Hunger Games and Murdertainment

I took a two week period to read all three books of the Hunger Games series this spring. And yes, they are fun, quick reads. However, they are a total rip off.

I’m certainly not the first to levy this charge. There are undeniable similarities between HG and the Japanese book/film series Battle Royale. Just do a Google search for Hunger Games vs. Battle Royale and you’ll find dozens of articles and blog posts from people who are either diming out the HG series as unoriginal, or trying to draw ridiculously fine lines between HG and BR to prove they are different.

At the end of the day, both are about selecting teens to go to a remote game arena for the express purpose of killing one another. Who cares if one does it for entertainment purposes, and the other does it in secret? Or if one gives the teens training before letting them loose in the murder arena? The premise is the same, and even though Suzanne Collins claims to never have read the books or seen the movie, it’s just a little hard to believe she didn’t get at least some inspiration from the Japanese precedessor. It’s just way, way too close.

But if we’re really going to call rip off, aren’t Battle Royale and Hunger Games both a just a repackaged mash up of The Running Man, which came out decades ago, and Lord of the Flies? Take the kids and the remote setting from LOTF, add the game element, weaponry and entertainment factor from The Running Man, shake and serve.

The whole murdertainment dystopian genre is, in short, really stale now. We’ve seen it explored in countless ways with a whole variety of different characters sentenced to play the modern, government-mandated gladiator games. We even have zombie versions of this theme now – both Land of the Dead and The Walking Dead had zombie fighting game/gambling arenas for survivor entertainment. Not only is it not original anymore, but given how close reality TV is coming to pushing this envelope, it’s not that inventive or futuristic, either.

It’s a painfully obvious and a well explored idea to link oppressive totalitarian governments and a complicit populace that is amused by blood sport. Which, I suppose, is why these books are aimed at kids – you don’t need much beyond a 6^th grade education to read and “get” the heavy handed symbolism here. But let’s not pretend that Hunger Games is exploring new turf.

Who’s Your City?

I have a baby on the way, which means I’m not keeping up very well with this blog. But it also means that I’m nesting and trying to find a new home that will be more family friendly. To help with some macro decision making around where to live and how to choose a new home, I read Who’s Your City by Richard Florida. 

Who’s Your City is intended to be a decision guide for those who become convinced that where you live is as important a decision in life as who you marry. I can get behind that thesis, but how to make the best decision about where to live? First is to go for an economic region where the creative jobs of the future will be. That makes sense, as everyone needs a job. However, there are just a handful of places where good jobs tend to cluster – the Northeast corridor from Boston to DC; the Southeast corridor from Charlotte to Atlanta; a Midwest corridor from Chicago to Pittsburgh; a Texas belt that includes Houston, Dallas and Austin; and two clusters in California, one around Silicon Valley and San Francisco in the North and a second one around Los Angeles and San Diego in the South. If you don’t live in one of these areas … well, you’re sort of screwed.

In essence, the book argues that anyone outside of these regions has an old economy job, like factory work or some other paint by numbers McJob that can be outsourced and probably will over the long term. Good jobs tend to cluster in regions where the best, most creative workers are, and good companies are attracted to areas where there are lots of elite college and post graduates looking for work. But there’s a specialization component to the regions as well. For instance, you really can’t be a financial house without a presence in New York. You can’t be in energy and not have some people in Texas. You can’t be a filmmaker outside of LA. And you can’t do federal lawmaking anywhere other than D.C. 

It’s an insular feedback loop where the best people go where their chosen field has set up camp, and the best companies go where the best people are – it all clusters in the same place. 

For me, that means half the battle has been won, as I live in the Northeast corridor, or the second largest global economy in the world. So, I can check the box for a good growth region with quality jobs.

Next, though, is how to manage being in one of those cluster locations – because while the jobs may be there, so are lots of other people all competing for scarce housing and space resources. And when demand outstrips supply, you end up with super high prices. So, how to choose a space where you get the most bang for your buck?

This wasn’t a surprise to me, but the best areas in any of the urban clusters tend to be those with the highest concentrations of gays and bohemians. Both these groups tend to “pioneer” up and coming neighborhoods, renovating homes, creating an open and tolerant vibe and improving the area’s beauty, safety, retail options, walkability and all the other things that people tend to value in urban neighborhoods. So, peruse the census data and find out where the gay households are, cross check that against affordability, pioneer with them and watch your home appreciate.

But there are other options for those that want to live out of the city center, such as the suburbs and the exurbs. In both, you can find more space and a more rural vibe, and sometimes lower prices. But there’s a hidden tax – the commute. According to Who’s Your City, commuting is the one thing that almost all people consistently rate as the most unpleasant thing they do every day. In fact, people hate commuting so much that it’s responsible for a lot of depression and unhappiness related to place. So, if you choose the burbs, best to do it only if you have a flexible work schedule that allows for a fair amount of working from home, or you find a place where the advantages are so amazing that it compensates you for the daily misery of driving in traffic.   

 All in all, Who’s Your City is pretty basic stuff. If you live in an urban area for long enough, you don’t need to read a book to tell you to follow the gay pioneers. That’s pretty obvious. But it was interesting to read why certain areas tend to be cluster hubs, and why they are so expensive. I’ve been bemoaning the District for a while, thinking there’s no way that home prices could continue to climb here. After all, there has to be an upper limit for incomes, and there’s no way appreciation can continue forever. And it can’t. But according to Richard Florida, D.C. still has a way to go before it reaches that upper limit – it’s decidedly not as expensive as New York, San Francisco or Silicon Valley, yet the area continues to grow and attract more and more people. And because of that, it’s actually rated as a best buy!

So, I guess I can feel somewhat better that while I will have to be house poor for a while, buying in DC, even at a high price, still makes sense.

The 2011 NYT Best Book List: What I’m Waiting for in Paperback

Proudly, I’ve read all the New York Times notable books from last year that piqued my interest. With the exception of the book on Cleopatra. Haven’t found that one yet. But now it’s a new year, and a new list is out to replace the old. Below are the books I’m most interested in reading in 2012.

THE BARBARIAN NURSERIES. By Héctor Tobar. The NYT says it’s “a big, insightful novel about social and ethnic conflict in contemporary Los Angeles.” From the review, it’s about an interracial couple in LA, who experience an even more pronounced divide between themselves and their gardeners and maids even though they share a common heritage. An interesting topic for sure.

CHANGÓ’S BEADS AND TWO-TONE SHOES. By William Kennedy. From the NYT: “In Kennedy’s most musical work of fiction, a newspaperman attains a cynical old-pro objectivity as Albany’s political machine pulls out the stops to head off a race riot in 1968.” From my point of view, I love William Kennedy and will read just about anything he writes. But the saucy subjects of political machines and race rioting adds extra appeal.

11/22/63. By Stephen King. From the NYT: “A meditation on memory, loss, free will and necessity, King’s novel sends a teacher back to 1958 by way of a time portal in a Maine diner. His assignment is to stop Lee Harvey Oswald — but first he must make sure of Oswald’s guilt.” I’m intrigued because Stephen King normally doesn’t get props from the literati, and this book apparently is the new hotness. And it appears to be a big departure from fantasy and horror, King’s touchstones.

LOST MEMORY OF SKIN. By Russell Banks. From the NYT: “This novel, about a paroled sex offender, bravely tries to find humanity in people whom society often despises.” Plot description alone has me hooked. I’m curious as to how an author can pull that off.

THE MARRIAGE PLOT. By Jeffrey Eugenides. The NYT says, “Eugenides adeptly renders the patter of college intellectuals and the sweet banter of courtship, and is particularly astute on the uncertainties awaiting after graduation.” They had me at Jeffrey Eugenides, and then pushed me over with “the patter of college intellectuals.”

THE PALE KING: An Unfinished Novel. By David Foster Wallace. From the NYT: “Unfolding on an epic scale, this coherent, if uncompleted, portrayal of our age is a grand parable of late capitalism, set in the innards of the Internal Revenue Service.” For one thing, I believe the hype about David Foster Wallace. For another, I can’t wait for his take on Kafkaesque bureaucracy and capitalism.

TEN THOUSAND SAINTS. By Eleanor Henderson. From the NYT: “Henderson’s fierce, elegiac novel follows a group of friends, lovers, parents and children through the straight-edge music scene and the early days of the AIDS epidemic.” Interesting topics, interesting time period. Sign me up.

CATHERINE THE GREAT: Portrait of a Woman. By Robert K. Massie. From the NYT: “Massie provides a sweeping narrative about the impressive minor German princess who became empress of Russia.” How can anyone not be interested in reading about Catherine the Great? Plus, I know too little about Russian history. Pretty sure this will be super interesting.

CLARENCE DARROW: Attorney for the Damned. By John A. Farrell. From the NYT: “In this biography, Darrow’s unsavory side is on view, from his personal callousness to his purchasing of testimony.” Rich and compelling, no? I’m fascinated by Darrow’s cases, and learning more about his seedy nature should be illuminating.

INSIDE SCIENTOLOGY: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion. By Janet Reitman. From the NYT: “Reitman has rendered the most complete picture of Scientology so far.” I’m just dying to get my hands on this. I know little about Scientology, beyond some of the crazy overviews provided by South Park. It’s so hidden from public view, this should be highly illuminating.

A TRAIN IN WINTER: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France. By Caroline Moorehead. From the NYT: “Moorehead meticulously traces the fates of 230 Frenchwomen sent to Auschwitz as political prisoners of the Reich.” Stories about the abuses of the Nazis are always interesting, and I admittedly have gaps in knowledge about the French resistance. This should be fascinating.

A Visit from the Goon Squad: Good at the Time, but Unmemorable

I’ve been remiss in my blogging as of late. I’ve been reading, but haven’t had time to capture my thoughts on each novel. So, now I’m going back a couple of months to write the reviews I should have written at the time.

First up is A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I finished just before Christmas. And, although I liked it at the time I read it, I have to confess that I needed to re-read summaries of the book just to recall some of the more salient plot points. And that should tell you something – in about a month, I forgot a great deal about this book. With a couple of pretty notable exceptions.

The most interesting and memorable aspect of Goon Squad is the narrative style. A series of 13 different characters each get their own section of the book to advance the plot from their point of view. These tales cover about 40 years, go well into the future and do not follow chronological order. Instead, pieces are stitched together in order of importance to character development. To provide an example, the first chapter of the book is devoted to Sasha, who’s in a therapist’s office to deal with her kleptomania. We later hear about Sasha at work from the section narrated by her boss, her college experience from an old friend who accidentally drowns in the Hudson River, her family life from her uncle who travels to Naples to rescue Sasha after she’s run away from home and is paying her bills through prostitution, and her later marriage as told by the point of view of her daughter.

Not only do you get to know characters from the points of view of several different narrators, who often have differing and conflicting impressions, but each narrator has their own story telling style. Each chapter is wholly different, not just because the point of view has shifted, but because the nature of the narrative shifts to fit the different people and their place in the story. Perhaps the most incredible example of this is the chapter narrated by Sasha’s daughter, who tells her story in a simple, direct fashion, as children are wont to do, using PowerPoint slides. In the hands of a lesser author, this would be nothing more than a cheap gimmick. But Jennifer Egan not only manages to make the chapter believable as a child’s perspective, but you really do get insights into the family dynamic using the medium of a slide deck, something I’ve never seen before in modern fiction. In essence, it works.

By virtue of the volume of characters, and the short amount of time each of them are allotted to share their perspective, it’s easy to forget portions of the plot. But a few characters, particularly Sasha, have a fairly well rounded arc. And although memorability is a problem for Goon Squad, I do give points for style, and here the book succeeds with aplomb.

Getting Back to Business

Although I’ve been reading a LOT, my last few books weren’t really blog worthy.

I finally read Burr in the interest of completing the Gore Vidal American history series, and although it was slightly interesting, it was what it was. A book about Aaron Burr. There were some new insights on Washington, who apparently was a super crappy general, but I honestly have nothing more to say about it. The duel with Alexander Hamilton really wasn’t that saucy.

Then there was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which was good fun, especially for the Halloween season. Basic plot here is that vampires are everywhere in America, and they are responsible for the murder of Lincoln’s mother. This spurs a lifetime dedicated to vampire hunting. Vampires, apparently, are also the cause of the Civil War, as they align themselves with slave owners in order to have a buffet of victims without fear of criminal action – provided they pay for them first. And, of course, John Wilkes Booth was a vampire, too. Fun, but that’s really all there is to say about that.

But now, it’s time to get serious again with Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers.

Now, I can’t say enough about Dave Eggers and my unending well of adoration for his work. Although I can take or leave his fiction, he is the most gifted memoirist in the history of the genre. I’ve been raving about Eggers since A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – which is on my all-time personal favorites list. And if you find that self-indulgent (which you should because it is…brilliantly so), What Is the What is far more restrained and beautiful, with none of the self congratulations. It is just an amazing, rich personal story of a Sudanese immigrant who had to go through hell and back to escape a brutal civil war only to find himself in a refugee camp for the better part of a decade, waiting for a chance to immigrate to the United States.

Closer to the tradition of What Is the What, Zeitoun tells the story of a Syrian American building contractor and his family (with the surname Zeitoun), who are living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hits. For my part, I’m pretty tired of the endless parade of Katrina sympathy stories and, frankly, of New Orleans for continuing to bellyache about it six years after the fact. But this book is not about bellyaching. It’s a simple narrative of what happens to this family – there’s no screed against Bush, no winks to the “heckuva job, Brownie” or the “just tip the wing” comments. There’s no commentary about the Superdome. No complaining about the Army Corps of Engineers.

There’s no mention of these things, because they were never seen by the Zeitoun family.

What they did experience was a city that became completely flooded in the days after the storm so that the most reliable form of transportation became a simple aluminum canoe. In the wake of this devastation, Zeitoun sees no emergency responders or public officials. His only encounters with “help” are a couple of National Guard fan boats, who merely blow by Zeitoun in his canoe even though there are dozens of desperate people in the area in need of assistance. In the absence of any “official” response to the neighbors who remain trapped in their homes, Zeitoun starts making the rounds, rescuing elderly or infirm residents by himself or with the help of neighbors. Zeitoun even takes to helping the area’s abandoned animals, feeding his neighbors’ dogs with his own freezer full of meat.

After about a week of this community-organized assistance, Zeitoun is at one of his rental properties with a few friends who have also been helping out in the neighborhood. Out of nowhere, the property is raided by a makeshift band of law enforcement officers packing machine guns. Zeitoun and his friends are all imprisoned in an outdoor kennel-style jail hastily constructed by convict labor on a Greyhound parking lot. The charge? Terrorism. And with no evidence against them, they are held for over a month, without rights, a court arraignment, lawyers, or even phone call to tell someone, somewhere that they have been incarcerated.

The human rights issues aside, the book is most effective when detailing the totally screwed up priorities Americans had at the time of the storm. Or at least elected Americans, because the city’s residents seemed to have their hearts and minds in the right place.

What other conclusion can there be when you learn that the responders who came to New Orleans, under the auspices of helping help storm victims, spent their first days after the destruction building a new prison facility, before providing any food, water or medical aid? How much of what we heard about looting, baby rapes and roving gangs of murderers was exaggerated to fit within a salacious and sensational pre-determined storyline that would “sell” in white suburbia: That poor black people in New Orleans, faced with bad circumstances, would quickly devolve into post-apocalyptic banditos until the city looked more like Mogadishu than the United States? Obviously, officials went to New Orleans with that idea in mind first, and wild media reports kept adding fuel to the fire. And in a climate like that, what’s surprising isn’t that Zeitoun was arrested – it’s that more Zeitouns weren’t.