A Series of Unfortunate Events

A Series of Unfortunate Events

File:Snicketbookset.jpg The Complete Set of Thirteen Books in the Series
Author	Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket
Illustrator	Brett Helquist
Cover artist	Brett Helquist
Language	English
Genre	Children's, Black comedy, steampunk, absurdist fiction
Publisher	HarperCollins
Publication date	30 September 1999
Publication place	United States

This article is about the book series. For the film, see Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a children's book series by Daniel Handler under the pseudonym of Lemony Snicket, and illustrated by Brett Helquist. It is primarily about the adventures of three children, the Baudelaire orphans, after the death of their parents.

A film adaptation of the first three books in the series was released on December 17, 2004, as Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which also had a video game adaptation of the same name based on it.

Origins

Author of the series, Daniel Handler has said in an interview with online entertainment-magazine The A.V. Club that he decided to write a children's story when he was trying to find a publisher for his first novel, The Basic Eight. One of the publishers, HarperCollins passed on The Basic Eight, but they were interested in him writing a story for children. Handler thought it was a terrible idea at first, but met with the publishers to discuss the book.

He explained his idea for a "Gothic novel about children growing up through terrible things", a concept which the publishers liked, to Handler's surprise. The first book in the series was The Bad Beginning, released on September 30, 1999.

Plot summary

Main article: Summary of novels in A Series of Unfortunate Events

Cover of The Penultimate Peril

The series follows the adventures of three siblings, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire, after their parents were killed in a fire at the family mansion. In The Bad Beginning, they briefly live with a friend of their parents, Mr. Poe, who is the person in charge of the Baudelaire fortune after the Baudelaire parents' deaths, before being sent to live with Count Olaf, who is supposedly either the siblings' third cousin four times removed, or their fourth cousin three times removed. The siblings discover that he intends to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune, which awaits Violet when she turns eighteen. In the following six books, Olaf follows the children wherever they go in a disguise so he can get closer to the orphans and steal their fortune. The orphans routinely try to get help from Mr. Poe, the banker with whom the Baudelaires briefly lived, but Poe is always either busy with work, oblivious to the danger Olaf poses or unaware that the disguised Olaf is not who he claims to be.

Each of the three siblings have a distinctive skill that often helps them during their adventures. Violet is always inventing new things to help them, Klaus is always finding out new information through his research, and Sunny has extremely sharp teeth that can bite almost anything in two. In later books, Sunny learns how to cook, as she begins to grow to the normal size for her teeth so cooking becomes her primary skill. Sunny originally spoke in single word utterances which are often a variety of incomplete sentences, and some short word sentences as well. Their meaning is either disguised by being spelled phonetically (e.g., 'surchmi' in The Slippery Slope), through cultural references (Sunny says: 'Matahari', followed by a definition of 'If I stay, I can spy on them and find out.'), or being written in other languages (e.g., Shalom or Sayonara), but eventually she begins to speak more in complete English sentences, possibly her first being "I'm not a baby.", in The Slippery Slope, or "Like me" in The Vile Village.

Lemony Snicket, the author of the stories and the pseudonym of Daniel Handler, is actually a character himself on the periphery of the stories. He follows the Baudelaires, researching and recording their exploits. Over the course of the series, the Baudelaires learn some vague information about him and possibly meet him briefly in The Penultimate Peril.

Setting

The books seem to be set in an alternate version of Earth with stylistic similarities to both the 19th century and the 1930s, though with contemporary, and seemingly anachronistic scientific knowledge. One example of this "technological disconnect" is documented in The Hostile Hospital, where the Baudelaire children send a message via morse code on a telegraph, yet in the Last Chance General Store, there is fiber-optic cable for sale. An "advanced computer" appears in The Austere Academy, which, while outdated by current standards, is nonetheless more advanced than the earliest computers. Although the film version sets the Baudelaires' mansion in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, real places rarely appear in the books, although many are mentioned. For example, in The Reptile Room, Uncle Monty and the Baudelaires plan a trip to Peru; there are also references to the fictional nobility of North American regions, specifically the Duchess of Winnipeg and the King of Arizona. A book in Jerome and Esmé Squalor's library was titled Trout, In France They're Out.

Recurring themes and concepts

The majority of the books in A Series of Unfortunate Events pick up from the last, finding the three orphans in a new situation, typically not of their making. The location of each book's critical events is usually identified in the book's title. Handler often works the siblings' respective skills into the story line. Violet always has something to invent, Klaus always finds a library to do research in, and in the early books, Sunny always finds something to chew on or, in later books cook, as she begins to grow into her teeth and develops culinary skills.

Lemony Snicket often explains words and analogies in incongruous detail. When describing a word the reader may not be aware of, he typically says ' a word which here means... '. Despite the general absurdity of the books' storyline, Lemony Snicket continuously maintains that the story is true and that it is his "solemn duty" to record it. Snicket often goes off into humorous or satirical asides, discussing his opinions of various matters, or his personal life. The details of his supposed personal life are largely absurd, incomplete and not sufficiently explained. For example, Snicket claims to have been chased by an angry mob for sixteen miles. However, some details of his life are explained somewhat in his fictional autobiography; Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography.

Lemony Snicket's narration and commentary is characteristically cynical and despondent. In the excerpt for each book, Snicket warns of the misery the reader may experience in reading about the Baudelaire orphans and suggests abandoning the books altogether. However, he also provides ample comic relief with wry, dark humor. In the excerpt for The Grim Grotto, he writes: "[T]he horrors [the Baudelaire children] encounter are too numerous to list, and you wouldn't even want me to describe the worst of it, which includes mushrooms, a desperate search for something lost, a mechanical monster, a distressing message from a lost friend, and tap-dancing."

Snicket displays a great aversion to macabre elements, but also gives off a sense of squeamishness with passages like the above excerpt. When giving accounts of bravery or resilience on the part of the Baudelaires, Snicket often calls himself a coward either explicitly or otherwise. His tone betrays admiration for the children as well as his own severe insecurity. This contrast between the Baudelaires' actions and Lemony Snicket's bemused, reverent reactions underscores one of the themes of the books. By emphasizing the vitality of the Baudelaire orphans, Daniel Handler seems to urge the reader to find courage in him or herself and in his or her friends and if not to challenge despondence then at least to take it with a grain of salt. In this way he uses the persona of Lemony Snicket as a foil for the Baudelaires.

Snicket translates for the youngest Baudelaire orphan, Sunny, who in the early books can say only words or phrases that make sense to her siblings. This becomes less common as Sunny begins to speak real words, one of her first longer sentences in the series being "I'm not a baby." to her sister Violet in The Slippery Slope. The words she uses are often from another language, such as Arigato (Thank you in Japanese) when thanking Quigley, or a cultural reference. For example, Busheney (Bushcheney) means a most despicable, evil man.

When describing a character whom the Baudelaires have met before, Snicket often describes the character first and does not reveal the name of the character until they have been thoroughly described. He never does this when the disguised Olaf is introduced to the children. Lemony Snicket starts each book with a description of something irrelevant to the story before linking it back to the Baudelaires and their current situation. Snicket often uses alliteration (repeated starting sounds on consecutive words) to name locations throughout the story. He uses this writing technique for the titles of the books (the only exception being the final book, The End).

File:Orphelins.jpg

Cover of an "A Series of Unfortunate Events" themed calendar"

Social commentary is a major element in the books, which often comment on the seemingly inescapable follies of human nature. The books consistently present the Baudelaire children as free-thinking and independent, while almost everyone else in the world around them obeys authority and succumbs to mob psychology, peer pressure, ambition, and other social ills. A high account is given to learning: those who are "well-read" are often sympathetic characters, while those who shun knowledge are villains.

The books have strong themes of moral relativism, as the Baudelaires become more confused during the course of the series about the difference between right and wrong, feeling they have done wicked things themselves and struggling with the question of whether the end justifies the means. In the final book, in an allusion to Biblical Original Sin, a snake offers the children a life-saving apple.

Evil characters are shown to have sympathetic characteristics and often have led difficult lives. Similarly, good characters' flaws become major problems, usually being "too gentle" to help. Almost every major character in the books have lived lives as difficult as that of the Baudelaires, especially the villains. The books highlight the inevitability of temptation and moral decision-making, regardless of external situation. This indicates that regardless of one's outside influences, one always has the final choice in whether they will be good or bad. Characters that make brave decisions to fight back and take charge are almost always "good" and characters that just go along end up as "bad."

Allusions

To see more examples of allusions to literature and the real world in A Series of Unfortunate Events, see the individual page for any book in the series.

While the books are marketed primarily to children, they are written with adult readers also in mind; the series features references more likely to make sense to adults. Many of the characters' names allude to other fictional works or real people with macabre connections. More obscure literary references abound, perhaps in keeping with the common theme of being 'well-read'.

For example, the Baudelaire orphans are named after Charles Baudelaire, and Sunny and Klaus take their first names from Claus and Sunny von Bülow, while the character of Mr. Poe, and his children may refer to Edgar Allan Poe.

Genre

This series is most commonly classified as Children's fiction, but it has also been classified in more specific genres such as 'steampunk', in that they involve anachronistic settings and technology, however, in later books, the addition of the mysterious organization known as V.F.D. have begun to push the story into the new genre of post-steampunk (in the same way that later additions to the cyberpunk genre are now classed as postcyberpunk).

Other genres that the series have been described as are absurdist fiction, because of its strange characters, quirky writing style and improbable storylines, and black comedy, because of the mix of humorous and macabre elements.

Distribution

Books

File:The grim grotto uk.jpg

UK cover of The Grim Grotto

The series includes thirteen main books as follow:

• The Bad Beginning
• The Reptile Room
• The Wide Window
• The Miserable Mill
• The Austere Academy
• The Ersatz Elevator
• The Vile Village
• The Hostile Hospital
• The Carnivorous Carnival
• The Slippery Slope
• The Grim Grotto
• The Penultimate Peril
• The End

There are books that accompany the series, such as The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, and The Puzzling Puzzles, blank books The Blank Book, and The Notorious Notations, and short materials such as The Dismal Dinner and 13 Shocking Secrets You'll Wish You Never Knew About Lemony Snicket.

A planned paperback release of the full series, featuring restyled covers, new illustrations and a serial supplement entitled The Cornucopian Cavalcade has begun with The Bad Beginning or, Orphans!,The Reptile Room or, Murder!,The Wide Window or, Disappearance!,ect..

The Wide Window or, Disappearance!

Humorous quotes from the series were used in a book published under the Snicket name, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid.

In an interview with the 667 Dark Avenue fansite, Daniel Handler alluded to more Lemony Snicket books focused on the world of A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Audio

Audio books

Cover of the Tragic Treasury, a collection of songs related to A Series of Unfortunate Events

Most of the series of unabridged audio books are read by actor Tim Curry, though books 3 to 5 are read by Handler as Lemony Snicket. Of narrating the audio books, Handler has said: "It was very, very hard. It was unbelievably arduous. It was the worst kind of arduous." As such, future narrating duties were handed back to Curry, of whom Handler states: "he does a splendid job". The “Dear Reader” blurb is usually read by Handler (as Snicket) at the beginning, although it is missing in The Hostile Hospital. Handler usually reads the 'To my Kind Editor' blurb about the next book at the end. Starting at 'The Carnivourous Carnival' there is another actor who replaces Handler in reading the two blurbs, although they are skipped entirely in The Grim Grotto. All of the recordings include a loosely related song by The Gothic Archies, a novelty band, featuring lyrics by Handler's Magnetic Fields bandmate Stephin Merritt.

Album

Main article: The Tragic Treasury: Songs from A Series of Unfortunate Events

In October 2006, The Tragic Treasury: Songs from A Series of Unfortunate Events by The Gothic Archies was released. The album is a collection of thirteen songs written and performed by Stephin Merritt (of The Magnetic Fields,) each one originally appearing on one of the corresponding thirteen audiobooks of the series. Two bonus songs are included.

Film

Main article: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

File:ASoUE-logo.gif

Logo of the film based on the books

A film adaptation, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, based on the first three books, was released on December 17, 2004. Directed by Brad Silberling, it stars Jim Carrey as Count Olaf, Meryl Streep as Aunt Josephine, Billy Connolly as Uncle Monty, Emily Browning as Violet, Liam Aiken as Klaus, Kara & Shelby Hoffman as Sunny, and Jude Law as the voice of Lemony Snicket. The film tie-in editions of the novels feature a variation on the usual reverse-psychology blurb: the blurb takes the form of a message from Count Olaf, listing the good points of the story (such as "a dashing count") but suggesting that it would be much easier and less boring to watch the movie instead.

Considering the success of the movie, the director and some of the lead actors hinted that they are keen on making a sequel, but no one has written a script as of yet.

When I took the decision to take the movie I said I’d obviously do it with the right to refusal, I’m not going to give in to anything. I asked the studio how they were going to deal with the sequel. But they didn’t want to talk about it until the first film was out. It’s amazing; a script has not yet been worked on for the sequel, which I find a bit baffling.

— Brad Silberling,

Browning has said that further films would have to be produced quickly, as the children do not age much throughout the book series. Violet and Klaus are both said to have a birthday throughout the series, Sunny becomes a toddler, and in Chapter Fourteen, the children have been castaways for exactly a year. All in all, the children can appear, at most, two years older than they were in The Bad Beginning.

The film takes place in and around Boston, Massachusetts: The envelope at the end of the film is addressed to Boston, Mass. Perhaps incidentally, Viacom, Paramount's parent, owned two TV stations in Boston at the time of the film's release: CBS affiliate WBZ-TV, and UPN affiliate WSBK-TV (they are now owned by CBS Corporation).

Video game

A video game based on the books and film (more so the film than the books) was released in 2004 by Adrenium Games and Activision for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, and the PC as Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. The player plays as all three orphans at points in the game, and encounters characters such as Mr. Poe, Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine, along with villains such as Count Olaf, The Hook-Handed Man, The White-Faced Women and The Bald Headed Man.

Reception

Reviews

Reviews for A Series of Unfortunate Events have generally been positive, with reviewers saying that the series is enjoyable for children and adults alike, and that it brings fresh and adult themes to children's stories. The Times Online refer to the books as "a literary phenomenon", and discuss how the plight of the Baudelaire orphans helps children cope with loss - citing the rise in sales post September 11th, 2001 as evidence.

Criticism

The series has come under criticism from some school districts for its dark themes. Citing objections to the suggested incest (referring to Olaf's marriage attempt to his distant niece Violet in The Bad Beginning , although his motivation was not sexual in nature and was an attempt to gain her inheritance) and use of the word "damn" in The Reptile Room, the books were banned in Decatur, Georgia. Handler later commented that the word's use was "precipitated by a long discussion of how one should never say this word, since only a villain would do so vile a thing! This is exactly the lily-liveredness of children's books that I can't stand." Access to the books was similarly restricted at Katy ISD Elementary School, Katy, Fort Bend County, Texas.

Sales

A Series of Unfortunate Events has been printed in 41 different languages, selling at least fifty-five million copies as of May 2007.

Awards

In addition to its strong reviews, the The Bad Beginning won multiple literary awards, including the Colorado Children's Book Award, the Nevada Young Readers Award, and the Nene Award. It was also a finalist for the Book Sense Book of the Year. Its sequels have continued this trend, garnishing multiple awards and nominations. Among these are three IRA/CBC Children's Choice Awards, which it received for The Wide Window, The Vile Village, and The Hostile Hospital respectively; a best book prize at the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards, and a 2006 Quill Book Award, both for the Penultimate Peril. While not technically awards, the Ersatz Elevator was named a Book Sense 76 Pick, and The Grim Grotto is an Amazon.com Customers' Favorite.

References

Further reading

• ‘He's behind you!’: Reflections on Repetition and Predictability in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

External links

• Lemony Snicket official website
• Official ASOUE UK website
• List of all cultural references and literary allusions in ASOUE
• Lemony Snicket resource
• A Series of Unfortunate Events at the Internet Book List
• Exclusive 667 Dark Avenue interview