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Post by Dante on Sept 25, 2014 10:50:44 GMT -5
Today is the day! The third book in All the Wrong Questions, entitled "Shouldn't You Be in School?", is officially released today (and never mind the unofficial release). As such, it needs an official discussion thread. Please post your general thoughts, ideas, reactions, reflections, comments, and, of course - questions.
As of October 14th, spoiler tags have expired. If you have not yet read the book, exercise extreme caution reading the forum, as unmarked spoilers will now appear. If you still wish to use spoiler tags, type them as follows:
[spoiler]Beatrice is the Baudelaire mother. (What do you mean, that's not a spoiler any more?)[/spoiler]
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Post by Agathological on Sept 25, 2014 13:13:57 GMT -5
just had a quick look at the image for chapter 2; come on Seth! Show us Marksons face!
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Post by Hermes on Sept 26, 2014 8:53:50 GMT -5
Here is my review of SYBIS. It is meant not to be very spoilery, but as people's tolerance for these things varies I'm still putting it under a spoiler marker. In the latest episode of Lemony's adventures in Stain'd-by-the-Sea, he struggles with new forms of villainy, finds out more - but not enough - about the dastardly plot he is confronting, and becomes more of an independent operator. Arson, as was predicted, plays an important part in the story, beginning at a surprisingly early point in the book, but theft and kidnapping, the themes of the two previous books, are present as well. Some disasters are averted, but the situation at the end is far from being a happy one.
The story is deliberately hard to follow, with many references to a fragmentary plot - this is of course a pun on 'plot' - and I will have to read it again before I can be sure how some things fit together. It is hard to tell, until the end, what Lemony is up to, hard to tell what the villains are up to, and especially hard to tell what a certain other character is up to.
One of the most striking things in this book is the clearest explanation we have ever had of the nature of VFD, including a completely open statement of what the initials stand for. Nothing, I think, would be a complete surprise to a careful reader of ASOUE, but it's still good to have it explained so explicitly. One aspect of what we learn makes me especially happy.
The literary references are, as ever, a delight; I got a few of them (including, I think, a character mentioned in Ch. 2), but I will need to do some investigating in the next few days.
As often in Snicketland, the time-scale is rather hard to follow, and at one point rather a lot seems to have happened overnight.
Also in this book: - we see a rather different side to Theodora. - we find out something about Theodora's previous apprentice. - Lemony adds two new members to his circle of associates, which now numbers eight - or perhaps nine - in all. Will we meet four more in the last book? - we hear something, though not enough, about Jacques. - a volunteer appears in the last chapter, not one I think any of us were expecting, and we may have to do a bit of retconning to accommodate them.
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Post by Dante on Sept 30, 2014 2:30:03 GMT -5
This is now the ?3 Official Discussion Thread! Please note the spoiler policy in the opening post - use spoiler tags for the following week or so, but so long as you do that, don't worry too much about where you're posting.
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Post by Isadora Is a Door on Sept 30, 2014 3:51:35 GMT -5
Before i begin the now traditional hunt for a copy of the book, As i no longer have my uk version of ?1 and ?2 (me and aka did swapsies, which i'm happy about as i prefer the US covers but anyway) is ?3UK any different in size than ?2UK or ?1UK ?
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Post by Dante on Sept 30, 2014 4:50:23 GMT -5
It's the same size as ?2UK, which is slightly bigger than ?1UK (though the ?1UK and ?2UK paperbacks are I think the same size).
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Post by Isadora Is a Door on Sept 30, 2014 11:30:24 GMT -5
ah, i see.
two points before i settle down to start reading. 1. I thought today that the first book was investigating a theft that had never happened, however, in the end, a theft or two did occur. the second book began with a kidnapping that had never happened, however, in the end, a kidnapping or several did occur so... will the third book begin with a arson that had never happened? i'll come back to this at the end. 2. The number of images on the cover ARE reducing per book, dante was correct. it depends on how you approach things....
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Post by thedoctororwell on Sept 30, 2014 12:08:50 GMT -5
Edward M. Forster, 'What I Believe' :
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Post by Hermes on Sept 30, 2014 12:29:25 GMT -5
Thank you Doctor! We seem to have found a new VFD member!
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Post by Dante on Sept 30, 2014 13:11:40 GMT -5
Be careful about what you do and don't put in spoiler tags, though I think this instance is fine. I also looked this up - along similar lines are that we'll have plenty to look up in terms of the books Lemony recommends over the course of the story. I recognised one and was quite easily able to dig up another: The Red Pony by John Steinbeck (I think Snicket, or Handler, has treated him unkindly before), and Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.
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Post by Hermes on Sept 30, 2014 14:39:19 GMT -5
Lemony himself, of course, is less careful with spoilers. '"Well," I said, spoiling the book for them and for you...'
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Post by Dante on Sept 30, 2014 15:04:26 GMT -5
It can be a problem with recommending Agatha Christie. Her classics tend to be defined by her twists; such is the case with my favourite.
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
Posts: 15,891
Likes: 113
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Post by Antenora on Sept 30, 2014 15:06:59 GMT -5
This is an amazing book for (among other things) character development. I did not suspect we'd see Prosper Lost as a brave firefighter. Let alone Theodora admitting she's out of her depth and has made some mistakes. Of course, positive character development may not bode well for their survival in a murder book. Kellar Haines is also an interesting character; it becomes clear that he's trying to covertly help Lemony without letting his mother (or any bystanders) have any idea what he's doing. And Sharon is a lot like Sally Murphy-- nervously playing a role for Hangfire's plan, but she seems a lot more willing to participate. The Ellington meeting is quite strange; I think this is the first time Snicket has had a viewpoint character in an altered state of consciousness. Ellington (sorry, Filene) is very courageous and skilled. So is Ornette, and it occurs to me that her origami is foreshadowed by Chapter One's reference to the polysemy of "folded." I was skeptical that a real Beast would show up, but what else could that pond creature be? It must be an advanced growth stage of the tadpoles. Someone previously drew a connection between these critters and certain cinematic cloned dinosaurs; though I wonder if what we're seeing is more akin to a chickenosaurus-- a modern creature genetically tweaked into something more primitive and fearsome. Perhaps the "tadpoles" also need to be well-fed in order to grow this much. Fisheries need loyal workers and a constant food supply, and I have a terrible suspicion that the former may sometimes become the latter. On a related note, I am not entirely clear about the identity of the various papery materials found in the vicinity of Wade Academy. Some might be stimulant bark, others something more sinister. Note that some such material provokes Lemony to speculate that the pond creature is growing-- and reptiles cast off a papery skin each time they grow. I am also reminded of the "paper" on the Beast statue-- a DNA sample? Chapter Twelve was a rollercoaster of surprise and subversion-- the purpose of the romantic hayride is for Lemony to call out Ellington on her treachery; Lemony's predecessor turns out not to be Olaf but his name appears anyway; and the library is destroyed by water (itself an inversion of the usual Snicket pattern), only it turns out that all the real books have been safely removed. Except one-- and what a cruel irony that Lemony was too distracted to read more of it in Chapter One! Another thing I loved is the hint at an age-old, globe-spanning war between secret organizations, involving a thousand fragmentary plots-- even above and beyond the game of thirteen-dimensional chess which we have witnessed in Stain'd. And I think Lemony's speech about VFD and its "aristocracy" is very inspiring-- I might even say that it's what we, as readers and researchers, strive to be. Never mind that it was plagiarized (Orwell found the source elsewhere).
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Post by Dante on Sept 30, 2014 15:09:59 GMT -5
On a related note, I am not entirely clear about the identity of the various papery materials found in the vicinity of Wade Academy. Some might be stimulant bark, others something more sinister. Note that some such material provokes Lemony to speculate that the pond creature is growing-- and reptiles cast off a papery skin each time they grow. I am also reminded of the "paper" on the Beast statue-- a DNA sample? Everyone should pay attention to this. I'd figured out that this was the stuff pasted to the bottom of the Bombinating Beast statue, though I can't for the life of me imagine why. But it being the cast-off skin of the second(?) Beast I am now certain is true... even if it still doesn't explain what it's doing on the bottom of the statue. If it was pasted over the statue's mouth, then I could believe in the old Bombinating kazoo theory, but on the bottom, I'm stuck.
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takato
Bewildered Beginner
Posts: 1
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Post by takato on Sept 30, 2014 18:26:56 GMT -5
For those curious, the book whose title that Lemony and Moxie have trouble spelling and that Hix thinks isn't very good is probably A Separate Peace by John Knowles, and the book with the scientist, the boy, the house, the woman, the cloud, and the brain is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.
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