Book Review: Children’s series anything but an ‘Unfortunate’ find
If I were you, though no doubt you must know I’m not, I would put down this paper right now and read something satisfying but not too overly agreeable.
All you will find in this review is the dreary and utterly unpleasant story about an author and his tragic attempts to report the facts concerning three children, known as the Baudelaire orphans, and their efforts to escape “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”
Lemony Snicket, lesser known as Daniel Handler, has been researching and recounting the lives of the Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, since the death of their parents, recounted in the first chapter of his first book, “The Bad Beginning.”
With a unique blend of polished prose and macabre humor (dark, but never straying over the line into morbidity), Snicket goes to great lengths to let his audience know exactly what they are getting into when they pick up and – gasp! – actually start reading the books. The first paragraph in “The Bad Beginning” warns one and all to stay away from a book that is determinably dreadful (and delitefully original):
“If you are interested in stories with happy endings,” Snicket recounts, “you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.”
True to his often awful words, Snicket delivers tales that trump the traditional theory that if you are bright and good and clever, you will inevitably overcome and find a happy ending.
Snicket’s magic, every bit as real as certain wizards I might mention, stems from his ability to create a world which centers not only around the Baudelaire siblings, but also around himself.
Snicket’s audience, a word which here refers to “all the unfortunate folks who have made the disasterous decision to read his books,” are as concerned about Snicket’s own life and loss of his beloved Beatrice (to whom every book is dedicated), as they are with delving further into the series of unfortunate events.
The series, far from being a typical capitalist attempt to milk a cash cow long after it’s butchered and frying on a grill, instead employs the author’s wrily wit and smart style to an even greater extant, if possible, with each successive installment of the woe laden record.
The authors employment of alliterations adds admirably to the implicit charm of the books, which now number 11, The Grim Grotto being the latest.
With many of his stories on the New York Times Bestseller list, Snicket’s stories, though written mainly for children, are open to all audiences, especially the time-poor college variety who could conceivably finish one of tales on a lazy afternoon in a free hour or two.
And, for those who just can’t bear with books, a major motion picture starring Jim Carrey, Meryl Streep, and Jude Law is coming out which may force people everywhere to uncover the unbearable circumstances described in The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room and The Wide Window (the first three books in the series). The movie should come out just in time to wreck Christmas.
So, unless you have a masochistic attachment to unpleasantness and misfortune, especially the kind found in books replete with repulsive recountings of the lives of three miserable children, you better read something happy.
And don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Matt Wright is a book critic and the assistant features editor for the Utah Statesman. Comments or questions can be sent to mattgo@cc.usu.edu.