POV of Katniss and thus be able to capture the scope of what is really going down. There’s a story in there- it’s not the great narrative of our generation or anything, but it’s entertaining and badass and empowering (to a point) and I would love to see it taken out of the context of Katniss’ brain so that we can all enjoy it. Dear, the Hunger Games movie: please do this for me, please deliver me this story stripped of it’s narration. The potential for truly awesome times is high, I can only hope you (and Jennifer Lawrence) realize this. Yours, Ruth Halloran.
Mirrored from ohHALLORAN.com.