The Underland Chronicles 4 and 5
May. 19th, 2013 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calzephyrIt didn't take me long to finish the last two books - Suzanne Collins is a master at writing cliffhangers. Book 4 and 5 are more like one book than the previous three, and differ vastly in tone as well. Collins ramps up the violence as the Underland humans and rats prepare for war, transforming the series from mere adventure books.
I wasn't prepared for unflinching descriptions of violence and my jaw actually dropped when I realized that Collins was describing genocide, complete with gassing the prisoners, in the middle of Book 4. The nibblers (mice) are herded by the rats into the valley of an underground volcano, where it erupts and kills them all with poisonous gas.
These two books are sadly joyless and lack much of the humour present in the earlier three. Gregor spends most of his time fretting about a prophecy that predicts his death in Book 5. At least the ending isn't "Everybody dies!", although enough characters are certainly killed off.
Collins runs into the same problem that I felt she did in The Hunger Games - a weak ending after so many breathless cliffhangers. However, this is also my bias as an adult showing - but the conclusion Gregor comes to is incredibly weak. Having spent five books examining the causes and mechanics of conflict in many metaphorical ways, the series ends with a simple "people need to reject war" kind of thinking that sure left hippies and idealists bummed out fifty years ago. The story fails to acknowledge that peace is just as complex as the causes. It's possible that the peace made between the humans and rats at the end won't last, but it wouldn't be right either to end this series for twelve year olds with the idea that the future is completely hopeless either.
I wasn't prepared for unflinching descriptions of violence and my jaw actually dropped when I realized that Collins was describing genocide, complete with gassing the prisoners, in the middle of Book 4. The nibblers (mice) are herded by the rats into the valley of an underground volcano, where it erupts and kills them all with poisonous gas.
These two books are sadly joyless and lack much of the humour present in the earlier three. Gregor spends most of his time fretting about a prophecy that predicts his death in Book 5. At least the ending isn't "Everybody dies!", although enough characters are certainly killed off.
Collins runs into the same problem that I felt she did in The Hunger Games - a weak ending after so many breathless cliffhangers. However, this is also my bias as an adult showing - but the conclusion Gregor comes to is incredibly weak. Having spent five books examining the causes and mechanics of conflict in many metaphorical ways, the series ends with a simple "people need to reject war" kind of thinking that sure left hippies and idealists bummed out fifty years ago. The story fails to acknowledge that peace is just as complex as the causes. It's possible that the peace made between the humans and rats at the end won't last, but it wouldn't be right either to end this series for twelve year olds with the idea that the future is completely hopeless either.
