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cahnI reread (most of) these in the last couple of months for (as usual) Reasons. There are thirteen books in the original series about the Baudelaire orpans, and a couple of side books that go along with it: I reread all of the original thirteen except the first four (more on that omission later), as well as rereading Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography. (I wanted to also reread The Beatrice Letters, but we don't own that one and I failed in obtaining it before the deadline.)
They're deeply strange and strangely hilarious and over-the-top books, sort of if you mixed Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey, and added in a large scoop of secret organizations and another large dollop of meta. Lemony Snicket himself never explicitly shows up in the plot as a character, but the best parts of the books are where we learn things about him and his own personal secret-organization-filled unfortunate series of events. (I must confess that The Unauthorized Biography may actually be my favorite of the entire series, although it would make zero sense had you not read at least half the series beforehand.)
Daniel Handler is a really great writer. I didn't appreciate this before trying to pastiche, but the way he does gloominess and pedantry and formal mannerisms in these books that all just tip over into hilarity, without becoming annoying first, is rather a feat to behold.
The one problem I have always had with the books is that sometimes he tries to have his cake and eat it too: they are supposed to be meta and derive humor from being meta, but then occasionally he tries to go for real pathos. And, to me, it jars. The reason I don't like the first several books, in fact, is that becoming orphans and losing one's family is something that is legitimately sad, and although I don't object to books about orphans, it just... doesn't... fit. The Austere Academy, on the other hand, features unfortunate events such as baby Sunny being forced to become the school's secretary (since she's too small to attend school, naturally), which is of course unfortunate for her, but is so far from reality that it's not weird to laugh at it while still feeling sorry for the Baudelaires.
Anyway, the first, oh, seven? or so books follow a pattern: The orphans are placed in an unfortunate and also very odd situation, and Count Olaf comes after them to steal the Baudelaire fortune. They manage to foil Olaf through use of cleverness and their talents (Violet is an inventor, Klaus is a researcher, and Sunny has very sharp teeth and eventually develops cooking skills -- which also, let me just say how much I love that Violet and Sunny get to be the active ones, and Klaus the bookish timid one), though not without some cost, in a way that sets up the next book.
And then... it gets weird. Very weird. I hadn't really noticed on my first read, but in this one I was in book 11 (The Grim Grotto), and I was like, "Wait... how did we get into this world of giant submarines and deadly mushrooms?" The last book (The End) is extremely weird; it turns into this whole meta exploration of how much people should or should not be protected from themselves, and how schisms might occur and how the line between hero and villain gets blurred.
The other thing about the last book is that nothing is explained. Well -- that's not quite true; there is a lot that is alluded to, and by the time the series is finished the reader knows in general outline who Beatrice was, what the Snicket family was, what the VFD was, and what the history of the VFD was, sort of. But there are no details at all.
I was weirded out by this (as, I think, everyone was who read it), but I... didn't mind it! Contrast Y: The Last Man, which I snarfed up eagerly and then was really, really angry about because they never explained what caused the plague that wiped out all the men except for Yorick.
On reread, I think this is because Handler does set up the idea of not knowing things, not having answers, as early as the Unauthorized Autobiography. And the progression of the theme of hero vs. villain (the Baudelaires do a series of more and more villainous things, culminating in Penultimate Peril) has also been steadily there since at least the middle of the series. And the whole series is so incredibly meta, and drifting even farther there in the last several books, and e.g. in Penultimate Peril we never find out who Ernest (or Frank) is.
Whereas in Y: The Last Man, it's set up as a SF-mystery tale, and in those, I expect answers!
They're deeply strange and strangely hilarious and over-the-top books, sort of if you mixed Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey, and added in a large scoop of secret organizations and another large dollop of meta. Lemony Snicket himself never explicitly shows up in the plot as a character, but the best parts of the books are where we learn things about him and his own personal secret-organization-filled unfortunate series of events. (I must confess that The Unauthorized Biography may actually be my favorite of the entire series, although it would make zero sense had you not read at least half the series beforehand.)
Daniel Handler is a really great writer. I didn't appreciate this before trying to pastiche, but the way he does gloominess and pedantry and formal mannerisms in these books that all just tip over into hilarity, without becoming annoying first, is rather a feat to behold.
The one problem I have always had with the books is that sometimes he tries to have his cake and eat it too: they are supposed to be meta and derive humor from being meta, but then occasionally he tries to go for real pathos. And, to me, it jars. The reason I don't like the first several books, in fact, is that becoming orphans and losing one's family is something that is legitimately sad, and although I don't object to books about orphans, it just... doesn't... fit. The Austere Academy, on the other hand, features unfortunate events such as baby Sunny being forced to become the school's secretary (since she's too small to attend school, naturally), which is of course unfortunate for her, but is so far from reality that it's not weird to laugh at it while still feeling sorry for the Baudelaires.
Anyway, the first, oh, seven? or so books follow a pattern: The orphans are placed in an unfortunate and also very odd situation, and Count Olaf comes after them to steal the Baudelaire fortune. They manage to foil Olaf through use of cleverness and their talents (Violet is an inventor, Klaus is a researcher, and Sunny has very sharp teeth and eventually develops cooking skills -- which also, let me just say how much I love that Violet and Sunny get to be the active ones, and Klaus the bookish timid one), though not without some cost, in a way that sets up the next book.
And then... it gets weird. Very weird. I hadn't really noticed on my first read, but in this one I was in book 11 (The Grim Grotto), and I was like, "Wait... how did we get into this world of giant submarines and deadly mushrooms?" The last book (The End) is extremely weird; it turns into this whole meta exploration of how much people should or should not be protected from themselves, and how schisms might occur and how the line between hero and villain gets blurred.
The other thing about the last book is that nothing is explained. Well -- that's not quite true; there is a lot that is alluded to, and by the time the series is finished the reader knows in general outline who Beatrice was, what the Snicket family was, what the VFD was, and what the history of the VFD was, sort of. But there are no details at all.
I was weirded out by this (as, I think, everyone was who read it), but I... didn't mind it! Contrast Y: The Last Man, which I snarfed up eagerly and then was really, really angry about because they never explained what caused the plague that wiped out all the men except for Yorick.
On reread, I think this is because Handler does set up the idea of not knowing things, not having answers, as early as the Unauthorized Autobiography. And the progression of the theme of hero vs. villain (the Baudelaires do a series of more and more villainous things, culminating in Penultimate Peril) has also been steadily there since at least the middle of the series. And the whole series is so incredibly meta, and drifting even farther there in the last several books, and e.g. in Penultimate Peril we never find out who Ernest (or Frank) is.
Whereas in Y: The Last Man, it's set up as a SF-mystery tale, and in those, I expect answers!
no subject
Date: 2014-04-09 03:46 pm (UTC)I think that 11-13 slide into a mirror universe of wanting to invert all the childhood adventure-series topoi for an audience that may not know them yet, and thus the potentially alarming bits are smoothed over, rubbed out. Plus, yes, not everything is knowable. I like Unauthorized Autobio better than the main Snicket run, somehow. (I appear not to have blogged The End at all; here are the rest.)
no subject
Date: 2014-04-10 05:26 am (UTC)It looks like you did at least mention The End in that last post :) I also like Unauthorized Autobio the best; I think because it does answer a lot of questions, if only implicitly, and it is much more frank (so to speak) about the unknowability (which is probably not a word) of the core questions it's asking. (And indeed it was the first one we purchased. D bought the first three, and I got the rest of kindle when there was a mad sale on them at amazon.)