By Kendra Hibbert
October 3, 2003
In 1999, when Potter-mania was just heating up and the publishing industry was desperate for children’s books now that they knew some could bridge the audience age gap, a new writer emerged who combined Dickensian tales of woe with a dark sense of humor and put it all together for a pre-teen audience. The writer went by the name of Lemony Snicket and though the first book in his SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS was published in July of that year, he has since written nine other books in the collection -- the latest one THE SLIPPERY SLOPE just appeared this month.
The draw of this series is undoubtedly the narrating style of Lemony Snicket. His most frequent stylistic trick is to provide definitions to his big words – sometimes real, sometimes humorous – which help kids to get through these books. But unless you’re a 9-year-old (or have the reading level of one) you may very well be asking yourself right now – why should I be interested in these books? Presumably you already know the difference between the word “nervous” and the word “anxious” (which Lemony Snicket explains in the first chapter of THE ERZATZ ELEVATOR) and you only have a few scant hours in the day between work, sleep and watching the season premiere of whatever reality show you’re addicted to for reading. So the question that you’re hoping will be answered by reading this review is not whether or not these books are great for children it’s “should I spend my precious time reading the SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS or would that time be better spent listening to the director commentary for HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE?”
The answer to that question is, of course, dependent on your tastes and reading temperament. It’s not fair to say that if you like Harry Potter you’ll like these books, but there is perhaps a large percentage of people who like both Potter and Snicket simply
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because if you’ve read and enjoyed one children’s book, chances are you’d be more inclined to read another. Just don’t expect another coming-of-age story about wizarding school. Snicket’s style is very Roald Dahl-esque in his tendency to wallow in the more unfortunate events in life (see: title). His approach is the perfect definition of “wickedly funny” – a black humorist with a 9-year-old audience. He’s not a kindly narrator, nor is he an unobtrusive one. And, as the title is clearly an indication, these are not the kinds of books where everything turns out good in the end for our young heroes. No, this is a series of unfortunate events befalling the young children of the Beaudelaire family whose parents are killed in the first chapter of the first book in a horrible house fire and have since been thrown into the harsh world where the mostly indifferent Mr. Poe has been appointed to find Guardians for them. Unfortunately their menacing distant relative Count Olaf has been following them since Book the First with the intention of getting his hands on their large inheritance, out of the children’s reach until the oldest child, Violet, turns 18.
BOOK THE FIRST: THE BAD BEGINNING is (obviously) the first appearance of these characters, the inventive Violet, the book smart Klaus and the baby Sunny whose greatest asset is her tendency to bite things. In this first book the Baudelaire children are sent to Count Olaf’s place to live after the death of their parents. It isn’t long before they discover his ulterior motives. Unfortunately, though they are able to escape from their nefarious uncle in that book he follows them as they go to live with their adventurous Uncle Monty’s in BOOK THE SECOND: THE REPTILE ROOM and to their next guardian the phobic Aunt Josephine in BOOK THE THIRD: THE WIDE WINDOW. In BOOK THE FORTH: THE MISERABLE MILL they are sent away to work in a mill (a woeful predicament straight out of Dickens) with their persistent pursuer showing up in the Eye Clinic next door. BOOK THE FIFTH: THE AUSTERE ACADEMY has the Baudelaire children visiting a Prep School where Count Olaf is disguised as the gym teacher. The children are adopted by a wealthy family in BOOK THE SIXTH: THE ERSATZ ELEVATOR but their bad luck and Count Olaf follow them there as well and they are off to a new home again for BOOK THE SEVENTH: THE VILE VILLAGE where they are taken in by an entire village (as “it takes a village to raise a child”) but soon learn that their friends the Quagmire Twins (whom they met in the Fifth book) are being held captive by Count Olaf somewhere within the village limits. BOOK THE EIGHTH: THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL sees the children on the run for murder and hiding in a volunteer hospital. In BOOK THE NINTH: THE CARNIVOROUS CARNIVAL the children discover hopeful clues about their family and optimistic future from a Fortune Teller in the circus they join.
The latest instalment in the series, BOOK THE TENTH: THE SLIPPERY SLOPE the children are on their own and wandering through the Mortmain Mountains with the sinister Count Olaf hot on their tail. This is perhaps the most revealing of the books in this series as Snicket drops hints as to the eventual fate he has in store for his unlucky protagonists. Anyone who stopped reading these books halfway through the series when there was nothing really new happening in the stories (which unfortunately happens around Book 4) should start up again with Book 10 – or even Book 9 – as Snicket is definitely foreshadowing the end to the series.
Originally intended for ages 9-and-up these books can be enjoyed by adults but only adults who like kids books and aren’t the kind of grown-ups who protest publicly whenever anything resembling a good time shows up in a pre-teen novel. They’re easy to read – each book is more like an episode than a full fledged novel to a reading adult (unlike Harry Potter’s epic-length books). It takes me only about an hour and a half to get through one (although I tend to be a fast reader). They’re also wonderfully illustrated by Brent Helquist who also illustrates books for James Howe whose Bunnicula stories are equally imaginative but haven’t yet crossed the age gap that these books have.
Along with this series, Lemony Snicket has also written LEMONY SNICKET: THE UNAUTHORIZED AUTOBIOGRAPHY (which gives you an indication of his kind of humor) as well as some well received books for adults under his real name Daniel Handler (thanks to fan Crystal Reich for pointing that out to me) - THE BASIC EIGHT a twisted novel about a group of teenagers convicted of murder and WATCH YOUR MOUTH billed as a comedy about incest.
As this series is heading toward a very definite ending and as Snicket’s prolificacy is great (the next book in this series is due out in March) it will no doubt not be long (how’s that for a double negative) before we will see him branch out into other book genres (my prediction is this series will stop at Book 13 in keeping with the series’ devotion to all things unfortunate, although the author will probably add a 14th book just to be clever). Therefore if your tastes in books tend to fall outside of the children’s genre keep your eye out for his Daniel Handler alter ego in a few years. In both aliases he has a promising career in him outside of this Unfortunate Series.
Next Column: The reissue of popular ‘60s pulp novels centered around British comic strip vixen Modesty Blaise. Sexy.
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