One-Star Revue: THE HUNGER GAMES

For the record, I would give this book: 3 stars. (CATCHING FIRE and MOCKINJAY, each 2 stars.)

• "I was left with a dark, yucky feeling at the end."
• "Like a bad Michael Bay movie, the plot is all action."
• "I love this book, I would absolutely rate it five stars if it was not a blatant rip off of several Japanese stories I already know."
• "I got tired of reading about the emotions Katniss felt about her father. Over and over the same emotions were reviewed." (Ed. Someone send this person a copy of THE PSYCHOPATH TEST.)
• "My 7th grader is required to read this for her language class, and wanted me to read it so I could discuss some of her homework questions with her. I spent 4 hrs. last night reading it. Then I spent a sleepless night having nightmares related to the plot."
• "Yes, Suzanne Collins has typed an entire book onto page, yes. I give her a hi-5 because I have never written a book."
• "THE HUNGER GAMES is like a violent version of a Nicholas Sparks novel." (!!!!!!!)
• "I wish I could have read a review discouraging me to read this book." (Ed. Uh...)

Having brunch alone and need something to geek out over forever? The Millions' A Year In Reading 2011, featuring Ayelet Waldman, Jennifer Egan, Chad Harbach, Colum McCann...

Treat Yourself 2011: Gift Sets For The Very Good

I'm starting with the extravagant gift books for no other reason than that it's kind of nice to play J.C. Penney Catalog 1989 sometimes with the 800,000 gift guides out there, while acknowledging that they may not be in your budget or mine.

(Links are to publishers where I could find them; sure, use Amazon, and I do, but don't forget your local independent bookstore.)

For the aesthete: Whenever I see these Penguin Hardcover Classics with their old-timey printed cloth covers, the craftsmanship to them is just amazing. Single volumes are $20, or splurge on the Major Works of Charles Dickens (GREAT EXPECTATIONS, HARD TIMES, OLIVER TWIST, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, BLEAK HOUSE and A TALE OF TWO CITIES) for $125.

For the budding chef: Julia Child, you're so 2009. Raise the stakes with THE ESSENTIAL THOMAS KELLER ($63), a two-volume cookbook by the madman behind French Laundry and Bouchon. For the hipster chef at hipster pricing, look to Christina Tosi's MOMOFUKU MILK BAR ($22), purported to offer the secrets behind the East Village bakery. Compost cookies for everyone (note: much more delicious than it sounds).

For the fashion-minded (fashionista is kind of sexist, do you think?): Patrick Demarchelier's DIOR COUTURE ($70) for the old avant-garde; ALEXANDER MCQUEEN: SAVAGE BEAUTY ($45) for the new.

For those who can take a joke: By the time I got my first issue of MAD Magazine it was already in its sunset years (down to 6 issues/ year right now, from what I can find). Soon there will come a generation of kids who don't understand how a fold-in joke panel works... but by God, not this one. Chronicle Books just published THE MAD FOLD-IN COLLECTION, 1964-2010 ($125), whose digital reproductions mean you won't actually have to fold in the pages to get the joke.

For your favorite bartender, friend in imbibing, uncle or party host: It takes a university press to do service to such a serious subject as THE OXFORD COMPANION TO BEER ($65). Also consider for your recently-of-age sibling who could stand to learn a thing or two about the finer points of not drinking from kegs any more, ahem.

From player to winner: THE HUNGER GAMES and MOCKINGJAY

982: That's the number of words I used in Monday's post about THE HUNGER GAMES without remotely getting to the point I wanted to address when I decided to read the popular young-adult series. I feel that my curiosity was satisfied by the first two books in the series, but called into question a little by the third, MOCKINGJAY.*

For me the appeal of THE HUNGER GAMES lies in the hands of its stubborn, prickly, at times decidedly unlikeable protagonist Katniss Everdeen. Katniss doesn't like you, she doesn't like the attention brought on by the Games and what she sees as the falseness of the enterprise. As a preteen I devoured books where the protagonist discovers that s/he is somehow special and elevated, but Katniss harbors no such illusions; she always knows what she is and isn't capable of, and it's only the rest of the world that's catching up to her. That's why her performance in THE HUNGER GAMES isn't unbelievable or improbable. She resists that Mary Sue-ish necessity of suffering from self-doubt; what people tell her she is doesn't make an impact. She doesn't have to be "special" to be exceptional.

Her self-determination allows her passage through some of the perils of the Games; she doesn't seem specifically tempted to play the heroine, and when she does, it's an impulsive decision. (More on that in a bit.) I'm not well read enough in YA to say that she's the first nihilist in the field, but she's probably not in much company there. I would have quit the series much earlier if accompanied by a chirpy Pollyanna down into the depths.

Before I get into spoiler territory, a word: I haven't been able to confirm my suspicion that the HUNGER GAMES trilogy began life as one self-contained book (that is, CATCHING FIRE and MOCKINGJAY were the brainchildren of the publisher after reading THE HUNGER GAMES, not what the author had originally envisioned). It is my suspicion that this is the case. But even that would not fully explain why THE HUNGER GAMES is taut, well paced from the opening of the Games on -- I could have done without some of the costuming and pageantry, frankly -- CATCHING FIRE is better paced, but performs the classic middle-book-of-the-trilogy deus ex machina, and the ultimate volume in the series is an overstuffed mess.

Spoiler discussion through MOCKINJAY will now commence.

No, seriously.

Get out.

At the end of CATCHING FIRE (told you! Turn back now!), as you know or are resigned to finding out, on the point of certain death, Katniss is yanked out of the Quarter Quell (a Very Special Anniversary Hunger Games) by the resistance forces who have amassed in District 13. Because of the defiance she showed in the first book, she's being elevated to play a role in their reality television, the on-camera leader of the resistance -- although in practice, Katniss will have to defer to President Coin. The name they give her is the Mockinjay, the hybrid creatures that ironically can only copy poor human singing, not sing or speak for their own the way that Katniss is scripted into promos for the rebels. (Shades of "Wag the Dog" here -- and that was much appreciated in this quarter.)

Trouble is, the way that Katniss has been defined runs at odds to the task she and the fellow rebels are facing up to -- of taking over the Capitol -- and if her adventures up to this point have changed her, it's mighty difficult to tell. She still doesn't play well with others, she still doesn't take criticism, and her resistance to the role that the movement wants her to play starts to take their valuable time away from, oh, I don't know, military strategy? And her character starts to roll downhill from stubborn and self-determined to bratty and dangerous. Risking the security of the compound for Prim's cat, for example, may not be strictly a selfish act, but it seems out of character for her.

All of these are challenges Katniss could work through if given more room on the page, but MOCKINGJAY is forced to run those conflicts double-time against the war with the Capitol and the forthcoming invasion. At the risk of sounding like the ivory-tower litsnob we all know I am, too much happens in this book! The events compressed into MOCKINGJAY should have spooled out over two books, not only to salvage the abruptness of the ending -- really, an epilogue? -- but to keep building Katniss as a character in the same realistic way the first two books did. She's our portal into this place, and mostly I cared about the political upheaval of MOCKINGJAY through her eyes. So the conflict isn't fruitful because it elides things that I as a reader wanted to see, and pushes through the changes in Katniss in an unrealistic manner.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy parts of MOCKINGJAY, but I should have been staying up late reading it; instead I put it down for weeks between starting and finishing it, so the one truly shocking twist -- the President Snow double-crossing revelation -- didn't pack the punch it needed. (Which is not to say I don't want to talk about it, because clearly I do.) I can't say definitively that this book was lost in editing, because no one can see that who isn't directly involved, but I could have used more room. As I understand that the "Mockingjay" movie will be a two-parter (a la "Breaking Dawn" or "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"), this may afford an opportunity to correct it onscreen -- if more aspects of the series aren't broken in order to get there.

*I just discovered in stirring up this post that I have been spelling MOCKINGJAY wrong all this time. All this time! But it just looks wrong with that added G!

Today I'd like to thank the Internet for creating Hey girl. I like the library too. a Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling for a niche audience.

(Nerds) Who Run The World

Wow, you'll really know Lev Grossman is ascendant at Time Magazine when you check out its #1 fiction book of the year. Not that I'm complaining (though I haven't read the book in question).

Filmbook: "Moneyball" (2011)

One of the reasons book people hold books above the movies based on them is a matter of complexity. The effective delivery of information simply looks different on page and onscreen, and a wholly moderate level of exposition can be overwhelming when transferred to images or dialogue. It's probably for the best that the film adaptation of Michael Lewis' MONEYBALL largely glosses over the statistics the book labors to explain, because it brings across the sense of them fairly well. It's the simplification of the themes that gets this movie in trouble.

"Moneyball" chronicles the end of the Oakland A's 2001 season and the 2002 season, as general manager Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) struggles to implement a new system for finding the best players to fill out his roster. Beane decides to do this after losing three of his best players, losing a close postseason series and failing to get more money from the team owner --  and hires a young econ major from Yale (Jonah Hill) who recommends players based on generating wins for the team, not simply standout stats on their own. Everyone thinks Beane is crazy (including his manager, who resists implementing his ideas about who ought to play and in what order) and the A's seem to start the season proving that this new approach will never work. Then... they start winning.

The sense I got when I read MONEYBALL was that Beane and his right-hand man Paul DePodesta (fictionalized in this movie in Hill's character -- also, I notice he works for the Mets now, so good luck with that!) were the young, brash new guys trying to come up with a solution to an old problem, unafraid to fail. This is preserved in the movie, but with an added layer of emotional conflict wherein Beane's sabermetrics approach could destroy the game of baseball as we know it -- and when he decides to implement that, it comes at a terrible price. There are soundbites from old men calling baseball "the children's game" (a phrase I had never heard before), romantic shots of empty stadia, and talk of the intangibles that will be jeopardized forever by the A's and their spreadsheets. Maybe this is meant to add resonance, but it just confused me when all other elements are pointing toward the heroic GM in his lonely weight room because he can't bear to watch his own team from the stands. It moves in the opposite direction from everything else. It all really comes to a head at the end of the movie, when Beane has to make a choice -- and I could feel the tug of a Big Emotional Moment, but it didn't move me at all. (And it didn't justify at all why he makes the choice he does.)

"Moneyball" was enjoyable enough, but not a standout movie for me, in part because I feel like this movie prodded me to root against my own self-interest. It's not as simple as calculator vs. heart,  because if it were, I wouldn't have been that interested in Beane's story in the first place, because my own personal connection to baseball stubbornly falls on one side of that line as long as we're falsely dichotomizing.

I'm not sure who to fault for this, given how labored over this project was before hitting the big screen. Director Bennett Miller brings some of the space and silence he used so well in "Capote" (along with Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is slightly underused here as the A's manager) but gets caught up in scoring and underlining some of those moments he might have let lie. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin was brought in in the middle, and snuck at least one walk-and-talk in there -- but he's hardly the only one to be bit by the mythology bug.

Would I have liked it better if Steven Soderbergh (who allegedly wanted to incorporate interviews from the real players rather than actors playing them, and why a studio would balk at that I have no idea) and screenwriter Steven Zaillian had stayed on? It's hard to say at this point. But "Moneyball" lacked something for me -- maybe one of those intangibles it is claimed will be lost should its hero get what he wants.

Filmbook verdict: Read the book, maybe see the movie.

Today's Times features the forthcoming "Cloud Atlas" adaptation in an article about global financing for American independent movies. Spoilers for the movie abound, but crucially: This sounds awesome, and yes, David Mitchell was involved in the screenplay to a certain extent.

Repent, for the end of 2011 is nigh!

I had to submit my pick for the best book of the year yesterday. Just like last year, I am slightly below 100% absolutely sure of my pick, although when I wrote it down I couldn't think of anything else to go in that box. So I just let a computer choose for me instead. How we critique books in 2011!!!

Just kidding. It is a frustration and a joy to go through every year, and also reminds me (as I look back) of how much my reading is shaped by forces outside the actual pages -- like how what I read for pleasure colors what I'm reading to evaluate, which in itself is a fairly blurry line. Maybe I should remember that before snap-judging another critic's choices... just because it looks ill-considered doesn't mean that it is.

Anyway, I won't put together my full best-books list together till the end of December in a feeble attempt at reaching some semblance of perspective. But I have so much other stuff to write about:

• More on THE HUNGER GAMES, after I belatedly realized that I failed to make the point I really wanted to make, and something about MOCKINJAY. (Unintentional Blog Sweeps Week 2011! All your clicks are belong to me!)
• The onslaught of prestige film season and the adaptations you should care about, starring George Clooney as the anti-Ryan Bingham, young Marty Scorsese, Brad Pitt's bangs...
• The Return of the Ghost of the Holiday Gift Guide -- for people who are going to get books whether they want them or not, and also for the book-loving people in your life who already have everything. Or so they think. 

In the meantime, I would be interested to know: What, in your opinion, should I absolutely make time to read before the end of the year? I can't guarantee I'll actually get to it, but if you've picked your favorite, or at least one you think people should try above all others, let's hear it. 

Not here for your entertainment: on THE HUNGER GAMES

Living in the totalitarian post-apocalyptic state of Panem, the setting of Suzanne Collins' HUNGER GAMES trilogy, improves marginally after you turn 18. You still don't get to vote, thanks to a long-ago uprising that converted the country into 13 districts that orbit an all-powerful Capitol district, and depending on whether you live in one of the richer or poorer districts your day-to-day life might be pretty hard. But at least you don't have to fight a bunch of other teenagers to the death on live TV! That's the gist of the Hunger Games, the annual event purported to mark the uprising, in which two "tributes" from each of 12 districts are taken to the Capitol and forced to kill each other for sport. Sort of like the Killer Olympics if all the contestants were drawn from youth-favoring sports like gymnastics or swimming. How Roman!

We the readers experience the Hunger Games through contestant Katniss Everdeen, of District 12 (mine country, one of the poorest). Katniss' name wasn't drawn originally, but she volunteers to spare her 12-year-old sister Primrose from the Games, betting on the fact that her years of hunting illegally to feed and support her mother and Prim after their father was killed in a mining accident would afford her a better chance when it came to surviving in the Games arena and (if necessary) killing another contestant.

Like Harry Potter, Katniss is the product of circumstance, pulled into this barbaric ritual by chance, who becomes a flashpoint for other people in Panem to recognize just how monstrous the reality they've been accepting really is. Surely, Voldemort would not have just gone away had baby Harry Potter perished, and the degree to which Katniss becomes a figurehead  But there's no "Boy Who Lived" magic around Katniss. She goes into the Games seeing through all the fanfare, unable to enjoy the attention, and convinced that she will be dead sooner or later -- probably knocked off by some of the better fed and trained tributes, or even her own fellow District 12 tribute, baker's son Peeta Mellark. Although she regards him fondly for once giving her bread from his family's trash heap, Katniss distrusts Peeta thoroughly, and more so when she discovers his strategy for the Games is to make everyone believe he's in love with her.

And that's the surprise at the heart of THE HUNGER GAMES -- a trenchant and stinging critique of reality TV, disguised as YA survivalist fiction (or a totalitarian torture-adventure, if you prefer). While the citizens of Panem would probably vote to abolish the Hunger Games if they could vote, and mourn the children -- let's not even call them teenagers anymore -- who go, they all tune in to the annual event as if it's a combination of the World Series and the Super Bowl. (Not that there are professional sports in the post-apocalypse.) It's not established for sure, but one supposes the Capitol has adapted to cater to this interest by airing interviews with each player, featuring pre-Games makeovers and costumes, and -- later -- by flashing daily memorials to all the tributes who have fallen during the games, while the few contestants who are left hope the others aren't watching for them.

As Katniss prepares for the Hunger Games, she thinks back to previous "episodes" she's seen and the strategies that helped previous "players" "win" the Games. Make yourself vulnerable gathering supplies at the start, or make yourself scarce? Form alliances, or play alone knowing that they'll end? Complicating her choices is the ability of "viewers" to send her aid -- medical supplies or food, for example -- if she plays to their sympathies in some way, adding an additional unreal layer to an already surreal situation. It gives her no solace to be reminded, as Katniss is frequently, that her mother and sister can see every injury she sustains during the Games. If she pretends she's in love with Peeta too, will that give her any chance of survival (in a situation where even a little advantage is significant) or just make her last few days on earth disingenuous as well as dangerous?

The winner of the annual Hunger Games gets a PR tour, a paid-for house and freedom from want for the rest of her life, but will always be known to the victims' families as the one who made it out at the expense of everyone else. And, as becomes clear deeper into the series, the champion is trotted out to justify each year's Games, the unwilling success of one traded on for the glory of all. No wonder Haymitch, the previous District 12 champion assigned to mentor Katniss and Peeta, is a drunken mess.

The high-contrast horror of the Hunger Games (inspired, Collins has said, by watching Iraq war footage, although a better parallel might be the child soldiers of Africa) makes the short-lived CBS reality show "Kid Nation" look like "Captain Kangaroo." And to the best of my knowledge no one is yet forcing people to participate in the various humiliations of reality TV. But as a mechanism that's built to shock, it works. At one point in the Games, Katniss forms an alliance she doubts will even help her with a 12-year-old from District 11, simply out of pity because the girl reminds her of her sister, with predictably tragic results. We don't learn a huge amount about how the Panem rulers keep all the other districts in line, which I see as a nod toward the fact that our narrator probably wouldn't know that -- certainly not as she prepares to travel to the Capitol for the first time. Still, something about Katniss' "performance" shakes the system loose, or at least loose enough to throw the future of the Hunger Games in doubt -- maybe the best news to the people watching at home, who may actually be hungry, and have no hope.

"To Smiley, his stoicism had something awesome about it."
- John le Carré

One-Star Revue: THE ENGLISH PATIENT

All real 1-star Amazon customer reviews. No spoilers.
I would give this book: four stars.

• "It was a cold and godless kind of story from beginning to end."
• "This book is like a mix between David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," Jhonen Vasquez's "Happy Noodle Boy" strips, and "Crossroads" (with Britney Spears!)." (Ed. note: What?)
• " I couldn't identify with any of the characters (thank God)."
• "I too can conjure up beautiful cliches." (Ed. note: Good for you!!!)
• "Elmore Leonard says that he leaves out the parts which the reader skips over. If Ondaatje had done that here, he could have ended up with quite a tantalising short story."
  
• "It's quite obvious from the tone of the book that the only character this author cares about is himself! Soooo tedious that every time I sat down to read, I found myself thinking about watering my tomato plants, which would have been a LOT more interesting. I could write more, but that would just give this book free advertising, which is something I DEFINITELY DON'T want to do." 
• "This book does not pose any questions I care to have answered. Period" 

Photo: graziedawero

God bless us, everyone

Aw hooray! Housing Works Books is bringing back the CHRISTMAS CAROL readathon they did last year. Don't miss it! I'll be in the back with the wine.

Unbookening's gonna make it through this year if it kills me

Checked 6 books out from the library
Bought 5 (1 on Kindle)

Returned 2 to a friend
Returned 2 to the library
Donated 8

I didn't like you either, November, so let's just move on.