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Wrote a little about these in the 2003 "What Are You Reading" thread, but as the series progresses I'm more and more convinced it deserves a thread of its own...
So. A Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket a.k.a. Daniel Handler: ten books of a projected thirteen have been published so far, (along with the related Unauthorized Autobiography of Lemony Snicket) detailing the perilous adventures of the Baudelaire orphans--Violet, Klaus, and Sunny--as, after the death of their parents in a fire that consumed their home, they pass through the hands of a string of inappropriate guardians, ever pursued by the greedy Count Olaf, who is intent on getting his hands on the fabulous Baudelaire fortune.
And it's wonderful wonderful stuff. The books are, above all, an exercise in style, and that style is in the authorial voice--a mordantly funny instrument reminiscent of Edward Gorey's best work (an impression reinforced by Brett Helquist's Gorey-esque illustrations, and the gorgeous production values of the books themselves).
But within that framework, there's some intricate plotting, a slew of literary allusions, and some postmodern metafictive game-playing. Beginning with Book 5, there's a shift in structure. The picaresque framework of the first four books resolves into a single long story arc. The Baudelaires begin to uncover hints that the fire that destroyed their home was not quite what it appeared, and that their parents were, perhaps, more than they seemed. Persons believed dead are found to be alive; characters long-forgotten reappear in unexpected contexts; patterns of events and character recur in distorted, funhouse-mirror ways; the authorial presence comes into the story, as the story of "Lemony Snicket" and his beloved Beatrice becomes a sort of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead to the Baudelaires' Hamlet, if you get my meaning.
What's really impressive to me is
(a) the way the books start to show moments of real emotional power, while never losing the atmosphere of jokey melodrama, and
(b) the subtle shift in the moral landscape as the orphans do what they must to survive, with ever-more-troubling results, and the eventual reckoning. Handler actually thinks through the consequences of the Baudelaires' growing desperation, and the acts to which it leads them: at one point he actually quotes Nietszche's line about how, when fighting monsters, you must take care lest you become a monster yourself--which gives the title of the latest book, The Slippery Slope, its delicious double meaning.
Daniel Handler has written a couple of "adult" novels under his own name, including The Basic Eight (unread by me). He's a friend of Stephin Merritt from the Magnetic Fields, and has played accordion on a couple of Merritt projects (including 69Love Songs): Merritt, in return, has written original songs that appear on the audiobook versions of the Unfortunate Events books.
Handler has appeared on television, again under his own name, to shill The Slippery Slope, under the pretense of being Lemony Snicket's "representative." Even better: Handler does bookstore appearances in character as Snicket. He brings his accordion and leads the kids in a sing-along, even.
The official site is hither, and there's a great RealAudio interview with Handler yon.
Now, I've got all sorts of speculations regarding specific points of the increasingly-complex plot, but first I've gotta know if anybody else has read these... |
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