The Ultimate Taboo

I am not easily offended. In everyday life, it takes a lot to ruffle my feathers. It also takes a lot to offend me in literiture. I read and enjoy books with bad language, teen sex, drug and alcohol abuse, ect. I’ve read enough mysteries and thrillers, that the random appearance of a dead body doesn’t faze me. When it’s well written, I don’t even mind stories that deal with rape or suicide. But the one subject I simply cannot stomach is the murder of children. More spacifically children murdering children.

My least favorite book of all time is LORD OF THE FLY’S. When I read it as a teenager, the story haunted me for months. Even now, a decade and a half later, thinking about the sacrifice of Piggy puts a bad taste in my mouth. The idea presented in LORD OF THE FLY’S, that civilization is only a thin mask over savage human tendancies and a group of children stranded on an island would instictually turn to canabalism, goes against every fiber of my belief system. I genuinely wish William Golding never wrote that book.

I cannot and will not belief that it is natural or instinctual for humans to savagely kill one another. The natural tendancy to come together and for relationships is the reason civilizations have rizen in the first place. And the instinct to protect the safety and interests not of ones self, but of ones loved ones, rests at the very core of humanity.

So, naturally, I was shocked when I recently read THE HUNGER GAMES. All I knew going into the story was that it is imensly popular. That it’s doing for YA/SciFi what Twilight did for YA/Paranormal. I did not expect to find this generation’s LORD OF THE FLY’S. In THE HUNGER GAMES, instead of a group of British school boys getting stranded on an island, a futuristic oppressive government creates an arenea and throws a group of children into it to fight to the death as a form of entertainment.

The question in THE HUNGER GAMES becomes, “Will the young heroine, Katniss, be able to fight and kill other children to keep herself alive?” Sadly the answer is yes. In this best selling children’s book, young Katniss brutilly murders other children in order to save herself. To give the author Suzanne Collins some credit, Katniss also fights to protect her friends. And she comes to realize that her true enamies aren’t the other children in the arena, but the adults the invented the hunger games and created the arena.

I did have the flu when I read this book. Still I hope I’m not the only person who’s body wretched and vomited while reading this savagry. I hope THE HUNGER GAMES haunts today’s teens as much as LORD OF THE FLY’S haunted me in my youth. I hope I’m not the only person who understands there is nothing natural or instinctual about children murdering other children. I hope that humanity can keep this the ultimate taboo.

Joke of the Day

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?"
She answered, "If I tell you, it will defeat the purpose."