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Post by Hermes on Apr 25, 2014 11:41:50 GMT -5
OK, starting my read-through.
The regular solutions and the hidden ones are paired, with each hidden solution being connected, more or less closely, to the previous regular one. Also the picture illustrating each hidden solution is a detail from the full-length illustration in the corresponding chapter (again, some more relevant than others). (Do people think that Seth is much more closely involved in the story and the mysteries than Helquist ever was? I think he's probably a member of VFD.) I'm reminded of TUA, where 'right' and 'wrong' questions were likewise paired. So, I will be looking at each hidden solution immediately after its linked mystery and regular solution.
Inside Job.
The Marguerite/Colette thing is particularly puzzling, since 'I spell it the French way' makes much more sense with 'Marguerite' - is there more than one way of spelling 'Colette'?
This story establishes at an early point the theme of absent parents and working children. While the absence of Marguerite's father is explained, her mother is also absent, something L reflects on in 'Figure in Fog'.
Note the Finnish theme - which takes up something referred to several times in ASOUE, with regard to poets and fishermen as well as pirates. Could Marguerite be related to the Baudelaires?
I got the solution, but would not have done so if it were not for the title 'Black Paint'.
Deep Mine.
The details of this are hard to make out, though the bombinating noise clearly links up with things that happen later in the book. The reference to museum authorities is interesting; it shows a parallel between events in Stain'd and in the City. Do we actually know of any museums in Stain'd?
Pinched Creature.
Not much to say about this: it continues the theme of absent parents, and introduces the theme of reptiles/amphibians (on which I commented earlier). Why are newts so funny? When Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, first came to prominence, he was much mocked for keeping newts. (Tiago once started a thread called 'My newt art thread'. This was actually a typo, but now it would make sense.)
Oliver is very young to need reading glasses.
The basic solution to this is obvious, but I think the clue that enabled L to get it is a bit unfair, since the salesman might have been thinking of a chameleon. The way the colour of the zinnias is signalled obliquely is clever, though.
Backseat.
The details of this are hard to make out, but clearly someone had tried to steal the eggs that the Doctors Sobol were taking to the city. (I don't think 'smuggled' should be taken to mean that the doctors were carrying them illegally, since Oliver has told us about them quite openly; it just means that they were hidden.) The reference to root beer, which doesn't fit into the plot particularly, is certainly interesting, but I don't know where it leads.
Ransom Note.
This has been discussed at length. The answer, I think, is fairly obvious. It seems to me that Jackie is still being shown as gender-ambiguous. I don't see any obvious ASOUE links here.
More absent parents. (After this things begin to let up a bit; the child featured in the next story is Stew, whose parents are certainly present.)
Quiet Street.
The name 'Violetta Frogg-Drifter' seems to point to a Stain'd branch of VFD. Note, though, that a frog is an amphibian, and drifters will turn up in a later episode.
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Post by Dante on Apr 25, 2014 14:26:30 GMT -5
The Marguerite/Colette thing is particularly puzzling, since 'I spell it the French way' makes much more sense with 'Marguerite' - is there more than one way of spelling 'Colette'? I think it's "Gracq" that's being spelt the French way. I assume her mother is dead, given the past-tense "belonged," but she could have split from the family but left the pictures for her daughter as a memento. I thought the solution - on first reading - was outlandish and unguessable, but I should have noticed the missing nails. I think I was a bit too excited to be finally reading the book, though, and wasn't necessarily on top form. I can't imagine that Stain'd doesn't. It has everything else. A celebratory glass for having successfully solved the mystery, I think.
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Post by bandit on Apr 25, 2014 14:31:24 GMT -5
I think it's "Gracq" that's being spelt the French way. But Gracq isn't even a real surname.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 25, 2014 14:37:46 GMT -5
The Marguerite/Colette thing is particularly puzzling, since 'I spell it the French way' makes much more sense with 'Marguerite' - is there more than one way of spelling 'Colette'? I think it's "Gracq" that's being spelt the French way. There's an English way of spelling 'Gracq'? There can't be that much gold, of course, if it can all be hidden in nails. Though it would still be worth having, no doubt. The Museum of Ink? The Museum of Sea-Monsters? Well, no doubt. But why this mystery in particular?
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Post by Dante on Apr 25, 2014 15:59:16 GMT -5
But Gracq isn't even a real surname. If you say so...There's an English way of spelling 'Gracq'? Well, if someone introduced themselves to you as "X Gracq," vocally, how would you assume it was spelt? Probably not with a "cq," I'd guess.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Apr 25, 2014 16:05:05 GMT -5
I thought the solution - on first reading - was outlandish and unguessable, but I should have noticed the missing nails. I think I was a bit too excited to be finally reading the book, though, and wasn't necessarily on top form. I actually figured it out without even seeing the "black paint" solution title. I'm saying that with the slightest bit of pride, but it really wasn't that hard if you read the stories while looking for potential clues. There can't be that much gold, of course, if it can all be hidden in nails. Though it would still be worth having, no doubt. Well, she did mention that there were "jars upon jars" of these nails in the mine.
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Post by bandit on Apr 25, 2014 16:58:06 GMT -5
Yes, that's exactly my point. It was his pen name, and it was (as far as I know) created by him.
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Post by Dante on Apr 26, 2014 1:47:06 GMT -5
Yes, that's exactly my point. It was his pen name, and it was (as far as I know) created by him. That would be fine if we were just talking about Julien Gracq, but we're talking about someone whose surname is referencing his. As such, there's a pre-existing referent. And you know, we aren't really in a position to criticise the legitimacy of invented surnames in a book by Lemony Snicket.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 26, 2014 10:50:41 GMT -5
I should have mentioned, by the way, that it's curious Cleo never appears in this book, though her car does - all L's other associates, Moxie, Jake, Pip and Squeak, do appear.
Walkie-Talkie
The official mystery in this story is trivial. However, it does introduce two real mysteries - the passage marked 'Drain-leads-to-Sea', and the man dressed in green with a feather in his cap, who comes into town once a month, except that apparently he doesn't. His description recalls Robin Hood, but his name means 'the king'. Will we see him again?
The bit where Stew claims he is being drowned, of course, recalls the basement scene in WCBATH.
By the way, I've realised why Stew doesn't fit neatly into a Hogwarts house - he is Dudley.
Beneath the Street.
This links the 'underground' theme and the 'lizards and amphibians' theme, both of which have already been established. Are the lizards and amphibians going to the Clusterous Forest spontaneously, or are they being carried? In any case, this apparently accounts for the bombinating noise heard in the mine of which we were told earlier. But it can also be heard in basements - does this link up somehow with the basement scene in WCBATH?
This may also explain Moxie's mysterious reference to an underground tunnel in WCBATH - there's clearly a parallel with the tunnel Kit was in, but she can't actually have been referring to that.
Bad Gang.
This, again, has been discussed at length, but it contains quite a lot of interesting stuff. The actual mystery is quite easy to solve. (It's a bit odd, though, that Kevin says he wants a weapon to protect him against the BBBG; this cannot be his real motive for wanting it.)
So, is this Kevin from ASOUE? We initially thought it was, because it seemed to be part of a pattern, but with the metamorphosis of Colette into Marguerite, the pattern is broken. 'In each hand' looks like a clue, but the grandfather in 'Ransom Note' was also carrying a jar of molasses in each hand. It would definitely be a clue as part of a larger pattern; as it is I'm not so sure.
Pirates. This book includes both Finnish people and pirates, as well as numerous female characters, but unfortunately never all three at once.
Small Courtyard.
Ooh, lots here. First, as Dante has said, this recalls the destruction of a clinic in WDYSHL (and I suppose Jake in the Dilemma could be called violent animal life), and may look forward to the destruction of a school in the next book. Are we to suppose that there is some other destruction, in the interval between the books, with which this mystery is concerned, or were people just reflecting on how these destructions were possible?
Although 'Violetta Frogg-Drifter' is an invented name, there clearly is a real Violetta living in Stain'd.
Now, their father. First, as a retired travel agent, could he have been the owner of Fjords? But also: there is a retired geologist in BBRE: and Lemony consults him, not only about stones, but also about female Finnish pirates - which would make sense (of a kind) if he was also a travel agent specialising in Scandinavia. I have a feeling I am writing fanfic here: but it fits very neatly.
Silver Spoon.
I must admit I did not get this one at all - that is, it was obvious that Smogface had stolen the spoon, but the clue, and why he did it, escaped me, though they are obvious in retrospect.
I find it a bit puzzling that that the Wileys, timber and sock magnates, have a house in Stain'd; if they were active there it would seem to make the town less dependent on the ink business than we have been told.
I guess that this is indeed not Sir, since his surname, like his first name, is supposed to be unpronounceable; also what we hear of Smogface does not seem to fit Charles's statement that Sir had a very terrible childhood. Still, it's a bit odd that there is another timber magnate here, when we know that Paltryville is not that far away.
Missing Pets.
More theft of amphibians and reptiles. Armadale is one of the drifters, presumably the one who mentions lizards. It's hard to imagine Dr Flammarion being married, but perhaps this is his mother.
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Post by Agathological on Apr 26, 2014 12:43:55 GMT -5
I've ordered my copy from Amazon and hopefully getting it on Monday so I can join in under the discussion!
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Post by Dante on Apr 26, 2014 15:35:24 GMT -5
I should have mentioned, by the way, that it's curious Cleo never appears in this book, though her car does - all L's other associates, Moxie, Jake, Pip and Squeak, do appear. I think the book is largely trying to avoid spoilers for ?1 and ?2, given its standalone nature. Including Cleo might've required giving too much away about the plot of ?2. I suspect that fellow is never to be seen again, but I also was reminded of Robin Hood. I wonder what Handler was thinking. Even had Colette not been retconned, both she and Hal have no other positive evidence tying them to ASoUE besides a name. Kevin has two pieces of evidence, both equally strong. I'm happy to think of him as the Kevin we know, chiefly as that makes life more interesting. I've ordered my copy from Amazon and hopefully getting it on Monday so I can join in under the discussion! That's great news, Agathological; I hope you enjoy it.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 27, 2014 12:00:36 GMT -5
I should also have mentioned the walrus outside the Wiley mansion. In one version of the legend of the BB, it was really a walrus.
Violent Butcher.
We now move from absent and neglectful parents to actually abusive ones. I don't think we've ever had anything quite like this before in Snicket's work.
Drumstick, like most children in Stain'd, works, but not for or instead of his parents as others do; he repairs women's shoes.
I did not get the solution to this, and I think it is rather a cheat, as we are not told how large the trash can is or that it is closed. When it was first described I assumed that it was open, and that the rubbish lying by it had just fallen out when it was overturned.
Large Meal.
This is very puzzling. I go along with Fragile Things's proposal - that a restaurant was advertising lizards and amphibians in a simple sauce of unsalted butter, and L pointed out that this wouldn't work - but that doesn't really give us a mystery; it seems unlikely that L was simply exposing a stupid chef. I would guess that the menu was a secret code (linking up with the other food code which we will get in the next episode).
Do you think Lemony is annoyed by the constant campaigns to eliminate salt we get nowadays?
Twelve or Thirteen.
The initials 'EF' on the medal are a bit deceptive at first.
The basic answer to the mystery here is clear enough, but I find it a bit puzzling just what happened; why did Mrs Chase need to sled down the slope with the picture? Couldn't she have just taken it while everyone was watching the race, and crept away? Indeed, it was earlier suggested that Mr Chase can't have taken it because he was taking part in the race at the time.
One naturally supposes that the Officers Durham are a married couple, but then they turn out to be two women, perhaps sisters. (I don't think they can be an all-female married couple, since it was several years after this that Lemony wrote 'It will be quite some time...'.)
Other Name.
This one is very puzzling indeed; it's not clear, of one thing, if it refers to the other side of the same newspaper or a quite different one. So I can't make out the mystery at all. No actual amphibians in this for a change, but salt, again, and honeydew melons, linking up with the honeydew theft in WDYSHL. Could they have come from the Lucky Smells Melon Farm?
Midnight Demon.
It recently came up in another part of the forum that Tatiana is the name of an actress who plays a set of clones in Orphan Black, a show I wouldn't be surprised to learn Handler likes, which makes the name suitable for a girl who has a closely resembling twin. There is also a joke with 'T. Cosy'. But what mother, having given her daughter a real enough name like Tatiana, calls her son Treacle?
Lemony, like David Lodge, seems to be clearing up earlier confusions over the idea of identical siblings; he makes it clear that these two, though very similar, aren't strictly identical, when he seemed to suggest that Duncan and Isadora were.
'There are words for a woman who walks the street late at night. Words like insomniac.' Ha!
I did not get the solution to this. I got, of course, that Treacle was impersonating Tatiana, but that was given away before the end, and I did not grasp how he did it.
Sand and Shore
Very mysterious. It seems that a large person has been towed away. The bit about the slogan is the wrong way round from what you might expect; it says, openly, 'what once was desert is water', but says nothing about what once was water; yet at Stain'd we know all about what one was water, and it's where the water went, where land has turned to water, which remains a mystery. Might the slogan have come from Killdeer Fields, where people do know all about the land turning to water, and Lemony's insight have been to connect this with what happened at Stain'd?
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Post by Agathological on Apr 28, 2014 14:17:44 GMT -5
Well I got it today! Can I confirm that everyone else's illustrations are in black and white and not coloured?
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Post by bandit on Apr 28, 2014 14:47:56 GMT -5
All of my illustrations are in a beautiful, psychedelic sort of tie-dye shade, with glossed prints in the back. Maybe you got a faulty copy?
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Post by Dante on Apr 28, 2014 15:30:21 GMT -5
They're all monochrome, yes. As this isn't a numbered part of ATWQ, it doesn't get a unique colour. Alternatively, it's pure noir.
(Although it's worth noting that Egmont's paperback edition of ?1 also has monochrome rather than colour illustrations. LB also has a paperback version of ?1 coming out in June, but I don't know how it's going to handle its illustrations.)
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