The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: Chaos, Control and Contract a book review

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

> By Suzanne Collins

It was years ago when I had read the Hunger Games trilogy, the movies ad started rolling out and I wanted to read the books before all movies would have released. So I read the story of Katniss and Peeta quickly and still have not seen the last two movies to this day. (The trend of making two movies out of one book was such a bummer that it made me shy away from the movies when they were rolling out.)

So, fast forward to August 2024, when a book club I am part of has a buddy read planned for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I decided to read this book for two reasons, one, I would like to finish what I had started years back and two, I really wanted to read some lighter novel after Kindred dealt with a lot of heavy themes.

If I could have a penny for how many times I have been disappointed for the former reason, I would definitely have got a nice chocolate atleast to go with the reading. It is often the case when you read for the sake of completing the series or watch a tv show to complettion you end up disliking it a lot. That was not the case with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Overview

Fans of The Hunger Games trilogy would know what kind of dystopian nightmare the world of hunger games is. The fictional region of Panam in this future is divided into 13 districts, each district having their own special trade (for instance district 12 belong to coal miners). There is a Wealthy Capitol which controls most of the Panem's trade, resources, money among other things. The Capitol as a reminder of a war that they won organises the Hunger Games, where from each district one boy and one girl are selected to compete in the games. Each tribute as they are called has to survive in a bloody battle fought in an arena which is broadcasted to the world.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set around half a century before the events of the trilogy, a few years after the war the Capitol still shows scars of the battle that was fought between them and the districts. In the capitol live a young boy, Coriolanus Snow. The protagonist of the story, Snow - as seasoned readers would recall- is the future president of the capitol. But as we begin the novel, we see him as a struggling boy. A boy from a noble and rich family whose affluent days are almost done. We follow the making of Coriolanus(Coryo) into the president snow the readers loved to hate.

Coryo is part of an elite academy, and this year's games have been changed to have academy students mentor the tributes to increase the viewership of the games. We follow Coryo as he is selected as one of the mentors and he is allotted the female tribute Lucy Gray as his Mentee. Lucy Gray is a member of a Covey, they are performers who travel across districts singing and playing music for people. The novel then explores the following question: Will Lucy with her charms and signing along with Coryo and his cunning accumen be able to survive the Games?

My thoughts

Honestly, this book was better than I expected. Albeit a bit too long. The story is engaging and the reader is put to the edge with the action. If it was not as engaging, the length of the book would certainly put most readers off. With more than 500 pages long, the book is not a quick easy read for sure. That was the main disappointment reading the book.

The good part:

Without the threat of death, it wouldn't have been much of a lesson," said Dr. Gaul. "What happened in the arena? That's humanity undressed. The tributes. And you, too. How quickly civilization disappears. All your fine manners, education, family background, everything you pride yourself on, stripped away in the blink of an eye, revealing everything you actually are. A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That's mankind in its natural state."

Dr Gaul and her ruthless character is incredibly intriguing. as the gamedesigner and a scientist, she is involved in coming up ideas involving The Hunger Games and her relationship with her student Coriolanus was incredibly interesting. Their conversations incredibly thought provoking.

The philosophy and the ideas explored in the book via the hunger games are really thought provoking.

"Oh, a good deal, I think. Start with that. Chaos. No control, no law, no government at all. Like being in the arena. Where do we go from there? What sort of agreement is necessary if we're to live in peace? What sort of social contract is required for survival?" She removed the drip from his arm. "

Chaos and control is a repeating theme which was yes present in the original trilogy as well, but here it is more openly discussed. I think the purge like setting that the hunger games provide allows the writer and the reader to imagine themselves in the life and death scenario and makes one wonder what they would do to survive. Coriolanus Snow realises in the book that the key lies in the three C's as he call, control, chaos and contract. The social constructs like the government (in their sense the Capitol) is required and their contracts with the public is what is required to keep the chaos in check. And this check is made by the use of control. So the control either ideological or through arms is what lets the contract be held up. Otherwise according to Dr Gaul and many others chaos would reign.

Controlling Chaos

In Physics, more specefically non linear dynamics we study controlled chaos. In chaos control, you can nudge a system to control the chaotic dynamics to keep the system in a periodic but a chaotic attractor (for instance the lorenz butterfly attractor). A very interesting example of controlled chaos is a double pendulum, for people who do not know a double pendulum is just a pendulum where you replace the bob of a simple pendulum with another pendulum. Double pendulums show chaos in the sense that if you start from the same initial condition, you end up at different locations.

Double pendulum can have two stable positions. One in which both weights point down and thus it sits idle with no angle for each pendulum. Another way for the Pendulum to reach a "fixed point" or equilibrium condition is both the bobs to be vertically above the origin. This is what we call an unstable fixed point. If we give the pendulum from the first position it returns to that position, but if we provide a tiny nudge in the second equilibrium position, the pendulum shows chaotic behaviour and does not return. One can design a machine that forces the system to stay in this unstable fixed point. It is designed to push the pendulum in the reverse direction to negate the displacement.

Not so good part:

The story could have been decreased in word length. Suzanne added too much fan service and nudges to the original trilogy and the last part was just too slow.