A Series of Unfortunate Events

My current reading is "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by "Lemony Snicket" (actually Dan Handler). Not caught up yet, but almost.

I wasn't sure if I would like them at first, but they have seriously grown on me. The woeful situations of the Baudelaire orphans are *so* over-the-top that I find myself laughing at just how awful they are. A weird kind of catharsis. When (in book Five), they ended up at a prep school, it was not ony worse than my high school experience, it was worse than *any* "horrible school" story I had ever read, or indeed, even imagined!

I like the way that "Lemony Snicket" has moved gradually from being merely a rather quirkily pedantic narratorial voice, into clearly having a complex backstory of his own (involving the tragic loss of his One True Love, Beatrice (to whom each volume is morbidly dedicated)). It now appears that LS' backstory will actually dovetail with that of the Baudelaires before the end, as the McGuffin they are currently seeking is "The Snicket File", which allegedly contains incriminating information on the dastardly Count Olaf.

The end, by the way, is apparently going to be in Book 13. I appreciate a series that has a definitive ending in mind, rather than milking an idea forever. For the first few books, I was worried that they would all use the same plot formula, but this has been less and less the case as the series continues. To be sure, one can always be certain that Violet will invent something useful to get them out of a scrape, that Klaus will do some interesting research, and that Sunny will put her teeth to good use.

(I identify with Klaus, the bookish boy with glasses who loves to read, and to explore tide pools. Mentioning this to Kes, she said it was too bad that I couldn't pretend his name was Alexx. Rising to the challenge, I noted that if you turn the letters of his name sort-of inside-out, you can get Aluks, which sounds rather like Alexx.)

Like most of my favorite authors, Mr. Snicket loves playing with language. He tendss to define complicated words in amusingly interesting (if not-quite-standard) ways.

I've been reading Kes A Christmas Carol, and noted that Dickens also likes to play with language for its own sake. Right there in paragraph 2:

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

My current reading is "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by "Lemony Snicket" (actually Dan Handler). Not caught up yet, but almost.

I wasn't sure if I would like them at first, but they have seriously grown on me. The woeful situations of the Baudelaire orphans are *so* over-the-top that I find myself laughing at just how awful they are. A weird kind of catharsis. When (in book Five), they ended up at a prep school, it was not ony worse than my high school experience, it was worse than *any* "horrible school" story I had ever read, or indeed, even imagined!

I like the way that "Lemony Snicket" has moved gradually from being merely a rather quirkily pedantic narratorial voice, into clearly having a complex backstory of his own (involving the tragic loss of his One True Love, Beatrice (to whom each volume is morbidly dedicated)). It now appears that LS' backstory will actually dovetail with that of the Baudelaires before the end, as the McGuffin they are currently seeking is "The Snicket File", which allegedly contains incriminating information on the dastardly Count Olaf.

The end, by the way, is apparently going to be in Book 13. I appreciate a series that has a definitive ending in mind, rather than milking an idea forever. For the first few books, I was worried that they would all use the same plot formula, but this has been less and less the case as the series continues. To be sure, one can always be certain that Violet will invent something useful to get them out of a scrape, that Klaus will do some interesting research, and that Sunny will put her teeth to good use.

(I identify with Klaus, the bookish boy with glasses who loves to read, and to explore tide pools. Mentioning this to Kes, she said it was too bad that I couldn't pretend his name was Alexx. Rising to the challenge, I noted that if you turn the letters of his name sort-of inside-out, you can get Aluks, which sounds rather like Alexx.)

Like most of my favorite authors, Mr. Snicket loves playing with language. He tendss to define complicated words in amusingly interesting (if not-quite-standard) ways.

I've been reading Kes A Christmas Carol, and noted that Dickens also likes to play with language for its own sake. Right there in paragraph 2:

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.