Hunger Games: A New Shared Text?

September 18, 2024 by 1 Comment

It’s been sixteen years since the publication of the first Hunger Games novel.

Today, The Epoch Times published an editorial, ‘Hunger Games is Fiction No More.’

See here, here, and here for similar pieces that were posted at the premiere of the prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

The BookRiot article noted that Suzanne Collins’ YA dystopian novels started a trend:

The Hunger Games, in particular, catapulted YA dystopian novels into the spotlight. Future bestselling series like Divergent by Veronica Roth, The Selection by Kiera Cass, The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancy, Legend by Marie Lu, Matched by Ally Condie, and Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi built some of their readership from fans of The Hunger Games. Dystopian and YA books had, of course, been matched up before in books like The Giver by Lois Lowry, Feed by M.T. Anderson, and Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. But none of them had the same monumental sales of The Hunger Games to truly create such a publishing phenomenon.

None of those series have continued to be part of the working vernacular when discussing the nature of 21st Century life in general and politics in particular, either.

We’ve written a lot here about the Hunger Games novels, especially the third book in the original trilogy, Mockingjay.  I wrote at the time and still think it is a legitimate point that Collins’ achievement is at least as great as what Rowling attempted and pulled off in the Hogwarts Saga, if only because of the political allegory and embedded romance in her soul triptych, literary alchemy, and structural artistry. Check out that library of posts here.

Even having said all that, I was startled by The Epoch Times article because I never expected Hunger Games to achieve anything like Shared Text status or that people would be talking about it after the better part of two decades. (I was not positively impressed by the film adaptations and they seem to be what most people remember of them, an impression I suspected would not be a lasting one because movies do not shape the imagination as reading codex does.)

And yet here we are, with popular media assuming we know who Katniss Everdeen is and why her leading a populist revolt against the Capitol elite is a relevant metaphor for the world today and its dystopian qualities.

Three questions for those Hunger Games readers out there:

(1) Why do you think Hunger Games is (or is not) a ‘Shared Text’ of our times while the other popular YA dystopian series before and after its publication have largely been forgotten?

(2) Is the series’ staying power and continued relevance down to the timeless brilliance of Collins’ conception of the story and execution of the trilogy, the fit with its popular revolt against the leftist and right wings of corporate-government oligarchy and fascism and daily news reports, or is it just the Jennifer Lawrence’ effect?

(3) Do you want us to discuss the new Collins’ Hunger Games prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, due in March 2025, the way we would a new Strike novel or other work by Rowling-Galbraith? (I know Elizabeth and I are up to that, if there is interest here.)

Have at it in the comments thread below!

 

Filed Under: Hunger Games, Shared Text

Shared Text: ‘Redneck Wizard’

September 7, 2024 by Leave a Comment

A good friend sent me the video below. She is not a Harry Potter fan and I suspect she marvels that the Hogwarts Saga continues to be such a big deal more than a quarter century after the original Potter Mania took off (not on a broom).

I would be incredulous, too, but, as I explained years ago — sixteen years ago! — in an article titled ‘Book Binders,’ Rowling’s Potter novels serve as the ‘Shared Text’ of at least two generations.

Expect tributes and parodies such as ‘Redneck Wizard’ to continue to be Grade A Click Bait for another twenty-five years, especially after the booster shot to the popular imagination that the WB-Bronte Studios adaptations for teevee will be.

Filed Under: Shared Text

‘It’s the Mold!’ Rowling Twixter Cameo Shots Launch Bizarro Theories

August 9, 2024 by Leave a Comment

I have posted here through the years an irregular feature called ‘Shared Text.’ Those posts were inevitably inspired by someone, somewhere — anywhere, everywhere — using a reference to Harry Potter to make a point. It could be to Snape or Hermione, too often it is to Voldemort (everybody thinks the other guy is the Dark Lord’s minion), more often than not, it’s just a ‘Hogwarts’ call-out. My favorite, the ‘own-goal’ of the Covid unvaccinated, to which group I belong, deciding to promote that status by pushing #PureBloods on Twitter. If you want to scroll through all those Shared Text posts for a taste of the variety, click here.

I am fairly frequently reminded not only of the Harry Potter books being the ‘Shared Text’ of our times but just the enormity of Rowling’s celebrity in the place where I work to pay my bills and student loans. It’s a grocery store and just small enough that almost everyone there knows me and about my ‘Dean of Harry Potter scholars’ Walter Mitty existence. At least once a month, sometimes once a week, an acquaintance there will walk up to me with their ‘smart’ phone saying, “John, have you seen this latest bit about Rowling?” And hold up their phone so I can read the story.

Last Sunday it was my beloved tattooed man in the Produce department. “I suppose you’ve heard that Rowling has black mold in her house? And they’re saying that it’s taken over her mind?” I thought he was kidding, but he showed me the story. You can read here the whole sequence of events about the first tweets on the subject, how it grew into a meme, and the pictures from 2022 that showed the same “mold” growing on her walls.

The take-away? People who hate Rowling because of her resistance to what Elon Musk has called “Woke Mind Virus,” especially with respect to Gender Theory Extremists and ‘transgender’ over-reach into women’s safe spaces, are really on the look-out for avenues to insult and demean her. The first tweet on the subject from @mushycrouton reads:  “Sorry but is that black mould growing up the walls of her house? Is that why she’s the way she is?”

“The way she is” means, of course, “not onboard like all my followers are with everything LGNTQ+” and the mold reference becomes his explanation for her being so outlandishly wrong. The black mold, you see, has taken over mind… The internet ball rolled from there. You can read more about this at Rowling-despising sites here, here, and here. The time you spend reviewing that, though, cannot be reclaimed, alas.

The bizarre thing to me about the whole attack-meme charade was that it isn’t hard to see what this mold is.  Join me after the jump if you’re at all interested in that. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Shared Text, Twitter

Shared Text: ‘Hogwarts and All’

April 19, 2023 by Leave a Comment

The Economist magazine published an article earlier this month on ‘School Voucher Schemes’ in the United States (they are profoundly skeptical, whence “schemes”). They titled it, ‘Hogwarts and All.’

There was not a single allusion to the famous school of witchcraft and wizardry in it, but the reference was meant to tease the Harry Potter fan into reading the piece and share its ‘warty’ conclusion.

Fifteen years after the publication of the last novel in the series, Deathly Hallows, in a world of ever-decreasing attention spans and cultural memory, the Hogwarts Saga — its characters, scenes, and events — remain a shared text across generations and all geography. No doubt the new teevee show will reinforce this social fact.

Filed Under: Shared Text

Wizard Rock – For Jo by RiddleTM

April 17, 2023 by 1 Comment

I was listening the latest episode of The Three Broomsticks podcast this weekend, where talk turned to Potter inspired music and Wizard Rock. As a latecomer to the fandom I was aware that Wizard Rock existed but otherwise entirely ignorant. One of the first bands mentioned was a duo called RiddleTM. Judging from their website they haven’t been active for more than ten years, but the music is still available on Sound Cloud. 

One of their songs has encapsulated to me how it must have felt to grow up with the Harry Potter stories and the growth of both the fandom and the author. For Jo by RiddleTM is a profoundly moving gratitude in ballad form, and because it moved me to tears, I’m sharing it with you here:

For Jo Lyrics
July 21st 1997 and no one had heard of you.
But one decade later there’s queues at the door
People placing their order and shouting for more.
How far you have come
How far you have come.
Enchanted the world with a story you wrote
Of a boy who was ordinary
And now parents read to children who have long been asleep
‘Cause they want to know more about wizard Harry.
How far you have come
How far you have come.

(Chorus)
So Ms Rowling
Here is a song I wrote for you
‘Cause I’m grateful for all that you’ve taught me
And inspired me to do.
You showed me good triumphs over evil
And you taught the whole world how to read
So thank you Ms JK Rowling
Thank you so much for Harry.

Though all 7 books have been finished and read
The magic is still burning strong.
And we who were there will never forget
The anticipation we felt for so long.
How far you have come
How far you have come.
And we grow up with Harry, the Boy Who Lived,
Who has helped us through all the bad times.
And the theories and mysteries, the questions and clues
Were the talk of the forums and in our hearts too.
How far you have come
How far you have come

(Chorus)

So we’ll raise our pumpkin juice and our butterbeer
And we’ll sing about the great things you’ve done.
And we’ll be happy now Voldemort’s defeated
And we’ll cheer for Harry who won.

(Chorus)

So Ms Rowling
This is the song I wrote for you.
Here’s to you now and to your future
And I just wanted to say thank you.

For Jo Lyrics by RiddleTM

Filed Under: Nick Jeffery, Potter Fandom, Shared Text