Post by Hermedy on Jan 24, 2005 4:06:34 GMT -5
Here are, for your convenience, the notes at the back of The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition. It took ages, so don’t not use them.
Regards,
PJ
Author’s Notes
It has been some time since I have written The Bad Beginning, and as far as I know the story has not changed one iota, a word which here means “tiny detail, which may or may not be significant, a word which here means ‘important to the story.’” In the years since the book’s publication, many people who have read the book have besieged me with questions concerning the iotas of the story, exactly how I came to know these iotas, and if I cared to add anything to my report. My reply to these questions is always the same. “Look behind you,” I say, and then I leap out of the window and slide down the drainpipe of the hotel, art gallery, or interrogation room in which I have been staying. Sometimes there is a car waiting for me. Other times it is someone in the car who is waiting.
Now that the car has run out of fuel, however, and the tires have been exchanged for an outboard motor and a hunk of Gruyère cheese, I have a few moments to add the following notes to iotas within the text of The Bad Beginning, reprinted here in the feeble hope that these police inspectors, art dealers and chambermaids will leave me alone.
p.2 The three Baudelaire children lived with their parents in an enormous mansion at the heart of a dirty and busy city, and occasionally their parents gave them permission to take a rickety trolley-the word “rickety”, you probably know, here means “unsteady” or “likely to collapse”-alone to the seashore…
On that particular occasion, the Baudelaire parents not only gave their children permission but encouraged them to leave the house, as the adults had some pressing business to atten to. This business was delayed indefinitely due to death. Also note that the trolley has since collapsed, and its remains were recycled into the foundation of a hotel.
p.5 She felt the slender, smooth stone in her left hand, which she had been about to try to skip as far as she could. She had a sudden thought to throw it at the figure, because it seemed to frightening.
Please see my note on page 7.
p.6 One of the things Violet, Klaus, and Sunny really liked about their parents was that they didn’t send their children away when they had company over, but allowed them to join the adults at the dinner table…
The Baudelaire table was not used exclusively for dinner. Its surface was handy for unrolling maps, completing jigsaw puzzles, and tracing the faces of people from photographs. One thing I remember from my time at the table was that it was always necessary to use a coaster underneath one’s beverage so as to not leave an unsightly ring on the wood.
p.6 Mr. Poe took off his top hat…
The height of a top hat provides a good-sized hollow space over the head of the wearer, which can be used as a hiding place. If one is using a top hat for such purposes, it is important to remember that one must remove it very carefully.
Also, an earlier draft of The Bad Beginning uses this phrase instead: Mr. Poe took off his top hat carefully.
p.7 Violet, with some embarrassment, felt the stone in her left hand and was glad she
had not thrown it at Mr. Poe.
Please see my note to pages 9-10
p.8 “The fire department arrived, of course,” Mr. Poe said…
This was an official fire department, which despite hundreds of years of existence has not managed to stamp out fire completely. Just recently I was forced to stamp out a fire completely, when I became so immersed in reading a philosophical work entitled Nobody’s Family is going to Change that I completely forgot about some Gruyère cheese fondue I was reheating.
Also, I have reason to believe that the O that appears on the official fire department insignia stands instead for a person’s name.
pp.9-10 …Violet had to drop the stone she was holding.
Dropping a stone you had been thinking about throwing at someone might mean that you believe violence to be an immoral and ineffective way of solving problems, which instead increases the amount of strife, turmoil, and bruises in the world, which in turn only encourages other people to pick up stones.
Tomorrow afternoon I am interviewing a semi-retired amateur geologist to see if this dropped stone is the same as the one Violet picks up at her second visit to Briny Beach.
p.12 Violet’s microscope had fused together in the heat of the fire…
Please see my note to page 25.
pp.12-13 Here and there, the children could see traces of the home they had loved: fragments of their grand piano, an elegant bottle in which Mr. Baudelaire had kept brandy, the scorched cushion of the windowseat where their mother liked to sit and read.
Curiously enough, Mr. Baudelaire’s brandy bottle was found on the remains of the dining table, with no coasters nearby. This would indicate that either the coasters were burned beyond recognition, or the Baudelaires had received a visitor who had no manners whatsoever.
p.14 …a well-respected member of the banking community.
For more information on respected members of the monetary community, interested parties might turn to my studies of Esmé Squalor, the city’s sixth most important financial advisor.
p.18 They passed horse-drawn carriages and motorcycles along Doldrum Drive.
For more information on the Doldrums, interested parties might turn to chapter 2 of Norton Juster’s alleged allegory The Phantom Tollbooth.
p.18 They passed the Fickle Fountain…
Please see my note to page 62.
P.18 They passed an enormous pile of dirt where the Royal Gardens once stood.
For more information on the destruction of the Royal Gardens, interested parties might turn to the following articles in The Daily Punctilio, the city’s newspaper: “Arson suspected in Destruction of Royal Gardens,” by Jacques Snicket, and “Absolutely No Arson or Any Other Suspicious Thing Associated with the Royal Gardens, which Simply Burned to the Ground and Then Were Covered in Dirt Due to Wind, Says Official Fire Department,” by Geraldine Julienne.
Incidentally, the Royal Gardens had several ornate wooden benches ideal for sitting and reading, or for contemplating the more exotic plants contained in the Poisonous Pavilion. All of these benches where lost in the destruction except one, which has since been moved to the lobby of a hotel. It is easily recognizable due to a small unsightly ring, left by someone who did not use a coaster underneath his or her beverage.
Regards,
PJ
Author’s Notes
It has been some time since I have written The Bad Beginning, and as far as I know the story has not changed one iota, a word which here means “tiny detail, which may or may not be significant, a word which here means ‘important to the story.’” In the years since the book’s publication, many people who have read the book have besieged me with questions concerning the iotas of the story, exactly how I came to know these iotas, and if I cared to add anything to my report. My reply to these questions is always the same. “Look behind you,” I say, and then I leap out of the window and slide down the drainpipe of the hotel, art gallery, or interrogation room in which I have been staying. Sometimes there is a car waiting for me. Other times it is someone in the car who is waiting.
Now that the car has run out of fuel, however, and the tires have been exchanged for an outboard motor and a hunk of Gruyère cheese, I have a few moments to add the following notes to iotas within the text of The Bad Beginning, reprinted here in the feeble hope that these police inspectors, art dealers and chambermaids will leave me alone.
p.2 The three Baudelaire children lived with their parents in an enormous mansion at the heart of a dirty and busy city, and occasionally their parents gave them permission to take a rickety trolley-the word “rickety”, you probably know, here means “unsteady” or “likely to collapse”-alone to the seashore…
On that particular occasion, the Baudelaire parents not only gave their children permission but encouraged them to leave the house, as the adults had some pressing business to atten to. This business was delayed indefinitely due to death. Also note that the trolley has since collapsed, and its remains were recycled into the foundation of a hotel.
p.5 She felt the slender, smooth stone in her left hand, which she had been about to try to skip as far as she could. She had a sudden thought to throw it at the figure, because it seemed to frightening.
Please see my note on page 7.
p.6 One of the things Violet, Klaus, and Sunny really liked about their parents was that they didn’t send their children away when they had company over, but allowed them to join the adults at the dinner table…
The Baudelaire table was not used exclusively for dinner. Its surface was handy for unrolling maps, completing jigsaw puzzles, and tracing the faces of people from photographs. One thing I remember from my time at the table was that it was always necessary to use a coaster underneath one’s beverage so as to not leave an unsightly ring on the wood.
p.6 Mr. Poe took off his top hat…
The height of a top hat provides a good-sized hollow space over the head of the wearer, which can be used as a hiding place. If one is using a top hat for such purposes, it is important to remember that one must remove it very carefully.
Also, an earlier draft of The Bad Beginning uses this phrase instead: Mr. Poe took off his top hat carefully.
p.7 Violet, with some embarrassment, felt the stone in her left hand and was glad she
had not thrown it at Mr. Poe.
Please see my note to pages 9-10
p.8 “The fire department arrived, of course,” Mr. Poe said…
This was an official fire department, which despite hundreds of years of existence has not managed to stamp out fire completely. Just recently I was forced to stamp out a fire completely, when I became so immersed in reading a philosophical work entitled Nobody’s Family is going to Change that I completely forgot about some Gruyère cheese fondue I was reheating.
Also, I have reason to believe that the O that appears on the official fire department insignia stands instead for a person’s name.
pp.9-10 …Violet had to drop the stone she was holding.
Dropping a stone you had been thinking about throwing at someone might mean that you believe violence to be an immoral and ineffective way of solving problems, which instead increases the amount of strife, turmoil, and bruises in the world, which in turn only encourages other people to pick up stones.
Tomorrow afternoon I am interviewing a semi-retired amateur geologist to see if this dropped stone is the same as the one Violet picks up at her second visit to Briny Beach.
p.12 Violet’s microscope had fused together in the heat of the fire…
Please see my note to page 25.
pp.12-13 Here and there, the children could see traces of the home they had loved: fragments of their grand piano, an elegant bottle in which Mr. Baudelaire had kept brandy, the scorched cushion of the windowseat where their mother liked to sit and read.
Curiously enough, Mr. Baudelaire’s brandy bottle was found on the remains of the dining table, with no coasters nearby. This would indicate that either the coasters were burned beyond recognition, or the Baudelaires had received a visitor who had no manners whatsoever.
p.14 …a well-respected member of the banking community.
For more information on respected members of the monetary community, interested parties might turn to my studies of Esmé Squalor, the city’s sixth most important financial advisor.
p.18 They passed horse-drawn carriages and motorcycles along Doldrum Drive.
For more information on the Doldrums, interested parties might turn to chapter 2 of Norton Juster’s alleged allegory The Phantom Tollbooth.
p.18 They passed the Fickle Fountain…
Please see my note to page 62.
P.18 They passed an enormous pile of dirt where the Royal Gardens once stood.
For more information on the destruction of the Royal Gardens, interested parties might turn to the following articles in The Daily Punctilio, the city’s newspaper: “Arson suspected in Destruction of Royal Gardens,” by Jacques Snicket, and “Absolutely No Arson or Any Other Suspicious Thing Associated with the Royal Gardens, which Simply Burned to the Ground and Then Were Covered in Dirt Due to Wind, Says Official Fire Department,” by Geraldine Julienne.
Incidentally, the Royal Gardens had several ornate wooden benches ideal for sitting and reading, or for contemplating the more exotic plants contained in the Poisonous Pavilion. All of these benches where lost in the destruction except one, which has since been moved to the lobby of a hotel. It is easily recognizable due to a small unsightly ring, left by someone who did not use a coaster underneath his or her beverage.
