TERESA’S BOOKSHELF: Mockingjay and Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway

Welcome back to Teresa’s Bookshelf! It’s been a while since this has been a regular feature. But just because I haven’t been writing about it doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading. At the end of my last post, I mentioned that “up next” on The Bookshelf was Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, and that I was “currently reading” Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway by Joyce Carol Oates. I’ve read those SO long ago that I couldn’t do a proper review at this point. However, here’s the short version of what I thought of those books, just in case anyone’s keeping track.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins – I thought this was a harrowing, inevitable, and completely appropriate ending to The Hunger Games trilogy. What impressed me most about the entire series, culminating in this book, is that Collins never gives her characters what’s easy or palatable. Everything Katniss goes through is eerily close to how something like her situation might play out in real life, warts and all. The deaths and injuries that occur are not merely for shock value, but are integral to the kind of story this is, and deeply meaningful to Katniss. I love that Mockingjay doesn’t give Katniss a happy ending or a sad ending. Or an ending at all. It gives her a new chapter as an adult, a clean slate, to do with as she pleases.

Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway by Joyce Carol Oates – To be completely honest, I prefer Joyce Carol Oates the short story author to Joyce Carol Oates the novelist. I’ve only read two of her many novels, and while I enjoyed them intellectually, for their craft, I didn’t enjoy them in that soft squishy place in my heart where books are beloved. Whenever I read her short stories, however, be they in The New Yorker, or in a collection, they always make me feel something. Wild Nights! is not only some of her best short work, but it’s one of my favorite short story collections of all time. Each story shows us each author in a completely honest (albeit fictional) way. They are none of them canonized or demonized. Oates is wonderful at wearing these writers’ voices and showing us the good and the bad, making us feel for the characters she’s created. I think that if any of these writers were still alive, they would choose these stories as their eulogies for themselves! Wild Nights! also contains one of my favorite sci-fi stories ever, “EDickinsonRepliluxe,” which tells the story of Emily Dickinson as A.I. years in the future; a future where people can have cylon-like dead celebrities live with them in their own homes. I don’t usually read books more than once – why reread things when there are so many other books I haven’t read yet? – but this one will be getting a reread in a couple of years. The stories are that good.

Well, that’s it for now! I’ll be playing catch-up with my reviews for a while, but from the next Bookshelf post on, each will be getting its own review. Hopefully, you’ll encounter a title that interests you and give it a read yourself! I hope so. And if you do, do me a favor and buy a copy from an indie bookstore, won’t you? Support your local bookshops. They need you.

Next on Teresa’s Bookshelf: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

Currently Reading: Embassytown by China Miéville and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clarke

Tor Post: Songs From District 12 – Producer Greg Wells Steps Into the Arena

Remember when I said there’d be three posts that feature my interview with music producer, Greg Wells, and his latest project, The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 and Beyond? Well, here’s number two. This time, over at Tor.com where, appropriately enough, it’s a more Hunger Games-focused review/interview.

Excerpt:

You’ve probably already seen The Hunger Games a million times by now. Read every magazine piece, watched every YouTube video. Have you listened to the soundtrack yet? Probably.

But if not, you should. The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 and Beyond stands as one of the great film soundtracks of recent years. It, like T-Bone Burnett’s soundtrack for the Coen Brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, as well as every soundtrack for every Quentin Tarantino film ever created, is a narrative in its own right, allowing the listener to know and live in the world of the film long after the screen goes dark. The album boasts talent like Taylor Swift, The Civil Wars, Kid Cudi, The Decemberists, Arcade Fire, and Neko Case, creating a rich tapestry true to the dystopian,  Appalachian core of both the Hunger Games film and the books.

I can’t stop listening to it.

To read the complete review and interview with Greg Wells, or to post a comment, CLICK HERE!

PopMatters Post: Producer Greg Wells Brings Music to The Hunger Games

Greg Wells. Photo by David Black.

I had the privilege and pleasure of speaking with music producer, Greg Wells who, in addition to his mile-long resume and ridiculous credentials, got to work with legendary producer T-Bone Burnett on the soundtrack to The Hunger Games film, The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 and Beyond. I interviewed him for several outlets and used different parts of the interview for different sites, so you’ll have to read all of them! The first was for PopMatters.

Excerpt:

However, the real gem of the soundtrack is the Kid Cudi song, “The Ruler and the Killer”, which Wells co-wrote with Cudi and Burnett. The track has been universally hailed as the highlight of the album, and Wells knew it was special the moment the song was born.

“It was really just as good as writing and recording sessions get,” he says, his fondness for the experience palpable over the phone. “The three of us all showed up in my studio—Kid Cudi, T-Bone, and myself. And you really couldn’t have three more different people sitting in the same room to work on music, and we were all kind of laughing about that! But, without much fanfare, we just started. I had put down a couple of different drum beats, and they both liked the ideas. Cudi in particular gravitated toward one that’s kind of a reinvention of the famous old Bo Diddley beat. And the origin of that, I believe, comes from this old Benny Goodman hit, “Sing, Sing, Sing”, with Gene Krupa playing these great kind of jungle beats. So I did my own version of it, kind of a rockier version of it, and he loved that. He thought that’s what we should build the song on. And he took out a guitar he brought with him, and just started jamming. We really weren’t cerebral with it at all. We just started experimenting and trying stuff. T-Bone and I picked out certain moments in his guitar part that we really liked, and the three of us agreed on what the standout moments were and kind of stitched that together.

“Then Cudi would leave the room for about five or ten minutes and come back in and say ‘I think I got verse one! Let me just hold the mic and I’ll do it right here in the control room.’ So he did it right in front of us. One take. Everything was one take. He never re-did anything. And I thought he would, but he’d just say ‘OK, that was it.’ Like Frank Sinatra never did overdubs, it was a bit like that! [laughs] And I loved it! I’m not used to working with people like that. You know, everyone wants to hone it a bit, and he was just like ‘This is what it is.’

For the full interview, or to post a comment at the post, CLICK HERE!

Geek Girl Traveler: How Would You Live The Hunger Games In Your City?

Over at the Geek Girl Traveler blog, I link to a great write-up in Time Out New York about how to have a Hunger Games-themed outing in New York City. I also ask what you’d suggest for inclusion in a Hunger Games outing in YOUR city/town?

To suggest your best Hunger Games-themed itineraries, or to link to the TONY article, CLICK HERE.

 

Tor Post: Symbolism in The Hunger Games

Eek! The Hunger Games movie is fast upon us! In about eight hours, I’ll be on my way to the movie theater for a midnight showing! Can’t wait!

Over at Tor.com, I wrote a post as part of their Hunger Games coverage talking about symbolism and its importance to political movements. It’s called Symbols in The Hunger Games: Katniss, the Mockingjay, and Humanity At Its Best.

Excerpt:

When I sat down to write about the Mockingjay symbol used in The Hunger Games trilogy, both the pin and Katniss Everdeen herself, the first thing I thought of was child soldiers and the Kony 2012 campaign.

Bear with me.

One of the criticisms I’ve heard about the Kony 2012 campaign (or rather about Invisible Children, the organization that started it aside) was that it was too slick: the video made too big an issue of finding Joseph Kony and oversimplified the many issues involved in the problem of child soldiers in Africa. Kony is not the only problem (or rather, he’s only part of the problem). This is very true.

Yet the Kony 2012 video went viral and spread in a way that years of news coverage, books, and the work of other organizations didn’t. It is precisely because Kony was used as a simple but potent idea and image that people were inspired to act in a way that simply appealing to their altruism and sense of decency just couldn’t. If a problem seems too large and complicated to solve, it becomes white noise.

In Panem, Katniss Everdeen focused the noise and broke through the static.

To read the complete post, as well as to comment, CLICK HERE.

In other Hunger Games-related news, if you haven’t yet listened to the soundtrack for the film, The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 and Beyond, you really should. It really captures the feel of the books (I can only imagine the film as well), and is on par with the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which makes sense as both were executive produced by legendary country producer, T Bone Burnett. In any case, I’m about to interview another producer on Songs From District 12, the only producer on the album other than T Bone, producing great Greg Wells. He not only produced on this album, but has amassed a jillion credits writing and producing for artists as diverse as Adele, Katy Perry, Celine Dion, OneRepublic and Timbaland, Colbie Caillat, and more! Expect to see that interview on PopMatters.com and ChinaShop Magazine soon!

Katniss Everdeen Is Not a “Character of Color”

The new trailer for the film adaptation of The Hunger Games has come out, and I’ve already watched it about five or six times in a row. I am SO excited for this film!

Now, the issue of Jennifer Lawrence being cast as Katniss Everdeen sparked controversy before the project even started filming. Katniss is described as having “olive” skin. And so, naturally, “olive” translates to “woman of color.” I mean, it’s obvious, right?

Since when?

I am a “woman of color”. I am Puerto Rican, and have an olive complexion. My parents are both from Puerto Rico and are descended from both the Taino natives on PR, Spaniards, and possibly Italians, as the last name “Jusino” has Italian origins. Or Spanish. Depends who you ask, actually. Yet I don’t claim Katniss Everdeen as a character of color, nor do I think she is one.

I’ve read some interesting criticism to the contrary. You can read some HERE and HERE.

However:

1) “Character of Color” is a ridiculous label to begin with.

What the hell does that even mean? People are getting up in arms about the casting of Katniss Everdeen based solely on the fact that she’s kinda sorta brownish. How sad is that? We don’t even know what kind of brown she is, yet she’s supposed to be a beacon of hope for anyone who is…um…any color. Do Asians count as “of color” even if they’re not brown? And is Katniss supposed to represent them, too?

2) People have latched onto the idea that Katniss is “Melungeon” for no good reason.

The fictional nation of Panem is actually North America risen from the ashes of a global war. It is divided into 13 districts, and Katniss is from District 12, which is located where current-day Appalachian Mountains are. Because of her olive skin, many people assume that Katniss is Melungeon:

Melungeons are defined as having racially mixed ancestry; they do not exhibit characteristics that can be classified as of a single racial phenotype. Most modern-day descendants of Appalachian families traditionally regarded as Melungeon are generally European American in appearance, often, though not always, with dark hair and eyes, and a swarthy or olive complexion. Descriptions of Melungeons have varied widely over time; in the 19th and early 20th century, they were sometimes called “Portuguese,” “Native American,” or “light-skinned African American.” Other Melungeon individuals and families are accepted as white, particularly since the mid-20th century. – from Wikipedia

So even if she is Melungeon, she could still be “European American” in appearance. But the book doesn’t say she’s Melungeon. All we have to go on is “olive complexion.” Here’s some other info about the racial make-up of Appalachia:

An estimated 90%^[31] of Appalachia’s earliest European settlers originated from the Anglo-Scottish border country— namely the English counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, Durham, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, and the Lowland Scottish counties of Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire, Roxburghshire, Berwickshire, and Wigtownshire. Most of these were from families who had been resettled in the Ulster Plantation in northern Ireland in the 17th century,^[32] but some came directly from the Anglo-Scottish border region.^[33] In America, these people are often grouped under the single name “Scotch-Irish” or “Scots-Irish”. While various 20th-century writers tried to associate Appalachia with Scottish highlanders, Highland Scots were a relatively insignificant percentage of the region’s early European immigrants.^[33]

Germans were a major pioneer group to migrate to Appalachia, settling mainly in the northern part of the region in western Pennsylvania, although some were part of the initial wave of migrants to the southern mountains.^[11] In the 19th century, Welsh immigrants were brought into the region for their mining and metallurgical expertise, and by 1900 over 100,000 Welsh immigrants were living in western Pennsylvania alone.^[34] Thousands of German-speaking Swiss migrated to Appalachia in the second half of the 19th century, and their descendants remain in places such as East Bernstadt, Kentucky, and Gruetli-Laager, Tennessee.^[35] The coal mining and manufacturing boom in the late-19th and early-20th centuries brought large numbers of Italians and Eastern Europeans to Appalachia, although most of these families left the region when the Great Depression shattered the economy in the 1930s. African-Americans have been present in the region since the 18th century, and currently make up 8% of the ARC-designated region, mostly concentrated in urban areas and former mining and manufacturing towns.^[36] Native Americans, the region’s original inhabitants, are only a small percentage of the region’s present population, their most notable concentration being the reservation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. The Melungeons, a group of mixed African, European, and Native American ancestry, are scattered across northeastern Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, and southwestern Virginia.

So, 90% of the settlers in this area were from Europe and even the Melungeons, the mixed race group in the region, usually look European, which makes sense considering that even with intermarriage, color would be bred out with every generation because people “of color” would still be so few in number in the area. Whereas Melungeons may have started out as much darker, in the 20th Century, as it says above, most pass for Caucasian. Now extrapolate that a couple of hundred years in the future when The Hunger Games takes place. It is highly likely that, despite her olive complexion, Katniss is still – for all intents and purposes – considered white.

3) “Of Color” is an experience. One that Katniss doesn’t have in the book.

To be “of color” is an experience, not just a matter of appearance. I have biracial friends who look Caucasian, and therefore don’t deal with matters of race day to day the way someone might who is darker. Hell, I’m Latina and there are Latinos/as in my family who are white and also don’t have to deal with matters of race or ethnicity day to day. This isn’t to say that their experience of race is non-existent – in fact, I was talking to one of my biracial friends the other day, and she was telling me how annoyed she gets when people don’t believe her when she says she’s half Black (her mother is Jamaican), because it’s only her Irish half that shows (she cosplays Snow White, if that tells you anything) – merely that it’s different, and usually not what’s meant or included when people discuss issues concerning people “of color.” If Barack Obama had been born with his mother’s skin instead of his father’s, would he still be considered our first Black President? I’m not so sure. I’m not saying that way of thinking is right. In fact, quite the opposite. Which is why I believe “of color” is a term so broad as to be useless, because race and ethnicity are complicated. “Of color” is a category that doesn’t really exist.

But getting back to Katniss – even if we could all agree on one definition for “of color,” Katniss doesn’t have an “of color” experience in the books. Hers are issues of class and status, not race, and they are shared by those who are lighter than she is. Peeta, who is described as blonde and clearly white, deals with the same issues she does, being from District 12. While the merchant class in District 12 does generally look like Peeta, and the blue-collar miner class looks like Katniss and Gale, it is never this that’s pointed out. She is not discriminated against, nor does she experience any difference in treatment within her district. And any negative attitudes she does experience are because of where she’s from and/or what her father did for a living (he was a miner). It was a big change for her mother to marry her father, not because he had an olive complexion, but because he was a miner. Her hardships are because of her poverty, not because of her color, and everyone in District 12 – despite their shade – is poor; some are less poor than others, but it is a generally poor district, and all the districts are poor when compared to The Capitol.

The fact that the wealthy people of the Capitol dye their skin all sorts of colors as a matter of fashion and status means that, in this world, color is not the thing that defines a person at all. What does define a person is how much money they have, and how fashionable they are.

The broader struggle in Panem has to do with distribution of wealth, not issues of race. It has more in common with the Occupy Wall Street movement than with the Civil Rights movement.

So, if Katniss doesn’t have the experience of a character “of color,” and her olive skin can just as easily be found on a person who is considered Caucasian, what is it, exactly, that people are trying to claim? To claim her as a character “of color” is to deny what being a person “of color” actually means. If it means anything.

A Caucasian guy as Peeta.

A Caucasian guy with an olive complexion as Gale.

4) There are different shades of white.

Several writers on the internet seem to think that because the casting notice for Katniss called for a Caucasian that biracial people were kept from auditioning. Now, I used to be an actor, and I went in for roles that called for Caucasians to varying degrees of success. Some casting directors recognized that someone with my features and coloring could be considered white depending on where they were from. Others held true to the standard pale=white/dark=minority dichotomy that limits so much of casting. Now, I wasn’t in the room when this film was being cast, but if I were an actress of the right age, and knew the book well enough to know that Katniss is described as having an olive complexion, nothing would’ve kept me out of that room. I would’ve insisted my agent submit me for it. And they probably would’ve seen me.

Now, the other side of that is – that there’s an assumption made by people criticizing the casting notice, that biracial people or people “of color” didn’t audition. I would love to ask those people something. Would you cast this actress as Katniss Everdeen? (I’m asking solely based on looks)

That’s Alexis Bledel. She’s got naturally dark hair, so you wouldn’t even have to dye it. She’s got blue eyes instead of grey…but I don’t think I’ve ever MET anyone with naturally grey eyes.  No, I wouldn’t cast her! She’s white! I hear you exclaim. Actually, she’s Latina. Her mother is Mexican and her father is Argentinian. She was born in Texas, but Spanish is her first language, and she didn’t learn English until she started school. But yes, she also is white. However, Latina is usually equated with “of color” so technically… Do you see how this can get confusing?

Now, for an actor with an olive complexion:

That’s Sasha Roiz. He’s of Russian-Jewish descent, born in Israel and raised in Canada. Yet he was cast to play Esai Morales’ brother on Caprica, and it was believable. Morales, like me, is Puerto Rican. Roiz is pretty much only a shade or two lighter than me, and we’d probably even out if he spent more time in the sun and I stayed out of it. Yet I don’t think anyone would call him anything other than Caucasian, despite his olive complexion.

“Olive” can be anything. So can “white.” So, “of color” means nothing. And as far as casting The Hunger Games, all we have to go on – other than the adjective “olive” – is the world and setting of the book. In that world – where the protagonist is from a future Appalachia in a society where money is everything – it is more likely than not that Katniss Everdeen is white.

I know how frustrating it is to not see yourself represented in literature, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to latch on to anything even remotely close just because that’s all there is. I love Katniss Everdeen. I think she’s one of the best female characters to come along in a long time. She’s a role model to me, and I’m thirty-two years old! She’s an extremely positive asset not just to YA literature, but to literature in general. It is because she is a young woman who doesn’t let her relationships with boys derail her focus from what’s important. It’s because she is willing to stand up in the face of injustice. It’s because she is flawed, and nuanced, which is so often not the case with female characters in fiction. It is because she cares about others more than she cares about herself. It is not because she is a character “of color.”

While I was rooting for Hailee Steinfeld to win the role, I’m very much looking forward to seeing Jennifer Lawrence in the film. From the looks of the trailer above, I think she’s gonna do a hell of a job as Katniss.

And by the way, Lawrence is originally from Louisville, Kentucky, which isn’t a part of the Appalachian Region, but it’s close.