I’m not exactly sure what it is that I feel that I need to write right now but for some reason I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I should. I just finished the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay. I’ve read the trilogy before but I don’t think I let it consume and impact as much as it has this time around. The first two books it was Peeta that accompanied every waking thought and even was trapped and enveloped within my dreams. It is his character and his love that traps me and lulls me in. I can’t get him out of my head and more than anything I wish I could find my own Peeta in my life. Someone who loves me no matter how much I may hurt him, and will fight as hard as he can to save my life when even if it involves losing his in the process. The final book throws everything you love about Peeta in your face. He becomes tormented and possessed to the point where the young bright boy you love no longer is available to see. At first when reading this book I didn’t like it because it ruined Peeta for me more than anything else. I wanted him to come back and be himself again, but there is no hope for that, because he has changed forever.
A little while ago I read a review on the Mockingjay book and this person, had the brilliant insight of that feeling you receive on finishing the book. You feel lost, and confused and very defeated. There is no happy, contented rejoicing. There is no happily ever after written in those pages. Just the blunt truth, NO ONE can go to war and come back the person they were before. NO ONE can be caught in a battle of life and death without seeing those battles every waking moment the rest of your life. Or in Katniss' version of words, "NO ONE can be burnt and not be left with the scars." They will stay with you no matter what happens. So yes, I left feeling deprived of that happy ending where Katniss and Peeta are together and in love. Well, they are together and they do love each other but it isn’t that blissful moment when lovers rush into each other’s arms and kiss passionately. Interspersed in their finding each other again, are the nightmares, the flashbacks and the memories of what they have done and more than that what they have lost. I can continue to write about this book and the empty feeling it leaves you, but then I remember, its relief as well. Relief with the characters that at least the blood and the death and the killing are over. Now they must battle a different kind of demon but still very real. I may not be very eloquent in how I am writing this, yet it helps me come to terms with so many things. I read books and the descriptive scenes of gore and death, yet they aren’t relevant to me. I may feel the characters pain but I don’t see it, I don’t understand all of it and most importantly I still have NEVER experienced it firsthand. Yes, I am still lost and empty but I am happy with the way it ended, because all one can hope is that somehow it is possible to move on from the memories of that past, they will forever scope who you are, but there is still a life to be lived. If Katniss and Peeta can come together, after everything that tried to tear them apart, than there is definitely hope for those who have never been through a tenth of what they have, of finding life within them again.
I know this statement doesn't even come to close to everything that is wandering around inside my head but I needed a way to explain it so it doesn't consume me all the time. The question that Peeta asks Katniss at the end, "real, or not real?" is now what I ask of everyone else. Real or not real? These books may be fiction but do the results of such a grievous war really have an impact on the participants in this way? Or even more so, have incidences of this happened in the past, in history? It has, it does in some way or another. ....This may sound contrite but it makes me realize how much I have in my life that I have a need to be gratefor for.
Also, to know that someday there will be no wars, there will be no hunger, no sorrow, or pain. All that will remain is enduring love and happiness when Christ comes again. Reading this book makes me even more grateful for the knowledge I have of my Savior and his love for me and that even though wars come and cities are built and torn down, HE is always there and forever will be!
1 comment:
Yes! Agree all the way. Look at Frodo. He had a potentially happy ending, I mean, he defeated all evil right? But he couldn't deal with the ramifications of the evil that he had personally battled with by being the ring bearer, so he chose to leave Middle Earth and go to the Grey Havens to pass in peace. Harry Potter defeated all evil and was able to live a pretty normal, happy life afterwards. Why? Because he married someone who knew exactly what he'd gone through, and kept friends nearby that also knew everything that had happened to him. This is probably the #1 reason why Katniss needed Peeta, and vice versa, is that no one else would understand the PTSD they were going through. Imagine watching everyone you care about being brutally murdered and you being helpless to stop it. Could you be the same after that? I can't even be the same person after a break up, let alone losing people to horrific deaths.
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