Lemony Snicket: the Unauthorized Autobiography

Lemony Snicket: the Unauthorized Autobiography
© 2002 Daniel Handler
213 pages (containing "an overall feeling of doom", according to the index.)

As the official representative of Lemony Snicket in all legal, literary, and social matters, I am often asked difficult questions, even when I am in a hurry. Recently the most common questions have been the following:

1. Will you please get out of my way?
2. Where did Lemony Snicket's Lemony Snicket: the Unauthorized Autobiography come from? (p. ix.)

This is, I think, the oddest book I've ever read. Last summer I enjoyed The Series of Unfortunate Events immensely for its eccentric humor and mystery, so I eagerly dove into this. The Unauthorized Autobiography is a strange collection of documents that pertain to the events and people of the Unfortunate Events series. Snicket apparently passed it on -- heavily edited -- to ensure the safety of the Baudelaire children. The documents contained within -- letters, play transcripts, black and white photographs,  memos, panicked slips of paper, official V.F.D. pamphlets, and the like -- typically connect with the series as a whole, although some portions, photographs particularly, do not. (One photograph is titled "Total Strangers", and another "This is not where the Baudelaire parents are buried".)

The book as a whole is apparently intended to tantalize readers by helping them figure out answers to some questions about the series, but it was published before the fulfillment of the series. I've read the series, and so have already figured out the answers, so that portion of the book was lost on me. I enjoyed the author's eccentric sense of humor and tidbits that revealed more about the Unfortunate Events universe, but I must confess to being a bit disappointed overall. Having read the last four books of the series may have spoiled this mid-series tease for me.

Perhaps the oddest part of the book: one of V.F.D's pass phrases is from the Ramona Quimby books by Beverly Cleary. Cleary was my first "favorite author" as a child, and I adored her Henry Huggins and Romana Quimby books.

The End (and series comments)

The End

© 2006 Lemony Snicket

324 pages

The End of the Series of Unfortunate Events begins on the open ocean, with the Baudelaires and Count Olaf in the same boat -- having escaped a burning hotel and an angry mob. Here is where the story that began with the untimely demise of the Baudelaire parents comes to its end -- and it is quite an end. In due time, a storm destroys Olaf's yacht and the four wash up on an island with white sandy beaches -- one that appears to be a safe haven occupied by a community of people who are committed to simple living who aren't fooled for a second by Count Olaf. That they aren't fooled by Count Olaf like every other adult in this book is surprising and dramatic: it renders Olaf powerless and changes the balance of power completely.

Unfortunately for Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, things are not always as they seem. The island is safe, but utterly boring and controlled by an old man named Ishmael ("Call me Ish," he always says). Ishmael does not pretend to be king, like Olaf does -- he simply possesses a strong power of suggestion and an unlimited supply of coconut juice that acts as an opiate. The kids realized straightaway that Ishmael isn't the kindly old "facilitator" he seems to be: he knew who Count Olaf was, and he knew that the Baudelaires were orphans. Clearly there's more going on here than meets the eye, and indeed they find that the island -- where "everything washes up, eventually" -- is not isolated from the world of their past, but is indeed very connected with it. Its story is their parents' story, and Olaf's story, and the Snickets' story -- and it is a story the Baudelaires are now caught up in and will fulfill.

The End is dramatically different from the twelve books preceding in that Count Olaf is utterly out of his element. No one believes him: he has no power. His and the kids' arrival has stirred up the past and will destroy the community on the island, but he will not gain from it. Surprisingly, he gains dimensions: he communicates with the children as people, not just as his victims -- conveying sympathy to them while the reader feels sympathy for Olaf. It's not what I had expected. What happens in The End I will not tell in full: I think I may have been more engrossed in this one than in any other. It was...well, moving. I think Snicket is at his best here.

The series as a whole has been enjoyable: there's a reason I can plow through five books in a few days and not feel tired of it. Frankly, I'm tempted to watch the movie again. It has a number of strengths. It takes its audience seriously, for one. The children who I expect constitute the bulk of the audience are talked to directly: Snicket connects with them. I think it is true that most kids feel a sense of alienation from adults when they get older -- treated as if they aren't the intelligent and feeling humans that adults are supposed to be. Snicket acknowledges that sense, and he plays with it using the Baudelaire's complete inability to get through to any adults. It is in this way that he is slightly "subversive", because he does talk to children frankly, and he tells them that some of the stories they hear from adults are utterly asinine (not in those words) and not worth listening to -- stories like the Boy Who Cried Wolf and the Little Engine that Could.

But Snicket's entire audience isn't children: I expect parents, librarians, and other adults who aren't too embarrassed to go into the children's section of the library are reading as well, and Snicket writes to us. I've lost track of the number of little jokes written into the text for the benefit of adults or very well-read children. (Speaking of which, the books are educational in that they are constantly building vocabulary for readers: some of the words Snicket uses even I haven't heard of.) Generally speaking, the narrative style should be enjoyable by most everyone. Snicket is dryly hilarious, and a joy to read even though the series is very dark indeed. Topping all of this off is the fact that the series isn't shallow: it's not just something to be read and forgotten. It convey important messages to children -- messages like that the world can be a very dark and dangerous place, but that people can show "moral stamina" and stay true to themselves -- that giving in won't work.

I would suggest that those who are in the position of recommending books to children read a few of these to see what they're like -- and that those of you who are not in a position of recommend books to children try one or two anyway, because they're funny and more than a little dark.

The Penultimate Peril

The Penultimate Peril

© 2005 Lemony Snicket

353 pages

As its name suggests, we are nearing The End. Following clues left for them by VFD members, the children arrive back where the series began -- at Briny Beach, where Sunny echoes her past self and says "Look at that mysterious figure coming out of the fog!". They soon arrive at the Hotel Denouement, where they meet many of their old "guardians" as well as many VFD comrades. Rather than allowing the children to rest in light of their many perilous adventures -- escaping multiple fires, a hurricane, idiot guardians, a lynch mob, being thrown down an elevator shaft, and falling down a mountain among many others, their VFD contact asks them to infiltrate the hotel and spy on various persons to find some answers and resolve the plot. This does not go too well, and the arrival of Count Olaf makes matters worse, leading to a trial where everyone by the judges are blind-folded (as "Justice is blind") after a harpoon accident. The children engage in even more morally questionable acts, and by book's end, the only person who isn't questioning their moral integrity is Count Olaf -- as he writes them off as being just like him. Very little is resolved aside from some questions about VFD, but then everything goes up in flames -- as it were.

The Grim Grotto

The Grim Grotto

© 2004 Lemony Snicket

323 pages

I continue the Series of Unfortunate Events. By this point in the series, the format has completely changed. The Baudelaire orphans are no longer being protected by the system and ushered from place to place: having lost communication with Mr. Poe after he dropped them off at the Vile Village, the orphans are taking care of themselves as best they can. While trying to find answers to why their parents were killed, and why their friends' parents were killed, and why a dozen other things, they are competing with Count Olaf and occasionally running into people who are part of the overall story: the story of VFD and its fight against the likes of Count Olaf. One of those people is Captain Widdershins, who pops up out of the water unexpectedly in his submarine and invites the Baudelaire Orphans in. Fortunately for the children, Widdershins is not a friend of Count Olaf, and does not try to kill them. He worked with their parents and feeds them some information while constantly blabbering. His personal philosophy is "He who hesitates is lost", and this extends to thinking about what you want to say. He and his stepdaughter Fiona come friends and allies of the orphans, although like most Baudelaire friends they won't be around for long. The novel is dominated by the orphans' search for an artifact from the VFD headquarters that is apparently quite important. Count Olaf does make an appearance, but with the usual courage the Baudelaires thwart his evil schemes. Interestingly, by this point villains have been introduced that cow even Olaf into staring at his shoes and laughing nervously -- and they feature in the plot.

The main story seems to be shaping up nicely: although I'm pretty sure the great mystery of VFD has been spoiled for me by a single line in the movie*, I'm still very much interested in what happens.

*"Sgdqd Aqd svn jhmcr ne odnokd hm sgd vnqkc -- sgnrd vgn rsAqs sgd ehqdr, Amc sgnrd vgn ots sgdl nts."

Because blogger has no "spoiler" language to hide that sort of statement, I coded the line. It's rather easy: B is A and A is A -- because it can't really be Z.

The Slippery Slope

The Slippery Slope

© 2003 Lemony Snicket

337 pages

The last book ended with the Baudelaire orphans not in a quiet place where they could reflect on their fate, but in a perilous place that threatened death within the span of the first chapter if their courage and wit did not show up quickly enough. Happily, they do --but this of little help to poor Sunny, who has been spirited away by Count Olaf. Sunny and Klaus must beat Count Olaf to the headquarters of the mystery organization VFD, set near the top of a mountain -- making their way up the mountain through bitter cold and bitter insects who like to sting people for no reason. (Count Olaf is "quite fond of them".) En route they run into an old enemy, Carmelita Spats -- an obnoxious schoolmate of theirs from the Austere Academy. They also make a new friend -- one who knows who Count Olaf is, and knows that the Baudelaire orphans are innocent of the crimes they've been accused of. He leads them to the VFD headquarters -- but they arrive there too late to find any answers.

The book may get its title from a slope the orphans must climb to rescue Sunny from Count Olaf, as he is forcing the poor infant to do all of his chores, including the cooking. (Fortunately, Sunny makes a very good smoked herring.) It may also apply to the growing moral difficulty that faces the orphans: simply to survive, they find themselves acting very much like villains, and at some point in the novel they have to make stands to protect their character. For their trials, they gain new allies and come closer to solving the great mystery in which they are involved. The series continues to entertain.

The Carnivorous Carnival

The Carnivorous Carnival

© 2003 Lemony Snicket

286 pages

Although for the first six books the Baudelaire orphans were bounced from one psychotic or useless guardian to the next, they had a sense of stability in that they knew Mr. Poe would show up eventually (so long as they managed to unmask Count Olaf) and take them someplace else, where they would enjoy a moment of respite before being thrown down an elevator shaft or hypnotized or something like that. When The Vile Village ended with the kids being run out of town by a mob intent to burn them at the stake, this format was broken and the kids are utterly on their own. Count Olaf is increasing in strength now that people think he is dead. On the bright side, ....

...Well, the kids aren't dead. At the end of The Hostile Hospital, they decided to follow Count Olaf and see where he goes. As you might surmise, he goes to a carnival to see "Madame Lulu", a fortune-teller who has been keeping him up-to-date on the location of the Baudelaire orphans. The kids assume disguises and infiltrate the carnival, pretending to be "freaks": Violet and Sunny become a person with two heads, and Sunny dons a fake beard and becomes a wolf-child. Since Count Olaf has no idea that the Baudelaires are right under his hooked nose, you would think the kids would be entitled to a little rest -- but no. Olaf, as a favor to Lulu, introduces lions to the carnival to provide a new form of entertainment: lions eating members of the freak show.

The members of the freak show include an ambidextrous man and a contortionist -- as well as other people whose only real limitation is that they've allowed other people to view them as freaks. They're well-mannered, and the Baudelaire orphans object to their being thrown to the lions. Further dragging them into the plot is the fact that Madame Lulu has some connection to the mysterious group VFD -- and thus, to their parents. As you might imagine, however, circumstances prevent her telling them anything and the book ends with the Baudelaire orphans reenacting part of an INXS song. The book is entertaining as ever: character development continues nicely, and my interest in the overall story is increasing.

The Hostile Hospital

The Hostile Hospital

© 2001 Lemony Snicket

255 pages

The Hostile Hospital represents a dramatic break in the series' pattern: rather than Mr. Poe delivering the children to yet another guardian who will either die, denounce the children, or attempt to kill them, the children begin this book on their own -- a consequence of having been run out of the vile Village of Fowl Devotees by a mob intent to burn them at the stake. Count Olaf has managed to fool another dim-witted group of people, but this time his disguises and lies have more long-reaching effects: the Baudelaire orphans are wanted for murder. Because the adults in this book series are so unbelievably credulous, the children -- Violet, Klaus, and Sunny if you need reminding -- are utterly on their own.

The story begins at the Last Chance store. If you've seen the movie, this is where Count Olaf attempts to kill the children by "flattening them with a train". The children fire off a telegram to Mr. Poe to tell him that they really didn't murder a man in VFD and that this is just a big misunderstanding caused by Count Olaf, but they have to leave soon thereafter when the gullible shopkeepers read the daily newspaper and begin to believe that the polite but harrowed-looking orphans are murderers. Fortunately, as they run out the door they find a bus marked "VFD": Volunteers Fighting Disease. This is a group of well-intentioned but otherwise useless clowns who go to hospitals singing songs in an attempt to cheer people up. That may work for Patch Adams, but it doesn't work here.

While the hospital is only half-finished and is filled with adults, the children seek sanctuary in its unfinished rooms. While they wait for the storm that is their manhunt to be over, they seek employment in the hospital's library of records after finding out that it may have information on them: unfortunately, this information has also attracted Count Olaf. Olaf's timing is unfortunate, but that's in keeping with the theme of the books and -- after a series of similarly unfortunate events -- Klaus and Sunny have to rescue Violet from an operating table, as Count Olaf intends to remove her head. The book ends with Olaf putting yet another building to flames.

Clearly, the series is shaping up: at this point the books are driven more by the overall story and less by their specific circumstances. There's clearly a larger story here, and one that involves the narrator in that people in the Snicket family met the same fate as the orphans' parents, as did the narrator's girlfriend Beatrice -- who he mentions often. In addition to the plot, the children are also maturing: they are growing as characters and exhibiting signs of the stress that they've gone through so far and know they will endure a little further. They're finally realizing how they must rely only on themselves, because adults are useless when not evil. The children are also learning to take advantage of this universal gullibility: they lie, disguise themselves, and steal when necessary in the last book and then fret over the choices they are making -- worrying that they are becoming more like Count Olaf.

The series continues to delight. On a final note, by this point I am sure Snicket is using Sunny's "nonsense" speak to convey private jokes to readers with broader vocabularies than the children who probably constitute the bulk of his reading audience.

On a more final note, while searching for music from the movie I found a song about the book series on YouTube. The real version has Snicket himself singing, but this particular video has the song set to clips from the movie.

The Vile Village

The Vile Village

© 2001 Lemony Snicket

256 pages

"It takes a village to raise a child", the saying goes -- and the vile village of VFD takes that saying seriously when they join a government program that allows whole villages to adopt orphans. Although the children will find nothing in the village that is pleasant or kindly, in an ironic twist this is an instance of the Baudelaires accidentally creating their own misfortune. They are given the opportunity to choose a village to be adopted by, and choose VFD based on the fact that its name is the same as the mystery organization that links their parents' demise and Count Olaf together. Given that the last time they chose something called "VFD" for that reason the Quagmire orphans were meanly spirited away by the ever mean-spirited Count Olaf, you'd think they'd be a little more careful -- but they were not, and so spend the better part of a day trudging toward the village through scorching sun and dust storms because the village doesn't allow mechanical devices anywhere near it -- one of their many hundreds of arbitrary rules with cruel punishments.

The children are dismayed to learn that the town cares little for their welfare, and that they intend to use the children as a source of free labor doing the town's chores. Complicating matters is the fact that the town is covered with crows -- literally covered with the black birds standing around looking menacing. The children are made to live with Hector, the town janitor who lives just outside the city limits. He's a kind-hearted man, but like all kind-hearted people in this series he's cursed with a character flaw that limits his ability to help the orphans: like Jerome Squalor from The Ersatz Elevator, Hector is easily cowed: Jerome was most definitely hen-pecked, and Hector is easily intimidated by the Council of Elders, a council of elderly folks who wear hats shaped like crows. "VFD", by the way, stands for "Village of Fowl Devotees".

It should come as no surprise that Count Olaf eventually shows up and eventually tries to steal the children, but in the meantime the Baudelaires are faced with a mystery: they keep finding messages from the kidnapped Quagmire triplets under a tree in Hector's front yard. Eventually they do find a solution, but not before Count Olaf manages to have them run out of town by a mob intent to burn them at the stake. So it goes.

The Ersatz Elevator

The Ersatz Elevator

© 2001 Lemony Snicket

259 pages

"I know what you mean," Klaus said. "If someone had asked me, that day at the beach, if I ever thought we'd be climbing up and down an empty elevator in an attempt to rescue a pair of triplets, I would have said never in a million years. And now we're doing it for the fifth time in twenty-four hours. What happened to us? What led us to this awful place we're staring at now?"

"Misfortune," Violet said quietly.

"A terrible fire," Klaus said.

"Olaf," Sunny said decisively [...].

The sixth book in Lemony Snicket's series of unfortunate events takes the Baudelaire orphans back to where it all began -- in more ways than one. The orphans are adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Squalor, who live in a gigantic penthouse apartment. True to the pattern developed in previous books, the Squalors like all adults are useless when not cruel. Jerome Squalor is actually quite nice -- it's his wife who's the most problematic. She only cares about what's "In" and "Out" and is not adverse to having the building's elevator removed if elevators fall out of fashion -- which is what has happened to it at book's beginning, forcing the children to walk either "forty-eight or eighty-four" flights of stairs to get home. Although life in the Squalor apartment is more comfortable than their previous living conditions -- working in a mill or living in a shack, for instance -- they cannot enjoy properly given the fact that their friends and allies in the struggle against Olaf, the Quagmire triplets, have been kidnapped by Count Olaf. If this were not enough, Olaf soon shows up, necessitating that the orphans contrive a plan against him.

Building on book five, bits of the series' master story emerge here. For the first time, the central characters are not the only thing that tie the books together: what with the kidnapping of the Quagmire triplets and the emergence of a mysterious organization called "VFD". The book maintains its characteristic narration -- which reveals more and more of Lemony Snicket: he appears to be fighting against Olaf himself and is on the run, leaving the manuscripts that become the books in hiding places for his compatriots to find. The Ersatz Elevator is as ever enjoyable.

The Austere Academy

The Austere Academy

© 2000 Lemony Snicket

221 pages

Mr. Poe warned the children at the beginning of The Miserable Mill that it was becoming increasingly difficult to locate guardians and that if anything were to happen at the mill, they would probably be stuck away in a boarding school while he looked. Seeing as their guardian at the mill was a cruel idiot and that the book ended with people losing legs, they were indeed sent to a boarding school -- the Austere Academy, a place with grey buildings shaped like tombstones (or "thumbs" if you want to look at the bright side of things) and an overall bleak spirit. The teachers are frightfully dull, the vice principal is another cruel idiot, and Count Olaf is the P.E. coach. Rather than living in a warm and cozy dormitory, the kids are sent to live in the "Orphans' Shack", a little shed filled with fungus and crabs with only hay for beds. Naturally, they are upset by the fact that Count Olaf has found them yet again, but this time they decide to make him believe that his disguise has fooled them.

Although much of the book follows the pattern Snicket has set before in terms of plot and narrative style, there are two important variations: firstly, the kids gain friends and allies in the Quagmire triplets, who lost their parents and third triplet in a fire -- just as the Baudelaire orphans did. Secondly, Snicket begins to directly work elements from the master plot into the book in that the Quagmire triplets and Baudelaire orphans learn that Count Olaf has something to do with a mysterious group. Given that this book is roughly the halfway point in the series, it seems appropriate that the overall story would start becoming more important. The book itself was as enjoyable as ever. On a final note, I sometimes think the author is using Sunny's "gibberish" for little injokes. During the series, Sunny's toddlerspeak is understood by her siblings and explained to us by them or Snicket -- for instance, "Queek!" might mean "This turn of events seems improbable to me". In this book I noticed instances in which Sunny's utterances could be read doubly -- perhaps for the amusement of adults who are reading the series. I doubt most children know who Sappho is, for instance, or why she would be appropriate as a response to a girl reading poetry. Then again, perhaps I am reading too much into things.

The Miserable Mill

The Miserable Mill

© 2000 Lemony Snicket

194 pages

"You can't stop me! Count Olaf always comes back for an encore!" - Count Olaf, deleted scenes from the movie.

When we last left the Baudelaire children, they had lost their parents, a lovable mentor, and a slightly batty aunt to the incorrigibly evil Count Olaf, who is determined to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune. Despite their mishaps, the bureaucrat in charge of them insists on shoving them off on people without doing proper background checks. In The Miserable Mill's case, the children are adopted by a man known only as "Sir", who owns a lumber mill and keeps his employees working in conditions that would have shamed a medieval lord. The children are forced into work -- stripping bark from trees is one task and given only five minutes and a stick of gum for lunch and coupons at the end of the day. Klaus is hypnotized by an optometrist that the kids are sure is in cahoots with Count Olaf -- not that their new guardian, Mr. Poe, or anyone else would believe them. As the plot develops, it becomes clear that Count Olaf has thought of a new way to get possession of the kids -- although why he persists is unclear, given that Mr. Poe made it clear in The Bad Beginning that Olaf isn't eligible to receive any of the money. This book as something of a twist in that Violet and Klaus are forced to switch their respective roles as inventor and researcher when circumstances merit.