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Post by Dante on Oct 24, 2012 15:11:51 GMT -5
I totally agree; that remark baffled me. The characters in ASoUE were largely cardboard cut-outs, and that was fine as they bore largely structural roles in a melodrama or one-note comic roles, but it's ATWQ that's giving us characters with greater depth, who are more genuinely likeable for it.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 24, 2012 16:20:53 GMT -5
I think perhaps 'rich' is not the same as 'immediately arresting' - the characters in ASOUE are striking, you might think, precisely because they are drawn with such broad brushes.
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Post by Christmas Chief on Oct 24, 2012 20:03:24 GMT -5
Snicket's 'Who Could That Be at This Hour?' is noirish fun A case is afoot in a seaside town without a sea, near a forest without trees, involving a mysterious stolen statue that may or not be stolen. Lemony Snicket is back, and it's about time.
Snicket's wonderfully dreary 13-book epic "A Series of Unfortunate Events" left fans with questions still unanswered about the tragic lives of the Baudelaire orphans and their many foes. Snicket's new book, "Who Could That Be At This Hour?" doesn't answer any of them, and adds quite a few more.
Where Snicket (the nom de plume of writer Daniel Handler) was the chronicler and occasional peripheral figure in the Unfortunate Events, in this sort-of-autobiographical-prequel he's front and center as the almost-13-year-old protagonist just starting out as a new member of a secret society, apprenticed to the 52nd worst mentor, S. Theodora Markson. Their first mission is to travel to the dying town Stain'd-by-the-Sea to retrieve a stolen statue worth "upwards of a great deal of money." And, this being a Snicket book, they encounter bizarre characters, unlikely settings, and bewildering twists of fate along the way until no one's quite sure what's going on.
The tone is different from his previous works but it's no less engaging. Where "Unfortunate Events" was gothic fiction for kids, here Snicket goes full-bore noir with bleak settings, straightforward mysteries that become more complicated with every turn and shadowy criminals pulling the strings. There's a Girl Friday reporter named Moxie, people tied to things, dark streets, mistaken identities, world-weary first-person musing, and even a pre-teen dame.
"Green eyes she had, and hair so black it made the night look pale," Snicket says as he describes Ellington Feint, the mysterious girl who rescues him from the top of a tree. "I saw her smile, shadowy in the moonlight. It was a smile that might have meant anything."
Handler clearly studied his detective mysteries -- one of the characters is even named Dashiell, an obvious tip of the fedora to writer Dashiel Hammett, and the missing Bombinating Beast statue has more than a whiff of the Maltese Falcon about it -- but make no mistake, this is a Snicket book through and through. Adults are eccentric, bombastic, condescending and invariably wrong, while kids are intelligent, clever and... well, still often wrong, but understandably so. The setting is a timeless period where credit cards exist but telegrams are still common, no one watches television, a town's industry is based on ink from frightened octupi, and advice on children's literature is considered a valued tip for a cab driver. Words are defined. A character or two from "Unfortunate Events" may be mentioned, and a few allusions serve to tantalize the reader. Absurd logic mixes with witty wordplay, satirical prose and Italian food recipes, and Snicket even finds the time to muse thoughtfully now and then.
"Knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway happens very often in life, and I doubt I will ever know why," he says.
The book also is filled with stark illustrations by the artist Seth, which adds a jaunty sort of bleakness to the tale.
At the end, you'll know how the statue was stolen and by whom, but you won't know why. Nor will you know who Ellington Feint is, what happened to her father, the motives of the despicable mastermind Hangfire, or what the "S" in "S. Theodora Markson" stands for, plus an awful lot more, and you won't care because getting there was so much fun.
Besides, this is the first in a 4-book series, "All the Wrong Questions," so there's plenty of time for all the mysteries to be answered.
Although they probably won't be.
I think these last two paragraphs address some of our concerns here. After reading the book, I agree that the "but my questions weren't answered" criticisms were unsound. From the reviews, I was under the impression the book would leave so many untied threads there would be nothing solid to grasp at all. This is not the case. The book answers enough questions so as not to frustrate, but not quite enough to satisfy, either, which is the point I think Dante was making.
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Post by Dante on Oct 25, 2012 3:32:58 GMT -5
Just to add a somewhat spoilerish structural note to that particular aspect of the book: Chapter Thirteen opens with an undiluted and uninterrupted explanation of the entire plot and mystery of the book. How can people go from reading that to concluding "But I bet none of the other mysteries will be explained!", especially when this is only the first book? Handler gave as blatant a sign as he could that he's going to try and answer questions here.
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
Posts: 15,891
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Post by Antenora on Oct 25, 2012 10:51:38 GMT -5
I was kind of amused that the writer pointed out "advice on children's literature is considered a valued tip for a cab driver" as an oddity but not the even odder reason why this is the case, namely that the driver is really two children. They're kind of missing the forest for the trees kelp fronds.
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Post by Charlie on Oct 25, 2012 21:25:53 GMT -5
I found that the end was mildly disappointing. I loved it, but I was expecting more. I guess this is comparable in my mind to when they released the first half of chapter four without the second half. It was wonderful, but something was missing. Saying that you're wrong after a brief chat with prosper isn't really that enthralling as a finale for a year. I guess I might be more satisfied if I accepted the picture of Kit as the finale, with her venturing into the unknown. Also the cut between Chap 12 ending and Chap 13 seems a bit abrupt. Unlike in previous chapters where they follow on, this one jumps to a conversation to Hector, who is in no way pre-empted, or even hinted at being in the story. I don't know, I just felt it deserved a bit more of a climax, like Lemony chasing after Ellington or something
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Post by Dante on Oct 26, 2012 2:26:46 GMT -5
I see Chapter Thirteen as the traditional "falling action" after a point of narrative climax, but what's interesting about WCTBATH is that there isn't really a climax. But I think that's more representative of the fact that the series is a story in four parts rather than a story that's four stories. Honestly, I'm happy with it. Like Lemony, we're left with plenty to think about, and as a detective series I think that ponderous note of conclusion is appropriate.
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Post by Charlie on Oct 26, 2012 4:29:17 GMT -5
I guess. I just can't fathom having to wait a year (I think) for the next one
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Post by Dante on Oct 26, 2012 4:44:10 GMT -5
Are you a relative newcomer to Snicket? I entered the fandom back when we were already waiting a year for the next volume of ASoUE, and then six years for a new series. I guess it's something you get better at with practice.
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Post by Charlie on Oct 26, 2012 5:19:18 GMT -5
Yeah, I am only young, and was one when BB came out. I started reading them about when UA came out in 2009, and instantly loved them. I am terminally impatient. I am especially bad at waiting for books. Oh well, I guess we have the re-read to do, and I am due to start reading Anna Karenina tomorrow, so that should all tide me through.
EDIT: It seems UA came out a lot earlier than I thought...
Reason for Editing: My own stupidity
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Post by Dante on Oct 27, 2012 3:38:58 GMT -5
A couple more reviews. Some interesting references that we haven't yet noticed are caught in one of them, and that one also mentions us! Author Lemony Snicket will be at Rowland Hall's upper school campus in Salt Lake City, Nov. 17 to present his new book "All the Wrong Questions: Who Could That Be at This Hour?" Credit: Courtesy Little, Brown and Company Lemony Snicket romances the enigma of writing for sophisticated children of all ages Visiting author » Droll and distinctive, but never dull, the San Francisco author with a double ego answers for himself. By Ben Fulton
No one writes in the inimitable style of Lemony Snicket, aka San Francisco native Daniel Handler. His prose is dry, but never barren of meaning. His humor is dry, too, so much so that you find yourself, surprisingly, slurping it off the floor.
No other author titles or markets books in such a relentlessly dark manner, either. Plenty of authors have assumed pen names over the history of literature — think Mark Twain or George Orwell and etcetera — but few have created such charming alter egos in the spirit of Snicket. The consternated writer, forever on the run from law enforcement and other nemeses, has a way of writing that, while vexing, is also compulsively readable, funny and charming.
It takes a special talent to issue a sequence of 13 books, call them all A Series of Unfortunate Events, then gather them all up in a boxed set titled The Complete Wreck. The books, ostensibly written for children, are intended for a wider audience. Perhaps the brightest spot in the Snicket oeuvre is 13 Words, which ends with everyone eating cake.
His latest book, All the Wrong Questions: Who Could That Be at This Hour?, is first in a series of four. With the young Snicket as central character, and in hot pursuit of a mystery with all sorts of loose ends tightening into literary bon mots, it takes the author’s wry humor to new and novel extremes.
The author spoke by phone from his San Francisco home, answering each question with aplomb — even if all the questions were wrong.
You must be the most successful children’s author ever to employ a dry, sarcastic, even pessimistically ironic tone to your writing. What mix of ages attend your readings?
It’s most certainly mixed. Children as young as 5 and 6 are having my books read to them. Children’s literature has come such a distance that there used to be adults who felt obliged [to bring children] to come to the readings. Now they come by themselves. For a few years I’d meet people who’d say, "This is my co-worker’s niece." People would bring children of quite distant relation along with them. It was almost a ticket. Now, that sort of shame has fallen by the wayside. The upper age range is bound only by mortality. I’m not aware of anyone reading me after they’ve died.
Do you think adults tend to underestimate the intelligence of young readers?
They probably underestimate children’s abilities, and perhaps overestimate adults’ ability to appreciate literature. A few years ago, when the Penultimate Peril [Book 12 in A Series of Unfortunate Events] was released, I learned that some people knew what "penultimate" meant, and some didn’t. It wasn’t as if children didn’t know the word, and adults always did.
Many of your books contain either 13 in the title, end after 13 chapters, feature characters 13 years of age or are released on the 13th day of the calendar. What’s your fascination with this number?
I was hoping you’d have 13 items in that list of 13. That would be very impressive! It just seems like a nice round number to me. Books just end up with 13 chapters — without a prior plan.
You’re on record as supporting the Occupy protestors, but your books seem devoid of overt politics. Do you feel political messages or contexts are out of place in books?
Well, I’d say most of my books are about disenfranchised people trying to make their way into a corrupt world. I guess that’s a political point. Of course, I wouldn’t want to use this interview to cast aspersions on any of the good people in Utah running for political office one day.
You’re somewhat famous in independent music circles as the accordionist for Stephin Merritt on his album "69 Love Songs." Do you have any more music projects or recordings up your sleeve?
I’m still unpacking the phrase "somewhat famous in indie-rock circles." That’s like being the world’s tallest midget. I’m working on a stage musical with Mr. Merritt, and Mr. Merritt has written a song for a new Snicket series that I will be performing on various stops along the tour.
Your new book "Who Could That Be at This Hour? All the Wrong Questions" is an especially enigmatic read. It’s like a mix of Raymond Chandler and Lewis Carroll.
I’ve always been interested in noir literature, and it occurred to me that a detective’s journey of discovering moral corruption at every turn, all in attempts to find a clear moral path, matched the journey of childhood. I thought it would be an interesting idea for a series.
After more than 50 pages, a friend of mine said she still couldn’t tell me what the book was "about." I read about that much and found myself scratching my head and laughing at the same time.
Laughing while you’re scratching your head? That’s remarkably coordinated. Well done!
Where do you see yourself in the continuum of children’s literature? In one sense, given that so much classic children’s lit involves children under dire threats or circumstances, you could be seen as a traditionalist à la Brothers Grimm.
There’s a proud tradition of darkness in children’s lit. I’m certainly a part of that. I don’t know where I fall on the spectrum, but not as good as Brothers Grimm. I like "The White Snake." That’s a good one. It has a very strange universe. If you help animals, they will help you. It’s shaped in a strange way. All Grimm is good. The strange, fragmentary ones are great.
I’m waiting for the right time to read them to my daughter.
There probably isn’t one.
You wrote a 2006 preface to one of Herman Melville’s more obscure novels, "The Confidence Man."
In fact, the 12th book of A Series of Unfortunate Events is modeled after The Confidence-Man. I like Mardi and Pierre, also. And Moby-Dick, of course. What appealed to me about The Confidence-Man is its essential strangeness. I like to be startled when I’m reading. The Confidence-Man is an unknowable mystery, and an easy read. It’s not a mystery like Agatha Christie, where all the loose ends are tied up by the end. It remains a mystery, which is appealing to me.
Isn't Lemony Snicket for kids? First book in planned 'All the Wrong Questions' series proves fun for adults, too By Jenni Laidman
So when Lemony Snicket came along with his "Series of Unfortunate Events," which began with the Baudelaire children learning that their parents had died in a horrible fire, I was flooded with nostalgia. Dead parents. Oh, this author knew children! Snicket understood the delicious feeling of imagining the worst possible thing that could ever happen to you and then toying with how you might survive as circumstances grew ever more horrific. Fun!
But there was plenty here for adults, too. Snicket told the stories with wit and a complete lack of condescension, connecting to the subversive in adults as well as children, even the very same adults who tiresomely hurry to remind us that Snicket is the pen name of Daniel Handler.
All the gloom and repeated dire prophecies in "Unfortunate Events" was irresistible. "If you didn't know much about the Baudelaire orphans, and you saw them sitting on their suitcases at Damocles Dock, you might think that they were bound for an exciting adventure," begins Book 3, "The Wide Window." Yes, the reader is told, the Baudelaire children's story will be exciting and memorable, but not like "having your fortune told or going to the rodeo. Their adventure would be exciting and memorable like being chased by a werewolf through a field of thorny bushes at midnight with nobody around to help you."
The author is having a lot of fun, and for me, this is the main event, more interesting than the story.
In "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" Snicket dispenses with warnings and tells his own story. Again, he manages to tap into that serious side of childhood. In the story, he is 12, and he has a job to do. Although he works under the bone-headed tutelage of a foolish woman with hair "impossible to tame, like leeches," there is a secret mission beneath this facade. He has intentionally selected S. Theodora Markson as his chaperone on the basis of her incompetence, because it will allow him to accomplish his real mission, whatever that is. It's not really clear, which is why this is Book 1 in the "All the Wrong Questions" series.
The story opens in a tearoom with "the worst eggs in the entire city, including those on exhibit at the Museum of Bad Breakfast." When he rendezvous with Theodora by leaving the tearoom through a bathroom window, she tells him the situation is urgent, but she is unable to explain its complications "under the present circumstances."
"Under the present circumstances," Snicket replies. "You mean, right now."
"Of course that's what I mean."
"If we're in a great hurry, why didn't you just say 'right now'?"
They head out for Stain'd-by-the-Sea, a nearly empty village that was once on the sea but is no longer. Right outside town, ink is drilled from underground octopus caverns, which may be the first in a string of references to publishing and newspapers. In Stain'd, they are hired to find the statue of the Bombinating Beast and return it to its rightful owner. Snicket learns that bombinating means buzzing, which is what the legendary beast does as he hunts human prey. The beast is a favorite creature of Stain'd citizens, who dress up like him on Halloween and Purim.
That's the plot, and it matters far less than the wordplay that gets us there. Like "Unfortunate Events," the book operates on three levels: There's the story aimed at children, there's the wit a child may or may not get, and there are the clues and cultural references that turn the book into a puzzle, a bit like an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." I don't know if a child takes much pleasure from the fact that Theodora and Snicket stay in the Far East Suite (a Duke Ellington album) of the Lost Arms, or that the librarian is named Dashiell Qwerty, but it keeps me reading.
Snicket finds the Bombinating Beast statue immediately, in the hands of its already rightful owner, the plucky and aptly named girl reporter Moxie Mallahan, whose eyes are "a dark gray, like they'd once been black but somebody had washed them or perhaps made her cry for a long time."
Still, Snicket helps Theodora execute a plan to steal the statue — with Moxie's cooperation — which he then manages to lose more than once to the mysterious Ellington Feint, a girl "a little older than me, or maybe just a little taller," with eyebrows curved like question marks over green eyes.
Hmm. Another Ellington reference. And "Feint." That has to mean something. There are several more Ellington references, including: Black Cat Coffee at the corner of Caravan and Parfait, and the library book, "An Analysis of Black, Brown, and Beige," a book, Snicket tells Ellington Feint, that "looked so dull I thought no one would ever check it out." But I'm a piker in this game of references and hints. There are people who spend hours sorting out the mysteries of all things Snicket, on the web discussion site 667 Dark Avenue (named for the apartment building in "The Ersatz Elevator").
Yes, it's still a children's book. The mystery it's revealing to children isn't one that interests me much. But it's entertaining and told with loads more wit than one finds in the average adult mystery. So if you have a child you can share it with, do that. But a child is not a necessary excuse. You can read this book all by yourself.
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Post by Kit's tits kick ticks on Oct 27, 2012 5:11:19 GMT -5
I like what they say about the readers' ages. I always have that voice in my head asking me "Aren't you too old to read this book?" (or "these books") and I always reply that the book didn't exist when I was younger. And we are mentioned
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Post by Tryina Denouement on Oct 27, 2012 5:55:50 GMT -5
And we are mentioned YAY for 667!
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Post by Dante on Oct 27, 2012 7:03:14 GMT -5
I like what they say about the readers' ages. I always have that voice in my head asking me "Aren't you too old to read this book?" (or "these books") and I always reply that the book didn't exist when I was younger. Another counterpoint would be that adults can write children's books, so why shouldn't they be able to read them? 90-100% of people involved in the creation of any one children's book will be adults, and we expect them to read and enjoy those books. Although with that said, Snicket is a bit of a different kettle of fish.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 27, 2012 10:18:28 GMT -5
I think that there are books which are suitable for adults - or at least people over 13 - and not children, whether because of the themes or the difficulty of the prose, but I'm doubtful whether there are books which are suitable for children but not adults. At one time I would have excepted books aimed at beginners, but Where the Wild Things Are is a picture book which a lot of adults appreciate, as indeed is Thirteen Words. Many of the best children's writers say that they write what interests them, and it just so happens that what they produce is suitable for children. The new Ellington references are very interesting - though Black Cat Coffee clearly has another source as well, in the film.
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