Welcome to the Humanities Scholars Class of 2010 blog!
Please use this site to reflect on your experience and involvement in the Humanities around campus. Be sure to check back regularly to post new experiences, see what other students have written, and engage in discussion.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Hunger Games discussion

I went to the Hunger Games book club discussion, which was a pretty good time overall. I enjoyed reading the books and chatting with everyone about our favorite characters and favorite moments. However, I feel that these books were not written at a level that encourages serious, philosophical conversation; and many individuals tried to turn them into such. The book club, at certain points, reminded me of my high school english classes--taking trivial issues and lacing them with symbolism and allegory that is arguably nonexistent just to make for a pretty debate. I guess my point is, if there are no deep connections that can be made, then don't make them. Just enjoy the read. Other than that, I enjoyed my time. I'd probably go to a follow up discussion on the rest of the series if one was presented.

2 comments:

  1. I definitely agree with Maria. I really enjoyed getting together with people that enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) the first book of the Hunger Games series. For me personally, I read the Hunger Games purely for entertainment purposes and was definitely not reading it to get something out of it. I am definitely glad that I went to the discussion because a lot of points were made about the book that I had not drawn a connection to myself when reading the book alone. However, just as Maria pointed out, I believe sometimes we tried to pull out areas of symbolism that weren't really there in order to make it a more "interesting" discussion. I actually would have enjoyed talking more about just our thoughts about the characters and the plot more than going into an in-depth analysis of something that I'm not sure was written for that purpose. All in all, I'm glad that I went to the discussion just to see different viewpoints about the book and I would also attend a follow up discussion on the rest of the series if we had one (just have to read the rest first ;P).

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with both Maria and Jordan. I did enjoy discussing the first book in the Hunger Games trilogy in a group setting but I do think people read too much into it and tried to pull out symbolism. I did like to hear other people's points of view though. I would definitely attend if there was a follow up discssion with the second and third books in the trilog. Overall I greatly enjoyed the Hunger Games.

    ReplyDelete