The Hunger Games/Rite of Passage

So a few months ago, I had a conversation with a young friend whose imagination had been entirely captivated by The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I had heard of it, but had not yet talked to someone of the age for whom it was written. This young lady was dying to tell me of the plot twists, but she is a real reader. She restrained herself from giving too much away, and told me just enough to arouse my curiosity. (Well done, Jessye!)

            When she described the premise, it immediately brought to mind Alexei Panshin’s Rite of Passage. I also thought of Monica Hughes’s Invitation to the Game (which I will come back to in a future post.)

            Unexpectedly, once I began reading The Hunger Games, I found that certain passages reminded me of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (the wonderful book, not the wonderful movie). But I was also correct in anticipating that it would remind me of Panshin’s book. The parallels between his 1968 s.f. classic (fifth Nebula Award winner ever!)  and The Hunger Games are striking.

            Here is the thumbnail description of Rite of Passage from “The Abyss of Wonder,” Panshin’s website:

 “A girl who lives on an immense interstellar ship must manage to survive Trial for a month in the wilds of a colony planet.”

        Doesn’t that sound reminiscent of The Hunger Games?

          Small caveat. I haven’t read Rite of Passage for many years, so it’s possible that it will seem dated to a modern reader. But I’ll bet it’s still a thoroughly absorbing read.

            Like The Hunger Games, Rite of Passage is a coming-of-age novel. Both books place their young heroines in jeopardy, and step back to test their self-reliance and will to survive.

            Granted, the stakes don’t start out anywhere near as high for Mia as they do for Katniss. But ultimately they ramp up to just as dire a pitch. (If stakes can pitch?) Mia’s peril may even come through as more extreme, because she and the reader discover Tintera together, while Collins and Katniss roll out a slow reveal of circumstances they are familiar enough with to take for granted.

            In the end—and perhaps counter-intuitively, given the premise of The Hunger Games and the trend toward increasingly graphic storytelling for young adults—Panshin grapples with bigger questions in Rite of Passage than Collins does in The Hunger Games. Although things are very wrong in Katniss’s world, her dilemmas by the end of the first book seem primarily personal. I’m guessing this will change over the course of subsequent books—and I’ll definitely keep reading to find out.

            Happily, I can read more Panshin, too! In looking for links to share, I learned that Panshin revisited the setting of Rite of Passage in subsequent stories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_Passage_(novel)). As I sweat along with Katniss in the trials ahead, I will also look forward to returning to the world I first saw through Mia Havero’s eyes. What a treat!

More info:

Read Jo Walton’s incisive post after you’ve read Rite of Passage. Unlike Jessye, she gives too much away. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2009/08/growing-up-for-real-alexei-panshins-rite-of-passage 

And here is Panshin’s own story about how he came to write the book: http://www.enter.net/~torve/critics/HeinleinRoP/rahrop1.htm