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Post by Agathological on Apr 28, 2014 15:53:32 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.) Hmm, there are different versions floating. My 1 has glossy paper, not the rough hewn stuff that 2 and 13 SI has.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 29, 2014 15:44:47 GMT -5
Three Suspects
Not much to say about this one - just to note the oddity of 'the last French Horn factory in town', as if there used to be lots of them.
Poor Joke
The question being 'Why did the third brother steal the blueberry pies?'?
Vanished Message
This, on the other hand, has lots to offer. First, the Very Fast Delivery in Stain'd - we don't learn as much as we would like, but we do at least learn that the postperson is male. Unless she is faking a male voice, I suppose. In any case, it is brought to our attention.
Lois Dressing - in case people haven't spotted this yet, it's an anagram of the well-known literary and science-fiction writer Doris Lessing. I suspect 'Yamgraz' relates to something in her work, but haven't been able to trace it. She did write about issues related to colonialism, though.
The Swinster Pharmacy - in some ways a mysterious place, but there does not seem to be a particular puzzle about what they sell there. The owner is not called 'Swinster', creating a new mystery about the name. The door hisses, as in the other book.
Does an oyster really look like a virus?
The really curious thing about this, of course, is that the solution Lemony comes up with is not correct, even though it is the 'right' solution. Ms Dressing did not really forget anything.
I don't think the 'Snicket File' referred to here can actually be the same as the one that features in ASOUE; that was (in the end, at least) a file kept by the Snickets on the misdeeds of Count Olaf, while this is just VFD's file on the Snickets.
Message Recorded
Nothing to add on this one, except that 'minutes' is an odd word for it.
Troublesome Ghost
The placing of this mystery is striking; the one before it might well be considered the denouement, and the one after it is the end. Yet in between we have this not very exceptional mystery. Is there more to it than meets the eye? Or is it placed here just to lead in to the hidden solution, which clearly does have significance for the whole book?
The mystery was quite easy to solve; I am a bit puzzled, though, as to how Billy managed to convince Lady Mann that he was her husband, just by wearing a costume her husband had once worn.
Note more pirates.
Nervous Wreck
The message is that there is no message - and yet this proves that there is a message; if no encoding at all were happening, it would be impossible to find anything hidden in the passage. This seems both to discourage us and to encourage us to look for secret meanings in the work, especially in the hidden solutions.
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Post by Dante on Apr 30, 2014 1:57:59 GMT -5
I think that Troublesome Ghost is placed between Vanished Message and Figure In Fog specifically to add a kind of lull between an important incident and the finale. I think it smooths out the spread of the more substantial stories. There might be other reasons of flow there - Vanished Message ends at the library and Figure In Fog begins at it, and that implies a kind of continuity that's separate from the desire for variety and episodicity in the arrangement of the incidents. I suspect, though, that there was probably some discussion on a publishing level about what order to print the incidents in - you'll likely notice that Figure In Fog clearly doesn't follow the published order, for instance.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Apr 30, 2014 23:39:50 GMT -5
Lois Dressing - in case people haven't spotted this yet, it's an anagram of the well-known literary and science-fiction writer Doris Lessing. I suspect 'Yamgraz' relates to something in her work, but haven't been able to trace it. She did write about issues related to colonialism, though. We/I didn't know that, I'll add it to my reference guide thread! And thanks for sharing all of your thoughts on each chapter of the book, Hermes, I enjoyed reading them. And I agree that the Snicket file mentioned in this book doesn't seem likely to be the same Snicket File from ASoUE.
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Post by Dante on May 1, 2014 1:29:01 GMT -5
Oh yes, I meant to point that out as well - well done, Hermes. I had a nagging sense that "Lois Dressing" sounded awfully familiar, and it might well be from a vague recollection of Doris Lessing's existence.
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Post by Hermes on May 1, 2014 8:12:13 GMT -5
And thanks for sharing all of your thoughts on each chapter of the book, Hermes, I enjoyed reading them. Thanks! (Though I haven't actually finished.)
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Post by Agathological on May 5, 2014 14:28:19 GMT -5
Do you think we will ever learn what the S. stands for in Markson's name or will it be a pun that will just keep dragging on?
Which of the new characters introduced will be a part of the next story? I'm edging towards the school aged children; Marguerite, Kevin etc.
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Post by Dante on May 5, 2014 16:04:56 GMT -5
I think that we'll find out what the S. stands for eventually - I could see that being late-on in ?3, or sometime in ?4. I don't think it'll just drag on; I do think there'll be a punchline to the joke. Hopefully better delivered than the revelation of Kit's name, which was hinted at for a couple of books under just the initial "K." and then was quite plainly introduced as Kit, but that was a bit subtler. I honestly think that Theodora's first name and the ongoing question of that has to be some kind of a joke with an answer that'll be either funny or interesting.
As for which characters from this will be a part of ?3... I'm kind of inclined to say none, as File Under is meant to be pretty standalone. You could even read a lot of it without having read ?2 first, as it doesn't really spoil any plot points from there. But I agree that, if anyone from it turns up in ?3, it'll be potential schoolchildren like Marguerite and Kevin and Oliver. Possibly those distillery employees Moxie alludes to Snicket having met in "Twelve or Thirteen."
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Post by Agathological on May 6, 2014 17:17:22 GMT -5
Far be it from me to derail a thread but since this is most frequented and others have't been updated in a while, I'll think I'll ask it here and delete it later.
Now, I'm not a big fan of tattoos but there is something alluring about having the V.F.D eye on you. However, I am a stickler for accuracy so I want to know which is the official version; The Helquist drew from book 1 up to 8 (Which I know isn't, but it's funny to see the drastic shift of the eye in the illustrations , the V.F.D symbol as per my signature or the one with the iris drawn into it.
Is it on the left ankle? And is it on the outside or inside?
Cheers to those that help.
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Post by bandit on May 6, 2014 17:45:09 GMT -5
It's strange, there really isn't any consistency at all with the tattoo. It being on the left ankle is an established fact, but I don't think Handler ever specifies whether it's on the outside or inside, so we have to base that off illustrations alone. In TBB there is a chapter in which Count Olaf has his leg sticking out from behind a curtain, and the tattoo is on the inside of the ankle... it's also on the inside on the cover of TE. But this does bring up the problem of how the Baudelaires can even clearly see the tattoo without some amount of deliberation.
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Post by Dante on May 7, 2014 2:16:50 GMT -5
I forget if there are page references that prove it, but the tattoo is drawn most consistently on the inside left ankle, and we generally take this as canon. As to which version of the eye to get, that's trickier. The one in your avatar is perfectly valid, but there's a more stylised version that's more often seen "out in the wild" in the series (I think the U.A. version is in exactly one illustration, in TCC, in a context which implies to me that it's for V.F.D.'s official internal documentation). However, finding a consistent version of that more stylised one is tricky, as Helquist consistently draws it incorrectly for unknown reasons, often in the same book as he'll draw it correctly - flick through TSS and you'll find the insignia in two different illustrations, drawn differently each time. If you want the version I'd pick, though, the best version and the one I regard as most canon, as well as being the clearest illustration, is the one on the frontispiece of TCC - that is, the first illustration of the book, in the centre of the Caligari Carnival banner. (Unclear versions of the same insignia can be found on tents in both TCC and TSS.) It's pointing in the right direction and has the right design for you to be able to read the letters V.F.D. (which is why it trumps the one on the cover of The End and the weird one on Olaf's ankle in TSS).
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Post by Hermes on May 7, 2014 16:17:35 GMT -5
As for which characters from this will be a part of ?3... I'm kind of inclined to say none, as File Under is meant to be pretty standalone. You could even read a lot of it without having read ?2 first, as it doesn't really spoil any plot points from there. But I agree that, if anyone from it turns up in ?3, it'll be potential schoolchildren like Marguerite and Kevin and Oliver. Possibly those distillery employees Moxie alludes to Snicket having met in "Twelve or Thirteen." Well, TUA and TBL did feed back into the main series in a way, though they're not actually required for understanding it (except the Sebald Code in TPP), so it wouldn't be surprising if this did too. I agree that the distillery, which I should have mentioned earlier, is significant; and I wouldn't be surprised if Leroy appeared again, or at least were relevant to something. As for the children, it seems that Marguerite and Oliver will be leaving town soon - but Kevin and Florence are certainly plausible.
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Post by Hermes on May 21, 2014 15:32:53 GMT -5
Figure in Fog.
The fog is indeed mysterious. Most of the other things L mentions here are part of the larger plot that has already come up, but this introduces a new mystery.
L thinks that the figure in the fog might be an associate of his; this links up with what happens in the thirteenth chapter of other books. That he mentions root beer floats might be seen as pointing to a particular associate; but we have been stung before in relation to this.
As Dante pointed out, the various places L goes through don't follow the order of the chapters they refer to. In general, he thinks not of the mysteries themselves, but of what they show about the state of the town. But some interesting points emerge: The fish-scale mosaics, which were only mentioned in passing in Troublesome Ghost, come up again; are they significant? Leroy is mentioned again; he seems to be a genuine unsolved mystery. The mention of Marguerite's mother is significant; her absence wasn't treated as puzzling in the story, but clearly it is. She had an interest in Finnish poets; might she be a Baudelaire? But she also reminds us of other absent mothers, including Ellington's.
Seth seems to think that the mysterious figure is Ellington. They seem to be drawn with more precision than is suggested by Lemony's description; he did not know if they were male or female. But note the other figure in the picture - perhaps the person who calls out. Note also the blowing papers, a theme that recurs. (I think, by the way, that the smoking chimneys in this picture make the town look more prosperous than it is.)
When in the solution L says that the investigation is continuing, does he just mean the investigation into the figure in the fog, or the wider mysteries which this chapter brings to our attention?
Last Word.
There's no saying either what the word is, or what it is the solution to. Presumably it's not the same as the shouted word, which was a separate mystery. 'Ellington' as people have pointed out, has nine letters, as does 'Armstrong'. But then, so does 'sugarbowl'.
And finally, All the Wrong Questions. It seems that the recipients of this file have not read ATWQ and need to be introduced to it. I wonder if the scene that is chosen is significant, given that there was a seeming reference back to it in 'Walkie-Talkie', and also a reference to basements in 'Beneath the Street'.
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Post by Dante on May 25, 2014 4:41:43 GMT -5
I'm inclined to think that some of the mysteries Snicket muses on in the final incident are significant more thematically than directly. We have, what, lost or destroyed or neglected culture, mysterious strangers who nobody in town knows much about (and how many of those are there in ATWQ?), more absent parents... All of these, I would say, are really points about ATWQ and Stain'd more generally, and what the town's decline and the mystery of the series are doing to the people who live there.
Good point about the ambiguity of the Shouted Word solution; I'm inclined to think that it's deliberate. The investigation into the figure in fog is ongoing, but that is part of the wider mystery of Stain'd, which is still to be resolved. It would be convenient if you could say that the key question of the series is "Who is Hangfire?" or "Who is Ellington?", but we don't even know who we should be asking about, and which is just a wrong question.
Good point about the ATWQ advert in the book; I thought it was a little odd that it indicates it'll advertise the whole series, but then only has a pitch for the first book. Well, it makes sense that they'd do it that way, but it feels a little bit incomplete to me. I do think that File Under is absolutely meant to be accessible to people who haven't read ATWQ, though, which is why it's presented as its own thing, not bound by the styles or conventions of ATWQ proper.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 10, 2014 9:21:44 GMT -5
It strikes me that it would be an interesting idea for fanfic to make the Swinster Pharmacy a portal between worlds. Though how useful this idea is would depend on whether Stain'd survives the end of the series.
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