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Post by Dante on Aug 30, 2009 3:37:36 GMT -5
Welcome to the twelfth-and-some part of 667 Dark Avenue's Great Re-Read project, in which we exhaustively review our knowledge of each and every iteration of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. From today we begin The Beatrice Letters, a collection of thirteen letters contemplating such chilling matters as love letters, office windows, cave décor, bats, and root beer floats. Discuss.
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Post by Dante on Sept 1, 2009 3:44:45 GMT -5
...Where did everyone go? Is the logical end-point of this reread for it to be an exercise solely of my own?
I've reviewed the first two letters, as well as taking notes on the packaging:
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As a complete package, let’s look at this. The cover, as is well-known by now, contains a hidden Beatrice silhouette hidden at the back of the main Beatrice silhouette. This serves as a hint to the “two Beatrices” twist, and is also accurate in detail – the second Beatrice is not only physically smaller than the first, but standing in the shadow of the first.
The cover sticker declares “Suspiciously linked to Book the Thirteenth,” although the Egmont edition has the more prosaic “Contains a clue to Book the Thirteenth!” Both are literally accurate; TBL throughout reacts to various motifs in The End, or possibly vice-versa, and various details along with the poster do clue us in to the plot of the last book.
The back cover has a number of detail boxes checked; note that “Please destroy” and “Please make numerous copies” are both ticked, per the Kind Editor letter at the end, but neither of the “written entirely in code” boxes are, which I would take as a caution… although the cover was likely put together not by Snicket, so that evidence may not be canonical. The “Date” box contains the initials BB; a pun on dating? Alternatively, the book’s time-frame is dated according to Beatrice’s existence.
The “two Beatrices” twist, incidentally, was spoiled for us before the book came out, or else it would probably have been a lot more baffling. Both Handler himself and a preview of the book suggested it. Fortunately it at least turned out different to how we expected; I think we mostly assumed that it referred to two adult-age Beatrices, leading to fears that the existence of two Beatrices would be used entirely to resolve some of the contradictions about Beatrice’s identity (such as those Ned H. Rirger references, or the part in TGG which apparently refers to Lemony’s love and the Baudelaire mother as separate individuals), although in retrospect those were actually very minor indeed.
“LETTERS” is punched-out on the cover, but that’s probably not relevant in itself; it’s a visual device and a kind of tactile pun about the contents that are to follow. On which note, I’ll probably cover the posters at the end.
Also, Snicket would just have written the text… HarperCollins employees were apparently responsible for much of the structure of the book as it stands, including hitting stores for suitable antiques to feature. Note the copyright page, which attributes collection and curation of the correspondence to Alison Donalty and Chloe Foglia – the former we had already heard of as a cover designer, I think.
First things first: On the cover of the interior booklet, the silhouette of the title TBL is handwritten, whereas the front title is written in the title font. Again, you can link this to the multiple Beatrices.
The two “Letters” folders are another clue as to what we can anticipate within – much punning on the distinction between a letter and a letter. Hence discussion of the book frequently requires use of the term “correspondence.” Perhaps we could also say “characters” in place of “letters”?
Oh, and the title of B13 is given as The End on the inside cover, which should’ve really put to rest persistent rumours about the title of the last book… we had largely assumed that The End was a placeholder title, and indeed I speculated that TBL’s much-promoted secret message would be the real title of the last book… speculation later repeated as fact by a promotional e-mail from Borders or something. Further discussion on this when we come to The End, I imagine.
“To Beatrice and From Her” – a twist on the usual dedication form, but an entirely necessary pun that fits in with the way this book does things.
LS to BB #1:
Notice that the calling card is red and placed upon a white background; compare to BB to LS #6, which is a white calling card on a red background. There’s an obvious parallel created between them – although we probably shouldn’t look at the colour inversion too hard, since that’s partly a matter of staying interesting. It’s probably just designer elaboration upon the parallel already set up by Handler. By the way, lots of the text in the letters is mirrored or repeated in other letters, but I’ll try and only point it out on the second occasion, or this’ll take all day.
Lemony’s letters are fronted with segments of the cave poster, which is because that is a location exclusive to him and where some of his precious items are stored. I’ll come to that when I do the poster.
Lemony’s card describes him as a “Student of Rhetoric,” which is as good an address to his eventual occupation as any, I suppose. The two eyes on his card are a subtle nod to his V.F.D. agency, although I’m not sure if there’s much more to say about them.
Does this card come across as awkward? That is, not just awkward in the youthful romance sense, but awkward in the fashion that it’s written in as a fictional construct. I think it’s probably the fact that it’s something of a self-consciously parodic address to a clichéd concept perhaps of courtly wooing… Lemony is painfully formal throughout, for example. I see some of this in his wearing of a green necktie, although that again is a nod to V.F.D., whose emblem colour is widely accepted to be green.
The map is just an excuse to work a hidden character E into the correspondence. The relationship of the characters to the secret message is interesting; the larger punch-out letters are just taken from the ones hidden in the correspondence, so in the planning stages it would’ve been a lot harder to even notice the secret message. However, because the characters are, “canonically,” something other than hidden letters – they’re maps, or photographed paperweights, for example – then this means that the secret anagram message cannot be “canon” because it cannot literally exist within the aSoUE universe without some form of destined magic.
BB to LS #1:
Young Beatrice’s letters are fronted with the shipwreck side of the poster, which takes place while she’s alive and indeed while she was present; however, at the time of reading TBL, most of us assumed that this would happen at the start of The End, for what I hope are obvious reasons – the previous book closed with the Baudelaires sailing off in this ship with those spatulas – which aren’t alluded to in Chapter Fourteen anyway – and… oh, but I said I’d cover this after the letters.
The dates on the letters are either too specific or too broad, but I think they’re introduced to us as simplistic because of the ages of the characters at the time of writing, before growing into more complex allusions.
Young Beatrice is also painfully formal in introducing herself to Lemony, which is a mirror in itself to the previous letter.
The areas the correspondence must cross are generally addresses to previous books – the mountains from TSS, the cafeterias remind us of TAA, the trunks of automobiles link to THH and TPP – which reminds me, I should’ve linked the woman in the taxi trunk in TPP to the Baudelaires’ trunk-hitching in THH/TCC before now – and the long-distance swimmers with waterproof pockets I’d link most explicitly to TGG.
Lemony is at this point in time able to openly take on office, which is significantly on the thirteenth floor, although that’s significant mainly, I think, for another reason which comes later. I don’t know if the nine dreariest buildings in the city are relevant, an allusion, or just arbitrary.
The “many individuals have the same initials” problem has been raised before in the series, and this continues it, although it’s not plot-relevant. It’s interesting that Beatrice seems to base a possible confusion of identity on initials rather than name, but again I think that’s to link back to the initials problem and also to connect to TBL’s emblematic characters, that is, the crucial alphabet letters.
Lemony’s “E?” most naturally points to him suspecting the letter of being a ploy by Esmé, but this isn’t really her style; it’s more for the sake of it. Young Beatrice suggests he’d react this way, so it’s natural that, upon reading that suggestion, he responds to it.
“My Silence Knot” – an anagram of “Lemony Snicket.” Not sure if I actually noticed that one on a first reading. But it’s part of the general attempt to hint us in to the existence of the secret message and its anagram, which makes it almost a shame that the production process made the secret message, uh, barely secret at all, to the point where some people are surprised to discover hidden characters in the correspondence and wonder what they could mean.
We don’t know much about young Beatrice’s past, but here she says that she has kept quiet “for years” while desperately searching for assistance, and that writing to Lemony is the first step she’s taken. Ultimately her aim seems to be to find Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, which suggests she’s been separated from them for a long time indeed, especially considering her young age. Since Lemony also devoted part of his life to exactly the same task, he’s the natural person to ask – although some people think that he didn’t start doing this until after Beatrice contacted him. However, I don’t think this is quite backed up by TBL itself; she reads Lemony’s full research later on, with no implication, I think, that it’s particularly recent, and his research would also be the most effective prompt to her to write to him particularly for assistance in the first place.
I wonder who’s been telling young Beatrice about Lemony? Probably various ordinary people who she’s asked around about – they sound to be normal citygoers, although she’s not in the city at present (at that, how does she know his office is dusty? Former clients, perhaps?). But the things they observe are those things that a normal person would observe about Snicket in the present – an effective recluse who spends his time going over old theatre documents in the library. He cuts quite a sad figure, I think.
Lemony is apparently now working as a kind of detective, which best suits the role he played as the Baudelaires’ biographer.
Beatrice Baudelaire, searching for her family – there are a number of potential misreadings here. The formality throughout the letter could be adult, for example, so you could read this as being the first time an adult Beatrice contacts an adult Lemony – although given the backstory of the series, this would still need to be a second Beatrice. The fact that she’s searching for her family may make one think they’re her children or her siblings, although in fact they’re not actually related. Handler’s trying to confuse here, and doing a very good job.
Beatrice’s reference to her early bedtime should make it obvious that she’s only a very young person, but quite aside from what this says about her identity, one has to wonder where her home is. Much is mysterious about young Beatrice – if not with the Baudelaires, then where and with whom is she living? An orphanage of some sort is probably the best answer to default to, since it seems like less wild speculation than anything else we might conclude.
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Post by Hermes on Sept 1, 2009 9:40:44 GMT -5
...Where did everyone go? Is the logical end-point of this reread for it to be an exercise solely of my own? I'm here. I'll be posting some comments of my own shortly. Before it came out, I take it? Neither BEATRICE SANK nor CASKET IN BRAE (or whatever) looks like a plausible title. Rather deceptive, though, in that the Beatrice it is to is not the Beatrice it is from. . Because of the green wood? Or is there some other indication of this? Does this imply that L didn't know she was there? (He clearly did in the end - but he could have discovered her when they stopped.) I'm not convinced of this, but we will see. It turns partly on a very strange line in the final letter to the editor. In fact, she's a long way from it. (One possibility that I have considered is that she's in Peru, since that's where VFD tends to take people of things they want to keep out of the way.)
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Post by Dante on Sept 1, 2009 10:35:48 GMT -5
Before it came out, I take it? Neither BEATRICE SANK nor CASKET IN BRAE (or whatever) looks like a plausible title. But of course. That speculation wasn't in any way possible after the book came out. However, before the book came out, much was made in AuthorTrackers, Book Blasts, and similar promotional features of a secret message that would be encoded in the book through various letters (characters, that is). At an early stage, my guess was that this could be the "real" title of the last book - an idea which, as I've said, was bizarrely repeated as true in a Borders promo e-mail, but which of course was false. Uncertainty about The End's title is something I'll cover in that reread, but for the most part it persisted for some months after what was in retrospect an official announcement that it was indeed the true title. The book is quite literally composed of letters to Beatrice and letters from her, so it's not entirely inaccurate, although the dedication element of the line does "turn" midway. Mostly because of the green wood, but because of that, most uses of the colour green in connection to V.F.D. were taken as being significant. It's considered fanon, if you like. Oh, I'm sure he knew; I merely mean that I should have seen the situation as a potential callback to the events of a previous book, just like so much else in TPP. I'd never thought to make the connection before that in THH/TCC someone hides in the trunk of a car, and in TPP someone hides in the trunk of a car. Agreed, but as far as I'm concerned Lemony's role in TBL is very much a continuation of his role as writer of the series. It would be, however, very much like a character-based spin-off novel, in any piece of fiction, to make this kind of retroactive continuity link. For me, there's too little we know about young Beatrice's past to say anything about whose care she's in or where she is. I am quite sure that you can put forward arguments both for and against her being taken care of by volunteers, for example, and the same probably applies to a great deal else about her. She's mysterious... but not in an interesting way, I think; I don't get the impression that her past is meant to be vastly interesting outside of its connection to the Baudelaires.
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Post by Hermes on Sept 1, 2009 12:39:51 GMT -5
Agreed, but as far as I'm concerned Lemony's role in TBL is very much a continuation of his role as writer of the series. It would be, however, very much like a character-based spin-off novel, in any piece of fiction, to make this kind of retroactive continuity link. Oh, definitely - it's just the relative dating I'm uncertain about. I think I will leave general issues, of which there are many, to the end, and jump in with the first letter. LS to BB 1. (My keyboard seems not to have a number sign. Hmph.) Well, it's very sweet. Apart from that, not too much to say. It's interesting that it introduces the theme of sonnets, which will recur several times. The map showing the way to the cafe outside the East Gate is puzzling if you suppose, as I originally did, that the school is located in the Mortmain Mountains. I think it will become fairly clear later that it isn't, though. BB to LS 1. The most striking thing about this letter is how puzzling it is. Only the postscript suggests it is from a child. B says she is looking for her family, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, but not what her relation to them is. Lemony might well be disconcerted at getting it - it might raise hopes that the original Beatrice is still alive, but also fears that someone is impersonating her. B seems to have some doubts about L's identity - given the emphasis on initials, I wonder if L is actually living incognito, calling himself something with the right initials, but not Lemony Snicket - Lawrence Smith, or the like. L seems at least to entertain the possibility that Esme is alive, if that is what 'E' means, as seems natural. How does B know the story she asks L to tell - the story that began in a sort of classroom? This is particularly striking when one considers that the Baudelaires in The End don't seem to know this story - even in chapter 14, they don't recognise the name 'Lemony', or know what Beatrice means by 'I have been heartbroken before'. (Unless, just possibly, young B isn't thinking of that story, but of another story - the one that began in Ishmael's classroom when he met the girl with one ear. There clearly is meant to be a thematic link between that passage and TBL. If that's right, she will be stirring up memories in L in a way she didn't intend.) One might also ask how B hopes the letter will get to Lemony - who are the long-distance swimmers, etc., she is relying on to do this? This is some reason to think she is already in contact with volunteers - though later passages, perhaps, suggest otherwise. LS to BB 2. This letter gives away the important fact that Olaf was at school with L and B. (That it is Olaf, just in case anyone might doubt it, is established by the publicity thingy which says this book will tell us what Count Olaf was like as a boy.) This fixes his age fairly firmly as neither much older than them, as many of us believed, encouraged by the illustrations, or much younger, as the poyzon darts story might possibly have implied. It also means - when linked with the TPP information about the schism - that he was not initially on the bad side; the schism must already have happened when this takes place, yet here is O at school with the good guys. Apart from L, B and O, we know that R is at school with them: 'My sister has told me...' implies Kit is there as well, which makes it natural to believe Jacques was too. Anyone else? I think we can rule quite a lot of people out, either because there's evidence they were not in VFD (Jerome - even if, as Dante has suggested, he was on this climbing expedition - Justice Strauss, Geraldine, Sir, probably Charles) or for reasons of age (Monty, Josephine, Ike and Gregor). Esme perhaps, depending whether you think she was in VFD or not - though we know Beatrice first met her at a tea party. Bertrand probably not, as Beatrice first met him in a candlelit restaurant. The Denouements (though not Dewey)? The Quagmire parents? Who can say? BB to LS 2. So what does the map in Lemony's office signify? What is the point of his expedition? My feeling is that the most likely explanation is that he is still researching ASOUE - this story is meant to coincide in time with his work on the series. 'I have heard rumors of your research' sounds to me as if it refers to something still in progress - though 'a piece or two of constructive criticism' would make most sense if B had read the results. Whether this means, as someone recently suggested, that B's first letter actually prompted him to start his research, is another matter. One might think so, given that her first letter didn't mention it, while the second one shows she's aware of it. But given the actual course his research takes in the next couple of letters, I think it's more natural to see him as having advanced quite a way in the series. (Of course, there's stuff in the series, and especially in TUA, which causes problems for the idea that he's researching it long after the events; but I think most of the evidence suggests he is, and that's what I'm going with in interpreting TBL.) B plays on the ambiguity of 'letters'. 'I cannot determine what the letters would spell' implies characters, but then she says 'The only letter missing is the one I sent you'. 'I am an orphan' - this specifies B's relation to the Baudelaires a bit more, but in an extremely mysterious way - how can she be the child of all three of them?
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Post by Dante on Sept 1, 2009 13:14:42 GMT -5
The map showing the way to the cafe outside the East Gate is puzzling if you suppose, as I originally did, that the school is located in the Mortmain Mountains. I think it will become fairly clear later that it isn't, though. I didn't make that assumption myself; it struck me as fairly natural that the school should be in an ordinary location, a city, if not the city. A later letter I do think was written in the Mortmain Mountains headquarters, but again, I don't see the possibility of the students transferring between different institutions as being implausible; normal students do over the course of their academic career. But don't argue me by the text until I get there; I haven't read TBL for a very long time, so it's possible my memory has exaggerated some things or erased others. I think this is mostly because Handler's deliberately trying to be mysterious. I remember now that it was reading TBL that I first realised that sometimes Handler put in mysteries or questions without any intent of answering them - that is, without any apparent intent of having an answer. The specific example was, in retrospect, an unfair one to interpret this way - I'll come to it in time - but one has to remember that, with The End due out shortly after this book (only a month, I think), Handler was quite free to tease his audience mercilessly since the question of who the new Beatrice is would be answered relatively shortly. I don't know what conclusions Lemony in the story would've drawn from the letter; it's entirely possible he would already have deduced young Beatrice's identity, but also possible that he wouldn't have the faintest idea, although I think he definitely knows by the end. I have a vision, but it's one thing I don't need to be certainly the canon version - just so long as there effectively is no canon version. Of course, that, too, is one interpretation. As for the initial problem, it occurs to me it could be quite the reverse - young Beatrice might only or largely have heard of Lemony through people using his initials, for example. The void of her childhood, and what one might term other implausibilities associated with it, make it a possibility that cannot definitively be dismissed, although I don't think it's very likely either. The initials uncertainty I probably put down myself to toying with the book's motifs rather than having an in-universe rationalisation. Most obvious villainess - I'm not even sure I can think of any other notable female villains in the series. Dr. Orwell is effectively a minor character, and the woman with hair but no beard is never named. Hmm, continuing on from my previous thoughts, if young Beatrice's past is an intentional void, there doesn't need to be an in-universe rationalisation for some of her knowledge. She knows things, but only has a fragment of the picture; this may be the only impression it's necessary for us to get. She may not understand, however, quite that she is dealing with V.F.D. - it might be much the same way as the Kind Editor's arrangements with Lemony for receiving his manuscripts are so very convoluted. We read them back as being probably helped along by V.F.D. operations, but the editor wouldn't have known that (although she might have come to suspect it later on, as we do). What gets me about this is that "Olaf wasn't always a bad guy" is a really interesting premise, and indeed nearly always is for any fictional villain, but nothing is really done with it. He starts out a volunteer neophyte, he's a bit of a jerk, that's it. The concept of youngsters being villains may be a false one, in addition; there's no sense of any kind of formal villainous education for youths on the wrong side of the schism, since they're just used for various menial tasks. Villain or not, I'd have expected him to have been a V.F.D. student when he was young. You think Monty's that old? I regarded him - well, it doesn't matter what I think. Like nearly every character, the text doesn't give an age or a suggestion of an age. There's even a possible indication that Ike isn't that much older than Lemony (although again it's open-ended enough that he might be many decades older, or maybe even the same age). The matter of when Beatrice first met Bertrand is I think the most difficult for this book - however, they may have been in different V.F.D. institutions or just never had overlapping timetables. I think you can read "I have heard rumours of your research" as indicating that the research is complete; it depends on whether you interpret "research" in this sentence as an action Lemony's performing, or as the physical result of that action. The latter feels the most natural to me (although again it doesn't necessarily mean that he's finished). Not touching the map until I reread the precise section. Lemony's not stopped working, though. Hmm. It suddenly occurs to me that it's probably helpful to the argument that Lemony is midway through his research in TBL that TBL was published before The End; if we consider the publication of the books to correspond in any way with the order of his research, this would indicate his Beatrice file was complete before his work on the final Baudelaire installment. But then one can make all sorts of arguments about him being a fugitive from justice in the blurbs while openly renting an office but then never being in it because he's researching... I'll say this: I think he's either not started, or has already finished. I'm not sure that Lemony being in the middle of his research makes sense considering his travels within TBL are specific to issues related to the plot of TBL and not to any other book. Edit: Forget waiting all day, here are my thoughts on the next two letters. --- LS to BB #2: I wonder why the header also spells Lemony’s name out in Braille. (It’s accurate; I checked it.) The dating of the header is obviously for fun, since the context of the letter suggests that Lemony has been writing to Beatrice more than once a year. Which is an interesting thought – while we quite evidently only have a few samples of many letters sent by Snicket to Beatrice, we assume that we have all the letters that Beatrice sent to Snicket. Is that a reasonable assumption to make? (Also, I’ll address why Lemony has the letters he sent rather than the ones Beatrice sent him – assuming she sent him any – at the point in which I feel this can be explained within the text.) The letter feels quite plausible; Lemony is bored, writing to Beatrice simply because he enjoys speaking to her, and imagines that she’s having a much more enjoyable time than he is. Also, does this letter imply that Beatrice didn’t take Code Class, or that not everyone did? We never actually hear of R. participating in theatrical performances anywhere else in aSoUE… however, her later life as the Duchess of Winnipeg is surely highly performative; as such, I think this is consistent. The skills she’d have learnt in Theatrics would be applicable in her new lifestyle. We know that R. was friends with Kit, and Kit at least knows Beatrice’s birthday, so does this now allow us to suppose the three are a trio of friends? I say this because I remember seeing a piece of fanart of the three with Lemony which reminded me strongly of this painting of Dante and Beatrice: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Dante_and_beatrice.jpgSomething I hadn’t noticed before: “The only other student I know in this class is O…” This suggests that Lemony’s relationship with O. goes a bit deeper than just “knows of” him, because Lemony is surely in some vague degree familiar with at least the names of the other students in his class. So I think we’re able to speculate some level of regular communication between Lemony and O., although it doesn’t look like the two are friends. “a wet viper perm” turned out to be an anagram for “pre-emptive war,” and that Snicket considers this term to be obscene is another veiled political reference in the series, like Busheney and Scalia. Lemony, Beatrice, and R., at least, possibly Kit as well, are shortly going on an excursion in what seems to be the mountains – there’s a drawing of a mountain, references to climbing, and caves. I take this to refer to the fabled Mount Fraught climbing trip mentioned a few times in the series. You can argue the point, I think, but this fits enough of the characteristics. It also occurs to me that it’s not necessarily true, as I had earlier believed, that the students were based in the Mortmain Mountains headquarters at the time; that it’s an “excursion” rather than, well, walking out the base’s front door, suggests that they’re coming to the mountains from some way away – well, shortly afterwards there’s even the line “far away in the mountains.” I wonder if the mountains headquarters even existed at the time? Or to investigate the animals of Mount Fraught for volunteer training? A secondary purpose to their excursion might have been to help scout out isolated places for new bases. Also, I reiterate my theory that Jerome’s presence on a mountain-climbing expedition with Beatrice may be explained by him having been a member of the Snow Scouts or a similar group as a child. However, there might’ve been multiple such mountain-climbing trips, if it’s so much fun. Lemony’s use of “baticeer” suggests to me that Beatrice has expressed an interest in bats before now, rather than it being something he invented on the spot. BB to LS #2: February 28th is Daniel Handler’s birthday, and therefore presumably Snicket’s as well. “I can see an empty lot in which a few unusual plants have sprouted. It takes years for the land to recuperate from a fire, but even in the darkest of ashes eventually something can grow.” I take this as suggesting that the vacant lot is the former Baudelaire mansion, which may indicate why Lemony took an office here in particular – to keep an eye on that place, probably as it’s where Beatrice died as well as being significant to his research. The second sentence in the quotation is subtly optimistic; it says that we can move on from the darkness in our lives, and this is the message of The End, too… although I have a rather more pessimistic and controversial explanation of an element of TBL, which I’ll come to later. Lemony’s map – we don’t know what the yarn and stickpins are attached to, but the notes indicate hotels, hiding places, rental car offices, synagogues, public libraries, private libraries, restaurants, cafes, all-you-can-eat buffets, and movie houses, each marked with a date and time. The suggestion that these are linked to Lemony’s research I now reject, since the Baudelaires have been to… hm, two of these locations at most; one of the hotels could be the Preludio and one of the private libraries could be Justice Strauss’s – but the hotels and libraries are in the plural, so these would only be a handful of examples. That they are marked with a date and a time, and that Beatrice concludes she can find Lemony based on these, suggests to me that they are significant in the present, not the past. I couldn’t say the overall significance of the picture, however – although it sounds very much like a list of the sorts of places where Lemony would simply spend much of his time. I think the ambiguous “letters” punnery at the bottom of the page is more jesting on the motif of the novel, rather than being important in itself. The letters are jumbled up – the coded characters throughout the novel are jumbled up, as is the correspondence itself, since it alternates between past and present (although this refers only to TBL itself, since young Beatrice has at this time sent only one letter, and it’s missing – I assume Lemony took it with him, since it’s part of the book). I’ve already mentioned my opinion of “research,” but it’s worth noting that “dozens of questions as well as a piece or two of constructive criticism” are what we all have after reading the series. As I’ve noted before, I’m of the opinion that young Beatrice essentially represents a fan of aSoUE. We, too, are curious about what became of Violet, Klaus and Sunny. Young Beatrice says she’s following the path of yarn and pins, and that she is heading for the hills – indicating that Lemony’s trail leads there, and thus isn’t limited to the city. It also indicates that the hills are the most recent spot; as such, I would take the map to be some kind of chart of the geographical progress of Lemony’s present research, whatever form that takes – that is, it shows the places he’s visited and the places he’s yet to go. Based on this, seeing the map one can determine where he should be next. “…so that I might find, after all these years, the three siblings who are the only family I have.” Indicates that it’s been some years since the Baudelaires were separated from Beatrice, which is pretty much what we could already pick up; just as we don’t know where young Beatrice has spent her past or with whom, however, we can’t determine at exactly what point they were separated. Although from aSoUE we know they spent at least a year with young Beatrice, and as her first year alive that may be all that’s needed (although the book suggests more later). “Without Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, I am an orphan” – because they are her adoptive parents.
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Post by Hermes on Sept 2, 2009 11:49:42 GMT -5
I didn't make that assumption myself; it struck me as fairly natural that the school should be in an ordinary location, a city, if not the city. I guess it seemed natural to me because the Mortmain mountains HQ is the only VFD training insititution we know of so far - and if there is a VFD school in the city, we might expect to have heard of it. (Come now, this is Snicket. things you haven't heard of turn up all the time.) One might also wonder when B and L did go to the Mortmain Mountains HQ, given that they seem to have started jobs as soon as they left school - perhaps only in vacations? Agreed. One might think it had to do with his parents' death, but the timing doesn't seem to fit that. The other possibility is that it had to do with Kit. That's fanfic, of course, but the way The End is written seems to be asking us to write it. Certainly I don't think there's a formal villainous training; the bad side isn't really a 'side' most of the time, anyway, just a collection of motley individuals. But I think it's unlikely that, if his parents were villains, they would have sent him to a school run by volunteers. Monty has been studying snakes for forty years. Unless he began in his cradle (which, OK, he might have done, given this is Snicketland) he must be significantly older than Lemony. Now, I thought it said somewhere that Ike and Josephine had been married for forty years, but I can't find it. I may have been extrapolating from what we know about Monty. Josephine has white hair, which suggests an older generation, but she may be prematurely aged. OK, we don't know their ages, then. There's one thing in The End which would work better if they were younger. I think his being a fugitive can be reconciled with the situation here if he's not living under his own name. I would suggest that what we hear of him here may fitted in quite plausibly with his research for the later books of ASOUE - after his imprisonment and escape, after his reported death as chronicled in TUA - in the later books he seems to be slightly closer to civilisation again. That's just one way of reading it of course; I'm not suggesting that it's the Right Way. On the other hand, another possibility is that he is now not researching the unfortunate events, but, prompted by B's first letter, actually trying to find the Baudelaires. How this relates to The End should be left till the end. Oh, good question. Perhaps just not at the same time? But then, 'Code Class' must mean something more specific than 'learning about codes'. since they do thart in Theatrics as well; so perhaps, indeed, not everyone does do it. Well, if there was some connection between O and Lemony's sister... Agreed; that makes a lot of sense. I think it must have done, because Dewey, who is the same age as Kit, so slightly older than L, was taken there as a child. Theory: perhaps in general volunteers don't go there - or even know about it - till they're sixteen or so; Dewey was taken there as a child because he was being prepared for a special secret assignment. In any case, I don't think they can be setting off from the HQ - partly because Jerome, at any rate, wouldn't know about it; and partly because we know that the same tedious business letter writing instructor later taught young B, who was undoubtedly in the city. (OK, he might have moved. But that would rather spoil the correspondences.) Oh, what fun! L certainly went to places that the Baudelaires had not been to - including England and Thailand. I think he may be going to these places to interview witnesses. Very good point.
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Post by cwm on Sept 2, 2009 13:03:26 GMT -5
Right, I was on holiday in North Wales all of last week... if I can find my copy I'll try and get some comments down tonight or tomorrow...
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Post by Dante on Sept 2, 2009 13:06:25 GMT -5
I guess it seemed natural to me because the Mortmain mountains HQ is the only VFD training insititution we know of so far - and if there is a VFD school in the city, we might expect to have heard of it. (Come now, this is Snicket. things you haven't heard of turn up all the time.) One might also wonder when B and L did go to the Mortmain Mountains HQ, given that they seem to have started jobs as soon as they left school - perhaps only in vacations? Okay, fair enough, that does seem a natural assumption, then. However, V.F.D.'s lost a lot of institutions, and transferred between many; I don't think it's a big stretch that a training school in the city (which seems to be where the café is, unless it's a different café at the end), might have existed and later been destroyed. As for when B. and L. (Snicket doesn't usually add period marks, I think, but that they're in TBL is a sign of the other designers the text went through... perhaps) went to the mountain headquarters - they may have transferred there to be taught skills for older students, in a primary-secondary (or junior-middle-high) school arrangement, or indeed been packed off there on vacations. Whatever's most interesting for the fanfics, I guess. I believe that some of the later books are doing all they can to ask us to write fanfiction short of outright telling us to. "When there is no way of knowing, one can only imagine." A disastrous conclusion to Olaf's relationship with Kit, or indeed any worsening of a grudge which already existed... read "Severus Snape" for Olaf and "Lily Evans" for Kit, even. Oh, I see. Yes, agreed. You'd have to be very ambitious to try and use a... presumably pre-ten-year-old, upon entry, maybe as young as four or five, as a potential double agent. That would be quite unwise, and the timeline suggests that Olaf's parents managed to remain successful, or at least alive, for some time into his adulthood. I assume that Olaf's parents switched sides, or were already pretty morally ambiguous at around the time of Olaf's recruitment - which would now be around the time of the schism, anyway. I suppose they must've gotten pretty bad by the end, though, and that would probably have rubbed off on Olaf too... you could compare him to Carmelita in that way. Oh, okay. Sure. Although then again, I really have nothing against the idea that Monty had been playing with reptiles in some kind of V.F.D. facility since infancy. But we don't know either way and it's not a matter of huge importance, anyway. I'll check my files. Is the thing in The End related to her mother-in-law, by any chance? Anyway, I can't find any real age references for her or Ike, but I agree that Gregor's great age and the fact that Josephine has white hair suggests they were - well, in their sixties, say? Josephine's still pretty active, throwing chairs through windows and sneaking off around lakes to barely-accessible caves. Sure. There are enough gaps here that you can fit it in in numerous different ways. I feel more relaxed about it than I did this morning. But not necessarily one to worry about; young Beatrice has probably been writing to Snicket for, what, a year at most? Whereas Lemony's been writing to Beatrice for decades. Beatrice's letters don't have conspicuous gaps into which we must infer other letters, either. But, if someone wanted to... That's true. Maybe Code Class also involves learning about the history of codes, say, and also teaches how to formulate one's own codes. There's room for that. Ah-hah, rather. But that depends when you think that happened, and we kinda have no reference points - some people think Kit and Olaf's relationship happened or continued until recently enough that he is the father of her child, although we can be confident that this is not the intended reading. I guess I saw it as more of a teenage thing - but if we take the Severus/Lily model I posited earlier... Oh yeah; I'd forgotten about Dewey. But I think that, yes, we can probably readily believe that different buildings have different purposes - it's just as plausible as different buildings all having exactly the same purpose. Dewey's a bit hard to handle anyway; you have to write so much fanfiction about his backstory in any case. The Baudelaire parents knew he existed, anyway, but once again we can't say at what stage, and then you've already pointed out Bertrand's apparent absence at this point in the story. So I'll probably have to drop this here, which is fortunate, because TBL does too. With Jerome being involved as a non-volunteer, I was imagining that he'd be meeting up with the volunteer kids elsewhere anyway - that is, whether their coaches meet at the foot of the mountains or they meet at a mid-height plateau is of no practical difference... I had previously assumed that the tedious instructor had simply moved, but since I no longer necessarily believe he was ever at the mountain headquarters in any case, that ceases to be an issue for me. ...Well, obviously he'd have to have moved. The mountain headquarters doesn't exist any more. He'd have to have moved just to escape the fire. 667 sends him something every year, but I think we usually send it to him as Mr. Snicket rather than Handler, so I guess we assumed they were the same... well, there's no reason why not. True. Although occasionally he goes far (or not) afield to investigate alleged sightings and comes back with nothing. Edit: Right, I was on holiday in North Wales all of last week... if I can find my copy I'll try and get some comments down tonight or tomorrow... Hi again. We're not very far along, so no hurry. I'm just doing two letters a day.
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Post by cwm on Sept 3, 2009 2:54:53 GMT -5
It rained every single day. Which is a shame, because apparently the grounds of the Hotel Portmeirion are lovely in the sunlight.
Two points whilst I scrabble desperately for my copy:
Maybe the letters were chosen because they have those letters accidentally hidden in them. Or not.
I agree that 'E?' probably means Esme - even though the text comes across that she probably died, Lemony's clearly keeping his options open.
Given that she almost certainly survived the fire, though, what's to stop it being the WWHBNB?
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Post by Dante on Sept 3, 2009 4:47:39 GMT -5
It rained every single day. Which is a shame, because apparently the grounds of the Hotel Portmeirion are lovely in the sunlight. This statement would be in no way out of place if it appeared in an A Series of Unfortunate Events book. How eerie. I like that, actually. There's a degree to which this requires some kind of implausible set-up regarding young Beatrice's creation of alphabet letters, but otherwise, I do wonder... not that I think it's essential, though, but it'd be nice. Only the fact that her name might begin with any letter of the alphabet. One may as well say it's another villainess with a name beginning with E who we never even heard of. --- LS to BB #3: This letter should probably have the “From the Desk of Lemony Snicket” heading from the U.A… “Scriabin’s Anniversary” – Scriabin is a Russian composer Handler likes, whose ambition was to write a piece which, when played, would destroy the world. Also, before I forget: Lemony’s openings and endings cascade from the second through to the fifth letters: “Dear Beatrice,” “Dearest Beatrice,” “My darling Beatrice,” “My dearest darling”; and “See you in a few hours,” “See you in a few days,” “See you in a few weeks,” “Who knows when I will see you?” Eleanora Poe, or “Madame Poe” – an unusual but formal and respectful title – has evidently been in charge of The Daily Punctilio for some time. What does this say about her and her brother’s ages? Eleanora must have a good decade on Snicket, I’d have said. “assistant obituary spell-checker” – that is, he isn’t even the spell-checker, just the spell-checker’s assistant. That’s pretty much the lowest of the low. The paperweight is of a Lachrymose Leech given by “I.” as a graduation gift; we can assume that this is Ike, or rather, Dr. Isaac Anwhistle, and this suggests he’s been tied to Lake Lachrymose for some time – well, like Josephine, he may have grown up there. However, one has to question what his connection to Lemony is. Tutor? Older student? He and Lemony must be quite good friends, unless I. dished out creepy paperweights to all his students. “Just one letter can change everything” – I don’t think we’re meant to take this literally as referring to the anagram; I’m not sponsoring any conspiracy theory suggesting we should swap out one of the letters for another, or anything like that. I think we should just read this as referring to items of correspondence with a dual resonance in its application to our investigation of alphabet characters. Evidently R.’s father died some time before, or he would probably have been mentioned at least in passing. I wonder if he was the Duke of Winnipeg, or if the aristocratic title is reserved solely for the female partner? Probably not how real aristocracy works, but this isn’t real aristocracy. Evidently R. previously worked at the Punctilio, which is why her becoming a duchess necessitates a reshuffle. Can we chain these appointments backwards and say that she was the previous financial correspondent, J. (Jacques?) the former fashion editor, and Geraldine (for it must be her) the previous dramatic critic? …Wow, Lemony really was at the bottom rung compared to his own siblings and friends, but given that he gets bumped up from assistant obituary spell-checker to dramatic critic by just one resignation, evidently the Punctilio’s staff hierarchy is somewhat idiosyncratic. Also the suggestion that Duchess of Winnipeg is a job with particular significance to V.F.D., but I think that’s probably just down to the fact that an aristocrat in this position will be a very powerful individual. Why does R. becoming the next duchess, or the newspaper reshuffle, mean Lemony and Beatrice have to be so much more careful? Perhaps R. will be more political with her aristocratic position than her mother was, and this might agitate the other side of the schism. Or perhaps it’s the role of dramatic critic which is so dangerous? Well, having read the U.A., we can’t entirely deny that… The butterfly costume to some degree recalls the dragonfly costume that Beatrice wore, or will wear, at the Duchess’s masked ball. I’m not sure there’s anything more to it than that. BB to LS #3: Again, emphasis on letters with Lemony being identified here by his initials. It seemed as if Lemony was waiting for someone – but who? Young Beatrice? Some other volunteer? If the former, she didn’t get there in time. Was Lemony expecting her sooner, and if so why, or why did she fail? Or did he get cold feet on meeting her – a suggestion backed up by the later letters? “…the eldest shepherd said, ringing his cowbell to call to his flock, and looking me very carefully in the eye.” No Sebald Code in the letter itself, but it suggests the shepherd was trying to communicate with young Beatrice using Sebald Code. Of course, she wouldn’t have been able to respond; she’s not a trained volunteer. So was this shepherd a volunteer, or an old friend of Lemony’s like the dairy farmers? It feels a bit anticlimactic that the ring which was so important to so many people in The End gets its only mention here as a trinket young Beatrice traded away for a yak ride. Almost callous. Given that Lemony probably decorated his cave himself, and at one time in his life didn’t mind bats, I’m guessing it wouldn’t have been quite such a miserable place to him… however, it might have given him terrible memories of his past, too. Also, one wonders why Lemony left a scrap of paper with only the letter K on it – although it looks more like it had “Kit” written in a corner which was then torn off. Perhaps that, too, was something young Beatrice was meant to find? It is her mother’s name. “This has been a hard year’s journey.” Okay, let me revise slightly my previous estimate of how long Beatrice’s journey takes. Has it really been a year between this letter and the one before it? That’s a long trail for young Beatrice to follow. And if the gaps between other letters can be revised upwards to several months, that means she was younger than I had originally thought at the beginning of the letters. (Hmm. If she’s a fan, and considering that the series was published over several years… but I can’t rely on such parallels being intentional.) I wonder how young Beatrice found out what Lemony said as he left the cave. Maybe one of the shepherds was there. I also wonder if the Wednesday is significant – it reminds us of the time at which TPP, the previous book, had ended, and young Beatrice’s first letter was dated Wednesday. Also, it seems highly likely that the root beer float café is in the city. That makes life easier. Many more memories will fade if young Beatrice is only very young. We still can’t say how long she knew the Baudelaires, but here we get the infamous Sunny-on-the-radio reference. For Violet and Klaus, the allusions to them could’ve just taken place within The End, but Sunny appearing on the radio suggests not just that they all returned to land safely, but that they were able to reintegrate with society – although it could’ve been a V.F.D. radio station. Maybe we are certainly to take it that the separation of the Baudelaires and Beatrice took place after the shipwreck of the Beatrice – or maybe, and this might be a strong contender, Beatrice’s memory of Sunny on the radio is a false memory, and it’s symptomatic of the very phenomenon of fading memory that she mentions?
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Post by Hermes on Sept 3, 2009 12:09:12 GMT -5
I don't think it's a big stretch that a training school in the city (which seems to be where the café is, unless it's a different café at the end), might have existed and later been destroyed. What makes you think it was destroyed? Umm... might be. What's the source for Gregor's great age, by the way? In any case, well-spaced-out families are not unknown in VFD. Nice thought. I think in the overall economy of the work it's actually Lemony who corresponds to Snape (man grieving for lost love devotes himself to interests of loved one's offspring) - but obviously not in character. Well, yes. But I think it's more interesting if young B is in the same room being taught by the same person. It rained every single day. Which is a shame, because apparently the grounds of the Hotel Portmeirion are lovely in the sunlight. Portmeirion, hey - home of The Prisoner? I don't believe I've ever been there, which is sad, though I visited that part of Wales quite a lot as a child. Why do you think she survived the fire? (I like to think her name was Gorgon, which fits her having hair, but that's speculation, of course.) LS to BB 3. The fact that L got his job at the DP through the school implies that it had, at this time, some link with VFD, though I don't get the sense Eleonora is a member. I don't think 'assistant obituary spellchecker' implies that that's all he does; he is presumably a sub-editor or the like, and it happens that today this means he is spellchecking an obituary, which he finds depressing. 'that I [presumably Ike] gave me as a graduation gift' - this might mean either that he was a teacher or a fellow-student. (Or - given the family tree - perhaps just a relative.) This passage reveals it's a Lachrymose Leech, thus solving young B's puzzlement about it - though, as I understand the photographs are of real artefacts, this doesn't answer the question what it is in real life. The fact that G (presumably Geraldine) was already with the paper may possibly be slightly inconsistent with soomehting in TUA. Yes, I am not sure why either the Duchess's death or L's becoming dramatic critic should lead to dangerous times. It does seem that it's considered dangerous for L to communicate with B - by the time of his notorious review in TUA this had changed, since he was open about being engaged to her. Butterfly costume - not to be confused with a dragonfly costume, which she wore much later, though it obviously recalls it. I take it this is a different play to the one she was in in the next letter, where she played a baticeer. (And both are of course different from The World is Quiet Here, which she was in at the time of the events which led to L's sacking.) BB to LS 3. I like to think that L's trip to the mountains was to research TSS, though this is obviously speculative. The presence of the shepherds may give a clue to the bit in TSS about witnesses of Olaf's journey to Mount Fraught. Note the reference to initiials, again suggesting L isn't using his own name. First use of the word 'brae', I think. Yes, I'm sure the shepherd was trying to give a message in Sebald Code - as usual, it is not received. This implies he has some connection with VFD, but it's hard to say what. It's interesting that Dante mentioned the dairy, because it occurred to me, since he was ringing a cowbell, that he might actually have been from the dairy, or a member of the same family. This is, I think, the first time we hear of the ring, though it's the end of its story. Or at least, it's the last thing in its story we are told about - if the shepherds were linked with VFD, I'm sure it had further adventures after this. What you don't know you can only imagine. I have no idea why L left a piece of paper marked 'K', though I feel it ought to have something to to with the letter he wrote to Kit, from the mountains, in TSS. Edit: and yet again B plays with 'letters'. What does B mean by 'apart from the occasional mob'? So: is L actually sending messages to B? Does he want her to follow him? His behaviour later on, when they are both in the city, suggests not; but here I get the distinct impression that he left a message for her with the shepherds. Or perhaps not for her? (Perhaps for Kit, not knowing she was dead? That would be an interesting turn of events - messages meant for K instead come to her daughter).
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Post by cwm on Sept 3, 2009 12:39:12 GMT -5
She was on the ground floor, she knew full well there was a fire, and she wasn't blindfolded. I would put good money on her and the MWABBNH surviving.
Gorgon... isn't really a regular name, is it? Somebody would need cruel parents to be christened 'Gorgon'. They'd go through life with that name stuck to them. That's not to say I don't believe it - I think it's quite plausible as a theory.
Indeed; it's a beautiful place, and it's surprising how 'the Village' is only a small part of it - it's mostly woodland. Anyone who doesn't fall in love with it at first sight knows nothing - the mad construction and the buildings and the beach and the ice cream parlours... lots and lots of ice cream parlours...
Number Six's house has been converted into the Prisoner Shop, although I gather that some of the best merchandise has been lost since the Portmeirion estate took over control of the shop from the Prisoner appreciation society, which is a shame (it's now mostly stuff with the pennyfarthing symbol).
And I apologise for such an off-topic post; I have one last mention of The Prisoner in comparison to ASoUE to come in The End probably, but that's more relevant than raving about the architecture of Portmeirion. Still can't find my copy of TBL...
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Post by Dante on Sept 3, 2009 12:50:06 GMT -5
What makes you think it was destroyed? Good question; I don't remember any more. Could've been because we've never heard of it. It's as likely as anywhere to be the place young Beatrice is working at towards the end of TBL. Uh, let me see. I think in TGG the narration at one point - well, let me quote it. "... there are secrets in this world too terrible for anyone to know, whether they are as young as Sunny Baudelaire or as old as Gregor Anwhistle..." Since Sunny is very young, that implies that Gregor is very old. In addition, the suspicion is that Ike and Josephine are no spring chickens, and Hal is sometimes suggested as the H. sibling if they're G. and I. So it's partly fanonical, but the text does suggest that - although it's interesting, because is this meant to be his age at the time of his death, or is he not really dead (there's a reference in TGG to a kidnapped ichnologist), or what? Since the two works aren't connected, we don't have to draw perfect parallels. The role of Snape has to be parcelled out to numerous characters. Lemony's not a villain (or rather, hasn't such a malicious personality), and Olaf's not devoted to anyone's interests but his own. I agree. Interpretation of the text duly adjusted. While I like to think that any one character can either have or have not survived the fire, it must be said that the woman with hair but no beard was last seen in the hotel lobby, without a blindfold, and with the full knowledge that there was a fire. It would be quite surprising if she and her accomplice died. In which case, one wonders if the text itself is referring to the confusion of the writer over what the paperweight is meant to be. Although how the HC designers obtained such a fabulously appropriate paperweight I don't know, unless Handler possessed it from the start. Tell us more. I recall discussion at the time of how the U.A. and TBL aren't all that compatible, but "as time goes on, many memories fade." I didn't sense that it was dangerous for them to be together, specifically, just dangerous for them in general. Mountains? For my part, I've always read the hills as a completely separate location from the Mortmain Mountains, given that they are hills. Or comedy that also draws our attention to the importance of letters. A word I'm fairly sure Handler dug up just to make the anagram more difficult. It's troublesome since various parts of the U.A. indicate that the dairy workers aren't members of V.F.D. I think the eldest shepherd is meant to remind us - after The End - of Ishmael, and we can even imagine that he is Ishmael, I suppose. He would know Sebald Code, but so would other characters. That occasionally she has travelled in/with mobs. But it is an odd statement, given that mobs are not known for travelling far. Gratuitous callback to the series through mob psychology? Possibly he suspects that young Beatrice is following him, or will at some point do so, having received her letter. I don't know whether he wants her to follow him, or whether he's just carrying on whatever business he was occupied with at the time. His decision to add a route to the caves on his map may have come after receiving Beatrice's letter, but that may not have been a clue for her, just keeping a record for himself. The possibility that Beatrice would track him even there would have occurred... but I think the later letters are fairly clear that Lemony doesn't want to speak to her. Something which I'll come to. So I think for the moment I'll take the view that Lemony isn't leaving some kind of trail of clues for Beatrice, although he may be conducting his business with the possibility in mind that someone is now following his every action, as he followed those of the Baudelaires. (Either that, or the map in its entirety is for Beatrice's benefit.) Edit: Good luck finding your copy of TBL, cwm. Have you tried beneath the sofa cushions?
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Post by cwm on Sept 3, 2009 14:52:18 GMT -5
Looked in my bedroom. All the shelves, the secret compartment in the bed, the pile of books I keep meaning to put back on their shelves... that's the only place it can possibly be...
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