Earlier this week, Suzanne Collins added another book to her literary pantheon, a prequel to “The Hunger Games” called “Sunrise on the Reaping.” Nearly two decades after the original trilogy was published, “Sunrise on the Reaping” proves how critical and timely the series remains.
“Sunrise on the Reaping” reads like it is aware of its impact and its audience. Collins’ writing is as lyrical and engrossing as it was when “The Hunger Games” debuted 17 years ago; the difference is this new book is born into an already existing cultural dominion. Collins has always had something to say, but in the context of President Donald Trump’s America, one closer to the world of “The Hunger Games” than ever before, her message is salient.
Collins has always had something to say, but in the context of President Donald Trump’s America, one closer to the world of “The Hunger Games” than ever before, her message is salient.
“Sunrise on the Reaping” centers on Haymitch Abernathy, a complex and misunderstood alcoholic who appears in the original trilogy as Katniss Everdeen’s initially begrudging and then devoted coach and mentor. Collins capitalizes on the familiarity most readers will have with Haymitch’s character to craft a story that deftly examines the power of propaganda and the early stages of authoritarian rule.
“Sunrise on the Reaping” is Collins’ second prequel. The first, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” chronicles President Coriolanus Snow’s journey to becoming the fascist leader of Panem, Collins’ dystopian reimagining of North America. Read together, the two novels illustrate how fascism takes shape: You need the right person and the right environment.
There are certain elements, structurally and stylistically, that all five books share. Collins breaks her novels into three equal parts, with the same number of chapters. In a rare interview this week with Scholastic’s David Levithan, Collins explained, “I began as a playwright over forty years ago, and that dramatic structure became the template for the novels. … I know certain things I want to achieve by certain points in the story. If I haven’t achieved them, something isn’t working the way I hoped, and I probably need to pause and figure out why.”
Stylistically, “The Hunger Games” series makes its reader culpable in the grotesque deaths of tributes, of children. Collins masterfully writes these scenes to be fast-paced, engrossing and detailed. You like reading them. You enjoy the horrifying brutality of the Hunger Games. In this way, the reader is complicit — just as complicit as the series’ wealthy citizens of The Capitol, who watch from safe perches in colorful outfits. Collins also grounds the novel with numerous literary references: Haymitch remembers a William Blake poem, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is repeated again and again, we have a character named for Emperor Caligula’s horse, and the book opens with four quotes including a reflection from George Orwell.
Collins has a knack for eliciting emotion. Readers across the country posted photos of their tear-streaked faces and puffy eyes on social media after finishing “Sunrise on the Reaping.”
In 17 years, Collins has created a brutal, grisly and heart-wrenching world that has gripped a generation of readers. Like Margaret Atwood and George Orwell before her, Collins’ novels have become part of the lexicon, an adjective — this is very Hunger Games — used to illustrate government overreach and authoritarianism. “The Hunger Games” series, including “Sunrise on the Reaping,” is a central part in the American dystopian literary canon. Dystopian literature doesn’t look like any one overarching government, environmental catastrophe or mechanism for control. What it all shares is a worst-case-scenario examination that is thought-provoking and engrossing, especially for young readers.
Like Margaret Atwood and George Orwell before her, Collins’ novels have become part of the lexicon.
Young adult dystopian novels are hugely popular. The runaway success of “The Hunger Games,” with a megahit movie franchise and more than 100 million copies in print, proves that. At a recent meeting of MSNBC’s the Velshi Banned Book Club, Lois Lowry, author of one of the first young adult dystopian novels to captivate the nation, “The Giver,” attributes the success of the genre — and its widespread bans and removals — to the young protagonists. In the pages of these books, it is the young hero, the underdog, who enacts societal change. “A young person has perceived the hypocrisy and corruption of the governance of the generation that has created their world,” Lowry said.
The propaganda commentary at the center of “Sunrise on the Reaping” reminded me of early August when Elon Musk reposted a popular meme that regularly circulates online: “You watched ‘The Hunger Games’ and sided with the resistance. … When it’s fiction you understand. Yet you refuse to see it when it’s the reality you’re living in. Wild.” Seventy-four million people viewed the post. Many of them reacted negatively, calling Musk, and his wealth and influence, The Capitol. This isn’t the only time men of undue and dangerous influence have twisted Collins’ story in and attempt to use it for their own benefit. If nothing else, it proves the power of literature, particularly this genre of literature, to influence and inspire. In the brutal world of Panem, the narrative must be controlled. And off the page? The narrative must be distorted.