Never Underestimate the Power of Expertly Frosted Desserts.
A week later, I have more thoughts on Mockingjay.
The last fifty pages are the most divisive aspect of the book. Of course I loved it, though I can see the significant issues. The biggest problem is in the pacing throughout the book. Collins uses a very specific structure in the trilogy: 27 chapters divided into three "acts". That's why some of the act breaks in HG and CF seemed oddly-placed. While it wasn't really a drawback in the first two novels -- the length and pacing could be sluggish but generally appropriate for the plot and overall page count -- this incontrovertible structure works against MJ. Collins wanted it to be 27 chapters, but she really needed at least 50-100 more pages. The same breakneck narrative drive could've still been achieved while giving the events the focus they deserved. Instead, once Prim dies, the rest of the book suffers from a lack of show-don't-tell. We get long passages recapping offscreen action, and we don't get enough of a sense of the weight of what has happened. Quite a few readers have said that they thought the immediate aftermath of Prim's death was a dream sequence because the individual scenes coupled with Katniss's POV gave it all a hazy sheen. Much of this can be attributed to Katniss's emotional breakdown, but that's not really a justification. That breakdown, the vote for the new Games, Coin's assassination, Katniss's trial and exile to District 12 -- those are all pretty damned huge events. We needed to see the denouement. I'm a big fan of parallel structure, and while part of me is glad that Collins stuck to her guns in that respect, I think the ending would've been somewhat more satisfying if she'd thrown out the "27 chapters" rule and told the rest of the story more slowly and deliberately.
That plays into the problems with the very end. Again, I did really like the last ten pages. The pacing in that specific part works for me because it's about the closure of those opened doors, and the scenes Collins chose -- Buttercup's return, Katniss finally picking herself back up -- illustrate her struggles with coming to terms with what happened. Collins does skip over or barely explains some key things, though. While Gale and Katniss achieve some (sad) closure with their conversation about Prim, his departure deserved more than an offhand line from Greasy Sae. Peeta's recovery from the hijacking is too abrupt -- I needed to see more of him really coming back to himself before he shows up at the Victor's Village with those primrose bushes. And, of course, I wanted to know more about how the two presidential executions and establishment of, well, a new world order affected both the Capitol and the Districts.
Another thing that is easily overlooked: in the very long paragraph describing her trial, Katniss says, "I'm confined [to District 12] until further notice." At first, I was a bit annoyed that Katniss just sort of fled back to D12 where she was alone and had nothing significant to do, until I realized that she had no choice. Over the course of the books, she became something so much larger than herself, both as the Mockingjay and how that first Reaping way back when spurred her to such strong, incredible achievements that she hadn't expected before when she was just trying to keep herself and her family alive. Part of me would've liked to see her become a leader in the new Panem and continue to save the world in different ways... but I think this exile and very quiet life is what she both needed and wanted. She says in that last paragraph that she doesn't need Gale's fire to survive because she has enough of her own, and although we don't really see much of that fire in her life now, it's not just an excuse for why she chose Peeta over Gale. The thread of her never wanting to be a leader is carried throughout all three novels, most significantly with her reluctantly choosing to become the Mockingjay as a means to an end. She has spent the past two years as a symbol of revolution, with every move scrutinized either on camera or by those around her. Now she needs to regain control of her life through privacy in the quiet of the ravaged District 12. The other day, I read a great observation (can't remember where) that her reaction to Prim's death and the decimation of the life she'd known was very similar to how her mother withdrew after her father's death. Depression apparently runs in the family. So I can see her finally being able to heal by just living in that house and creating that book of memories.
I really liked the epilogue with her and Peeta watching their children. As I mentioned before, it shouldn't have been a surprise. From the very beginning of HG, Katniss says over and over that she'll never have children because of the possibility of losing them to the Arena. It's easy to transpose that into her not wanting children at all, but I don't think that's quite the case. Once the Games are gone, so is that obstacle. Plus, she says that it took fifteen years for her to agree, and I can buy that she'd change her mind now that she knows those children would be safe. God knows my own desires for children and family have drastically changed since I was seventeen, and now I'm the same age as Katniss is when her daughter is born. The phrasing seems to imply that Peeta talked her into it, but I don't really think he'd vehemently push her into anything, especially children -- by now he'd know her feelings about it. Like I did in my fic, I can see her knowing he wants them so badly despite his silence on the topic, and eventually making that choice because she wants them as well.
Plus, the fact that Collins says it over and over made it so obvious -- well, to me! -- that of course the story would end that way. ;) If anything, I think the epilogue is frustrating because it's so brief, making it appear that Katniss's future boiled down solely to parenthood. Perhaps this is the idealist in me, but I like to think that she did have a full life that included children, marriage, and so many other things. But yeah, that's just extrapolation. I like that the epilogue is a very simple two-page coda, but maybe expanding it a bit more would've helped that sense of dissatisfaction that many of us felt.
Prim's death is so awful, but in retrospect I probably should've seen it coming. Someone dear to Katniss had to die. From a meta standpoint, it probably couldn't have been Peeta or Gale because of the love triangle and her ending up with one of them by default. But I think the choice to kill Prim was much more than that. Katniss loved Prim more than anything in the world. The trilogy opens by sacrificing herself without a second thought, so by some twisted logic it would end with Prim dying so senselessly and tragically, just a few moments before Katniss has finally secured a tenuous peace that would ensure a safe future for her sister. Only Prim's death -- especially under those circumstances -- could break Katniss so devastatingly, denying her the chance to watch her sister grow into the woman Katniss knew she would become. Prim could be a bit too one-dimensional at times. We know that she's so pure and good, but that is really her main defining trait. I'm okay with that, even if I would've preferred to see more depth. And as, well, the sacrificial lamb, her death by those parachutes is as much symbolic of the war itself as of the natural result of all Katniss has done and endured.
Is Gale a villain? Of course not. Katniss hated his choices, but I think deep down she understood even as she couldn't accept them. Someone much smarter than me pointed out that his and Beetee's plan to kill the rescuers had parallels in the Gamemakers' actions in the Arena. Hmm. I do think that Collins should've shown us him working through his choices and perhaps made him seem more human in making them despite the inhuman effects, but part of that is the limitations of the first-person POV. (I still wish she'd found a way to use multiple narrators in this novel!) And since everything is filtered through the perspective of a young woman who hates what he's done, he does come across as more "villainous" in the end than is really fair to who he is.
And some random thoughts....
-- Yes, I grinned at this: "Her little granddaughter, the one who lives in her own world, takes a bright blue ball of yarn from my mother's knitting basket. Greasy Sae tells her to put it back, but I say she can have it. No one in this house can knit anymore." Aw, c'mon. Knitting is very therapeutic, Katniss!
-- The various propos were quite intriguing, but I wish Collins had done more with the media's effect on the war. As taragel and I discussed the other night, the media was actually more of a force for manipulation in the first two books than when it was specifically meant to do that in MJ. We don't really get a sense of how they sway public sentiment, since (most of) the Districts already seem very much on the rebellion's side.
-- I'm surprised by how many people took Katniss's vote for the new Games at face value. When she says "yes, for Prim" and hopes that Haymitch understands her, I saw that as the two of them putting together the plan to kill Coin.
-- Oh, Finnick! His death is another unfortunate side effect of the breakneck pace of the last section of the book. I barely even noticed it upon first read. I never expected to adore him as much as I did, and although his death right after his wedding (and of course with Annie pregnant) felt rather Jossian, it was still heartbreaking.
-- I am currently engaged in a fierce battle with queenofthorns about who should play Peeta in the movie. Although he's several years too old, I insist that Jesse Plemons from FNL is absolutely perfect for the role. He has Peeta's "medium height and stocky build" and very pale blond hair. (Okay, the eye color is wrong.) And Landry's personality is similar to Peeta's in many ways. Team Landry!
-- I need to start playing Crazy Cat with my Queso, who has every bit of Buttercup's sour, anti-affectionate temperament.
-- The past two episodes of Project Runway have made me very sad. Every time Tim Gunn appears onscreen, I whimper, "Cinna! I miss you!"
And here are a few links:
-- Slate has a series of book club posts about the novels. They raise some good issues, though something about their tone feels a bit too dismissive and condescending. Or maybe I'm just annoyed because they disliked many of the things I loved!
-- EntWkly also has a book club about MJ, with some good posts in the talkback.
-- Hogwarts Professor is also talking about the books in great detail. Some of their ideas feel like a wee bit of a stretch, but they make for interesting reading.
-- And The Daily Beast interviews Nina Jacobson about the movies. I still have no idea how the hell they could film Mockingjay with the desired PG-13 rating.
This was fun! I haven't written long meta like this since the BSG finale. I had so many other things I wanted to say in this post, but of course I've forgotten most of them. I'll update if any of them come to mind. :)
The last fifty pages are the most divisive aspect of the book. Of course I loved it, though I can see the significant issues. The biggest problem is in the pacing throughout the book. Collins uses a very specific structure in the trilogy: 27 chapters divided into three "acts". That's why some of the act breaks in HG and CF seemed oddly-placed. While it wasn't really a drawback in the first two novels -- the length and pacing could be sluggish but generally appropriate for the plot and overall page count -- this incontrovertible structure works against MJ. Collins wanted it to be 27 chapters, but she really needed at least 50-100 more pages. The same breakneck narrative drive could've still been achieved while giving the events the focus they deserved. Instead, once Prim dies, the rest of the book suffers from a lack of show-don't-tell. We get long passages recapping offscreen action, and we don't get enough of a sense of the weight of what has happened. Quite a few readers have said that they thought the immediate aftermath of Prim's death was a dream sequence because the individual scenes coupled with Katniss's POV gave it all a hazy sheen. Much of this can be attributed to Katniss's emotional breakdown, but that's not really a justification. That breakdown, the vote for the new Games, Coin's assassination, Katniss's trial and exile to District 12 -- those are all pretty damned huge events. We needed to see the denouement. I'm a big fan of parallel structure, and while part of me is glad that Collins stuck to her guns in that respect, I think the ending would've been somewhat more satisfying if she'd thrown out the "27 chapters" rule and told the rest of the story more slowly and deliberately.
That plays into the problems with the very end. Again, I did really like the last ten pages. The pacing in that specific part works for me because it's about the closure of those opened doors, and the scenes Collins chose -- Buttercup's return, Katniss finally picking herself back up -- illustrate her struggles with coming to terms with what happened. Collins does skip over or barely explains some key things, though. While Gale and Katniss achieve some (sad) closure with their conversation about Prim, his departure deserved more than an offhand line from Greasy Sae. Peeta's recovery from the hijacking is too abrupt -- I needed to see more of him really coming back to himself before he shows up at the Victor's Village with those primrose bushes. And, of course, I wanted to know more about how the two presidential executions and establishment of, well, a new world order affected both the Capitol and the Districts.
Another thing that is easily overlooked: in the very long paragraph describing her trial, Katniss says, "I'm confined [to District 12] until further notice." At first, I was a bit annoyed that Katniss just sort of fled back to D12 where she was alone and had nothing significant to do, until I realized that she had no choice. Over the course of the books, she became something so much larger than herself, both as the Mockingjay and how that first Reaping way back when spurred her to such strong, incredible achievements that she hadn't expected before when she was just trying to keep herself and her family alive. Part of me would've liked to see her become a leader in the new Panem and continue to save the world in different ways... but I think this exile and very quiet life is what she both needed and wanted. She says in that last paragraph that she doesn't need Gale's fire to survive because she has enough of her own, and although we don't really see much of that fire in her life now, it's not just an excuse for why she chose Peeta over Gale. The thread of her never wanting to be a leader is carried throughout all three novels, most significantly with her reluctantly choosing to become the Mockingjay as a means to an end. She has spent the past two years as a symbol of revolution, with every move scrutinized either on camera or by those around her. Now she needs to regain control of her life through privacy in the quiet of the ravaged District 12. The other day, I read a great observation (can't remember where) that her reaction to Prim's death and the decimation of the life she'd known was very similar to how her mother withdrew after her father's death. Depression apparently runs in the family. So I can see her finally being able to heal by just living in that house and creating that book of memories.
I really liked the epilogue with her and Peeta watching their children. As I mentioned before, it shouldn't have been a surprise. From the very beginning of HG, Katniss says over and over that she'll never have children because of the possibility of losing them to the Arena. It's easy to transpose that into her not wanting children at all, but I don't think that's quite the case. Once the Games are gone, so is that obstacle. Plus, she says that it took fifteen years for her to agree, and I can buy that she'd change her mind now that she knows those children would be safe. God knows my own desires for children and family have drastically changed since I was seventeen, and now I'm the same age as Katniss is when her daughter is born. The phrasing seems to imply that Peeta talked her into it, but I don't really think he'd vehemently push her into anything, especially children -- by now he'd know her feelings about it. Like I did in my fic, I can see her knowing he wants them so badly despite his silence on the topic, and eventually making that choice because she wants them as well.
Plus, the fact that Collins says it over and over made it so obvious -- well, to me! -- that of course the story would end that way. ;) If anything, I think the epilogue is frustrating because it's so brief, making it appear that Katniss's future boiled down solely to parenthood. Perhaps this is the idealist in me, but I like to think that she did have a full life that included children, marriage, and so many other things. But yeah, that's just extrapolation. I like that the epilogue is a very simple two-page coda, but maybe expanding it a bit more would've helped that sense of dissatisfaction that many of us felt.
Prim's death is so awful, but in retrospect I probably should've seen it coming. Someone dear to Katniss had to die. From a meta standpoint, it probably couldn't have been Peeta or Gale because of the love triangle and her ending up with one of them by default. But I think the choice to kill Prim was much more than that. Katniss loved Prim more than anything in the world. The trilogy opens by sacrificing herself without a second thought, so by some twisted logic it would end with Prim dying so senselessly and tragically, just a few moments before Katniss has finally secured a tenuous peace that would ensure a safe future for her sister. Only Prim's death -- especially under those circumstances -- could break Katniss so devastatingly, denying her the chance to watch her sister grow into the woman Katniss knew she would become. Prim could be a bit too one-dimensional at times. We know that she's so pure and good, but that is really her main defining trait. I'm okay with that, even if I would've preferred to see more depth. And as, well, the sacrificial lamb, her death by those parachutes is as much symbolic of the war itself as of the natural result of all Katniss has done and endured.
Is Gale a villain? Of course not. Katniss hated his choices, but I think deep down she understood even as she couldn't accept them. Someone much smarter than me pointed out that his and Beetee's plan to kill the rescuers had parallels in the Gamemakers' actions in the Arena. Hmm. I do think that Collins should've shown us him working through his choices and perhaps made him seem more human in making them despite the inhuman effects, but part of that is the limitations of the first-person POV. (I still wish she'd found a way to use multiple narrators in this novel!) And since everything is filtered through the perspective of a young woman who hates what he's done, he does come across as more "villainous" in the end than is really fair to who he is.
And some random thoughts....
-- Yes, I grinned at this: "Her little granddaughter, the one who lives in her own world, takes a bright blue ball of yarn from my mother's knitting basket. Greasy Sae tells her to put it back, but I say she can have it. No one in this house can knit anymore." Aw, c'mon. Knitting is very therapeutic, Katniss!
-- The various propos were quite intriguing, but I wish Collins had done more with the media's effect on the war. As taragel and I discussed the other night, the media was actually more of a force for manipulation in the first two books than when it was specifically meant to do that in MJ. We don't really get a sense of how they sway public sentiment, since (most of) the Districts already seem very much on the rebellion's side.
-- I'm surprised by how many people took Katniss's vote for the new Games at face value. When she says "yes, for Prim" and hopes that Haymitch understands her, I saw that as the two of them putting together the plan to kill Coin.
-- Oh, Finnick! His death is another unfortunate side effect of the breakneck pace of the last section of the book. I barely even noticed it upon first read. I never expected to adore him as much as I did, and although his death right after his wedding (and of course with Annie pregnant) felt rather Jossian, it was still heartbreaking.
-- I am currently engaged in a fierce battle with queenofthorns about who should play Peeta in the movie. Although he's several years too old, I insist that Jesse Plemons from FNL is absolutely perfect for the role. He has Peeta's "medium height and stocky build" and very pale blond hair. (Okay, the eye color is wrong.) And Landry's personality is similar to Peeta's in many ways. Team Landry!
-- I need to start playing Crazy Cat with my Queso, who has every bit of Buttercup's sour, anti-affectionate temperament.
-- The past two episodes of Project Runway have made me very sad. Every time Tim Gunn appears onscreen, I whimper, "Cinna! I miss you!"
And here are a few links:
-- Slate has a series of book club posts about the novels. They raise some good issues, though something about their tone feels a bit too dismissive and condescending. Or maybe I'm just annoyed because they disliked many of the things I loved!
-- EntWkly also has a book club about MJ, with some good posts in the talkback.
-- Hogwarts Professor is also talking about the books in great detail. Some of their ideas feel like a wee bit of a stretch, but they make for interesting reading.
-- And The Daily Beast interviews Nina Jacobson about the movies. I still have no idea how the hell they could film Mockingjay with the desired PG-13 rating.
This was fun! I haven't written long meta like this since the BSG finale. I had so many other things I wanted to say in this post, but of course I've forgotten most of them. I'll update if any of them come to mind. :)