Suzanne Collins has by no means been refined along with her commentary on propaganda and censorship. Her newest e book, Dawn on the Reaping, is not any exception.
The significance of appearances is woven into the very fiber of The Starvation Video games, with the televised dying match fought by youngsters expertly crafted right into a narrative of honor and remembrance for a time of hunger and battle. The results of censorship are specified by the 2020 prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which chronicles a formative set of video games for younger President Coriolanus Snow who would later have any hint of District 12’s first-ever win from that yr stricken from historical past.
The most recent addition to the Starvation Video games universe, a second prequel titled Dawn on the Reaping, recounts the fiftieth annual Starvation Video games – gained by Haymitch Abernathy, later mentor to Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark – together with all of the rebellious particulars that the Capitol’s recollection occurs to go away out. Insurgent plots to disrupt the video games from inside, tribute deaths lengthy earlier than the kids enter the world, and unlikely District alliances to take out Gamemakers are offered to readers for the primary time. Just like the songs and title of Lucy Grey, the District 12 winner from Collins’ final prequel, these particulars haven’t been misplaced, however have been forcefully ripped from historical past.
Collins’ work is well timed, as all the time. Coming at a second when U.S. historical past is actively being scrubbed – from references to transgender folks being erased from the Stonewall Nationwide Monument web site, to Black Lives Matter plaza being renamed and repainted – this e book’s themes and occasions conjure pictures from our personal present occasions.
The e book opens on a younger Haymitch celebrating his sixteenth birthday. As is the case yearly, his celebration can’t be too jovial, as his birthday can be the day of the reaping – when members for the subsequent Starvation Video games are chosen. This yr is especially grim, as as an alternative of the standard two, 4 youngsters shall be chosen from every District to combat to the dying within the upcoming video games. Haymitch’s birthday presents embrace a deal with of cornbread and heat jam made by his mom, a bottle of white liquor from the brewer he runs provides for, and a flint striker resembling a battling tune hen and snake from his lover – the primary of many brutally on the nostril callbacks within the novel. Haymitch is pulled into the video games not precisely by reaping however not by volunteering both, and meets a forged of faces that shall be acquainted to previous Starvation Video games followers as he prepares within the Capitol.
If Collins’ political commentary is manifestly apparent, but undeniably efficient, so are the retcon-esque connections drawn between Haymitch and plenty of acquainted characters. Haymitch, for all his drunken flaws, in the end does no matter it takes to save lots of Katniss and Peeta, irrespective of the associated fee. I wasn’t disillusioned to be taught of his closeness with somebody vital to Katniss, or his mentorship from two earlier Starvation Video games victors who his personal mentees may encounter afterward. I used to be disillusioned to suppose that Haymitch’s worry may go to this point that he by no means shared his recollections with Katniss or Peeta, even after bringing the Mockingjay to the center of the rise up in District 13. I don’t suppose I shall be alone in wishing that his mentors, specifically, had more room on the web page.
The novel attracts ties between Haymitch and lots of main plot strains all through the sequence – from Katniss’ household to Snow’s forbidden love. Haymitch’s lover, the one which gave him the flint striker, is a woman named Lenore Dove. A Covey woman, like Lucy Grey, named after Edgar Allen Poe’s Lenore. And whereas these connections may really feel pressured, like a blatant seize to take advantage of the already in style sequence, the novel finds a complete stage of rise up now we have but to see and additional fleshes out the needs that drive these disturbing video games within the Capitol, and the weather of rise up towards them.
Studying Dawn on the Reaping with hindsight from The Starvation Video games trilogy, one should query how such particulars had been misplaced to historical past. What of the individuals who witnessed the destiny of an almost-tribute in District 12? And people within the Capitol who noticed the alternative of one other? How far does the ability of worry go in revising historical past, even among the many witnesses? Did not they’ve the ability to move down the reality, even when quietly? Do now we have the identical energy, the identical accountability?
As a younger Plutarch Heavensbee asks, “The query is, why did not you?”
Finally, Dawn on the Reaping is a reminder that whatever the data of historical past (on this case, three books, 4 films, a prequel, and one other film), we could not all the time have the total image. In Panem, the setting for The Starvation Video games which is a fictional post-apocalyptic model of North America, even Katniss and Peeta view a Capitol-cut model of Haymitch’s video games 25 years later, with no hint of the insurgent plan detailed on this novel. So, in a relatively blunt – but efficient – method, it is as if Collins is asking us to replicate on how a lot we actually know of our historical past, and the way a lot energy now we have in making certain that our present truths have a spot sooner or later.
