As a late reader of The Hunger Games, 24 to be exact, I likely would rank the whole series differently than someone who read them when Susanne Collins released the original trilogy. Number one and two, undoubtably The Ballad of Song Birds and Snakes and The Sunrise on the Reaping. Number two, three, and four, as follows: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games, Mockingjay. I’ve heard from my die-hard fan twin that my ranking of the original trilogy is fairly common.
When I first opened The Sunrise on the Reaping, I was excited to see a first-person perspective and to analyze how it differed from Katniss’, whose prose was often stunted, patchy, if I’m being honest, emulating written-poorly-on-purpose, and Collins’ choice for a third-person Snow, which made sense due to Lucy Gray’s significance. I saw commentary that Haymitch’s prose differs from Katniss because he was widely social in District 12, whereas Katniss was withdrawn, mostly in the woods. He knows how to speak clearly, how to tell a story. It was interesting to follow a main character whose life at home is, for the most part, positive. His love interest is already established. He has a way to make income, albeit how underground it is. Haymitch has a life that he can be taken away from, more tangibly than some of the earlier characters.
The commentary I’ve read, similarly, discusses how Haymitch had everything to win the Quarter Quell: the allies, the sponsors, the physicality, the survival skills, but he wasn’t playing the Capitol’s games. He was playing a role in his own rebellion, working with the threads laid by many of the other characters. What Haymitch didn’t know was how deeply some of those threads would remind Snow of his greatest failure, his greatest risk to power, his greatest love, Lucy Gray. A flint striker with birds and snakes. A girlfriend from the Covey. A district that passes her voice on and on in songs and sayings. For Snow, Lucy Gray is not only a ghost. She is a legacy, a whisper, a cry in the District he’s made every effort to undercut and underprivilege.
Sunrise on the Reaping presents us with some very clever game arenas. Namely, Wiress’ games and her victory is unique to the point of unimaginable. I spent many minutes trying to decode the geometry of the trick of light and reflection that let her win without shedding an ounce of blood. I hope they show her victory, or at least a glimpse of her arena in the upcoming movie. The Quarter Quell’s arena is clever because it’s easily imaginable. It’s every lush forest, overgrown plain, save for an acid volcano, poisonous water, and rabid, flesh-eating squirrels. In Haymitch’s book, his arena is an Eden where every inch is Eve’s apple, laden with poison.
For me, one of the most tragic moments in Sunrise on the Reaping was when Haymitch is put on display in the cage at the Capitol party. In his games, he was 100% certain he would die, so he acted recklessly and, despite the circumstances, with dignity, growing a seed that Maysilee planted in his own way. To the failure of his ardent efforts, even down to the last moment when he is the victor, he lives. As he’s on Capitol life support, he comes to the realization that the power has shifted in life, stripping the freedom of death. He must grovel to keep his family alive. As I read those sections, I thought that he must know they are death or on their way there, but in his position, he has to hold onto the hope that prostrating himself for the entire capital might make a difference.
From there, Sunrise on the Reaping is a cascade of tragedy, starting with the eerie silence of District 12’s train station. Haymitch is moments too late to save his family from the fire yet just in time to watch it burn. He gives Lenore Dove the dose of poison that kills her, in a moment of elation when he doesn’t think about whether the grum drop was the pack he gave her or planted. That moment is full of emotional dissonance: hope, heartache, beauty, devastation.
As I neared the end, my only strong critique of the book is the overuse of The Raven. I like the idea of using its lines as breakpoints between the final evolutions of Haymitch’s life, but I was skipping over most of the lines. One or two between each break would have been a nice teaser to the whole piece (though, I love how the Covey are named). The epilogue is incredibly touching, just Haymitch, his geese, and his memories of Lenore, still alive. I hope the movie brings back Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Woody Harrelson to play that scene.
In the end, what will stick with me is the censorship of Haymitch’s story, that we see for the first time in an entirely different, rascal-soaked light in Catching Fire and how easy it was to break the game with all the right people and pieces in place. I’ll remember the image of Ampert, above Haymitch on the ladder one moment, a skeleton the next. How he still, at twelve, held his axe in death. How Beetee had to watch. Beetee who said his wife was pregnant, yet in Mockingjay has no wife or child. I’ll remember Lenore Dove’s grave by Lucy Gray’s, the way Lucy Gray’s voice travelled through time. I’ll remember the idea of painting a portrait, one of dignity and rebellion and grace. How you can do so with your own body in the worst circumstances. How your body can be killed. How it can be censored, poisoned, burned. How it can be art, propaganda, or power.
Autumn Rose Bellan 