Well, the reviews for Mockingjay are coming in and they’re not much more than ‘like it-don’t like it’ surveys of the narrative line, i.e., commentaries on the violence and anti-war message to be found there. Here is a collection of them at The Wall Street Journal. Please post on this thread any new ones and any of the better Live Journal pieces you find.
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My daughter Sarah read the first three chapters aloud to me while we drove home from Children’s Book World in Haverford after midnight this morning. I had predicted that Ms. Collins would paint a picture of a social paradise in District 13 as the world not subject to the Capitol’s metanarrative, so I found myself thinking,” My goodness. I expected Samuel Butler or Thomas More and got Huxley’s Brave New World instead.”
I wasn’t disappointed, though. I think her picture of the antiseptic, unnaturally ascetic Spartan scientism of District 13, who only embrace survivors of the Districts and finally foment revolution because they have become literally as well as figuratively sterile was brilliant, if not what I was looking for. In contrast with and to balance the Capitol’s “bread and circus” politics that require the subjection of the districts to provide for the Capitol’s excesses, the inhumanity and political chicanery of District 13 completed the satirical picture of the United States that Ms. Collins gives us in Hunger Games. The two sides fighting the war — one a socialist technocracy, the other a hedonistic autocracy — we learn at story’s end are two sides of the same coin when President Coin proposes new Hunger Games with the Capitol’s children.
I’d like to read what you think of District 13, its conduct of the war, and what kind of transparency it is as social criticism.
Movie Moguls are hoping that Hunger Games is the next Twilight or Harry Potter YA title to become giant film franchise. Or so at least says the LA Times. (H/T to Nicholas out in California!)
Learn about it here, a Table of Contents is posted after the jump! (H/T to Dave)
Two quick notes and a question for y’all about Entertainment Weekly’s report on the sales of The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: (H/T Arabella!)
(1) “The new novella currently tops USA Today’s best-seller list and Little, Brown estimates they have already sold 700,000 copies in the United States. Deadline reports that that the British bookstore chain Waterstones expects to sell more copies of Bree Tanner than of any other book this year.”
EW then all but says that this is due to Twilight addicts needing a “fix” rather than anything inherently valuable or challenging in the story. Here’s hoping that more thoughtful readers will want to explore what it is about Stephenie Meyer’s books that cause such an addiction!
(2) EW expresses surprise that sales have been this brisk because the novella is available free online at BreeTanner.com until July 5th. “Little, Brown estimates that only 75,000 people have read the book in its entirety on the website.” Here’s my question: Read the rest of this entry »
Those of us who have not been living in Australia with modified memories to protect our children from Death Eaters are already probably well aware of the latest development in Harry Potter entertainment experiences, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Florida, which officially opens June 18. You can watch the opening festivities live here. While many of us who will be at Infinitus next month may be planning a visit to the Wizarding World (I’m not; I’m generally opposed to amusement parks in Florida in July unless the kindly uncle sets us up with free Disney admission. The only thing worse than sweltering in line for hours is paying out the nose to do it, so I’ll wait until the cooler weather and the hubbub die-down.) For those who are not planning to go in person, the official website has some nice images and information to give you a feel for the place.
The excitement surrounding the opening of the WW, with rides ranging from a virtual reality experience inside Hogwarts Castle to a family-friendly Hippogriff coaster to racing dragon coasters, has been considerable, and the ambiance, including a snowy (!) Hogsmeade with familiar shops like Honeydukes, shows loving attention to detail that is intended to immerse visitors in the world we love visiting in books (and movies, since that’s the vision we get here).
While it might be easy to dismiss this as yet another way to prise Galleons from the pockets of faithful Potter-philes by playing on their love for all things Harry and slapping a Bernie Botts label on bags of Jelly Belly Beans, there may also be something in this development that harks back to what we’ve discussed here before: the power of a truly immersive text. Yes, people will go just to ride the dragon coasters or just because they think some movie actor was cute, but others will go to experience, in three dimensions, the world we’ve pictured in our minds with the books in our hands. We want to peer into Dumbledore’s office or shop at Ollivander’s because these place already seem real to us. We may feel a thrill of delight as the steam issues from the Hogwarts Express, promising us a journey that we have all taken in our minds.
Read about it in today’s LA Times’ ‘Muggles Take to Their Broomsticks.’
Talk about ‘Shared Text’ …. H/T to Bryan in California for this link!
America’s largest Harry Potter Meet-Up group, The Group That Shall Not Be Named (TGTSNBN), has invited me to give a talk on 14 June at the Jefferson Market Public Library, 145 Avenue of the Americas, NYC. It promises to be a blast and I hope if you are in the neighborhood that you will stop by — and if you are not, that you will fly in!
Read more about it and reserve your spot here.
No surprise there. Read about his new book here.
At my college, we had an open house for local eighth graders earlier this week. The folks in charge came up with a theme of finding the “treasure” of learning, so the different areas of the college gamely went along to do pirate displays about their areas. It was great fun, with some terrific displays and games for our visitors. I always love a chance to dress up like a pirate, wave a sword at people, and threaten to have them all flogged (that just doesn’t fly in the classroom, I’m afraid).
As part of our Arts and Sciences Department table (decorated with props I snagged from my son’s room, including a treasure chest full of books), we had a literary treasure hunt game, for which students could supply answers as they came through the displays. I intentionally chose questions about books I would have read myself were I in eighth grade now (shudder!), using those to help students realize they do know what some of these literary terms mean. What’s a protagonist? Oh! Frodo Baggins! Got it! Read the rest of this entry »
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