|
Post by veryferociousdrama on Jul 7, 2019 15:47:48 GMT -5
Read! Read! Read!
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 8, 2019 5:52:38 GMT -5
Chapter One
‘there was a phone in a small booth in the corner that was nearly always in use’ (p. 3) Since this is starting to come up often, I suppose my explanation would be that most people staying in the Lost Arms are far from home, family, and work, and looking to find or return to those as soon as possible. It’s a sign that everyone in Stain’d-by-the-Sea is more interested in the outside world than in remaining where they are.
‘You also couldn’t be sure when Hangfire would turn up again, or what his scheme might be.’ (p. 5) This seems to be establishing a status quo which I’m not convinced actually exists at this point.
‘Recently my sister and I had been communicating through the library system. Now she seemed to be telling me that it would no longer be possible.’ (p. 6) Since ?1 (p. 82) appeared to establish that Kit and her chaperone worked at the research desk of the Fourier Branch, it is somewhat mysterious that this line of communication should be cut off. Perhaps Kit’s chaperone realised what she was up to? I’m sure Kit must have been apprenticed to someone ranked rather higher than S. Theodora Markson.
“Then you should find another companion […] rather than visiting a museum by yourself.” (p. 6) That’s not what you were suggesting at the end of ?1, Snicket!
“Give Jacques my regards” (p. 7) I think this is the only allusion to Lemony’s brother in the entire series. Such a wasted character.
‘Another way of saying this’ (p. 9) is an unusually ASoUEesque stylistic flourish.
“We were given this important case because of our earlier success with the theft of the statue of the Bombinating Beast.” (p. 11) How exactly Theodora is given her cases continues to be mysterious. Was she contacted directly by Zada and Zora? Or did they contact V.F.D. and they in turn handed it on to Theodora? In this case, I think we can fairly say that the real reason Lemony and Theodora were given this case is because they’re the only free volunteers in town.
‘I was tired of hearing about the apprentice before me. Theodora had liked him better, which made me think he was worse.’ (p. 11) If you regard Beatrice’s co-star in TBL as having possibly been Bertrand, Lemony’s really spent much of his life being suspicious of that individual. It’s one of the few instances where I think Lemony’s subjective perspective might genuinely be biased.
‘The only things in the photograph that did not look brand-new were the hat she was wearing, which was round and the color of a raspberry’ (p. 13) Please see my note to ?1 page 133.
|
|
|
Post by Foxy on Jul 8, 2019 8:13:23 GMT -5
Personal Notes: “Theodora had an impressive vocabulary, which can be charming if it is used at a convenient time.” (1): this is where Snicket learned it. “It is like saying ‘I probably won’t hit you with a shovel.’” (2) Who asks for a bowl cut? (4) Why does Polly Partial believe anything people tell her? (4) “and he never eats fresh fruit or vegetables” (5) This explains so much. Are the tadpoles actually Lachrymose Leeches? (9) “I’d seen them once on a trip to the mountains with my parents.” (10): Mortmain Mountains? Hangfire climbed down the bandage as it unraveled, just like Dewey in TPP (11) If all the police in Snicket’s world are like the Mitchums, it’s no wonder Count Olaf is never captured. (12) The moths from the tree that was chopped down seem to be bothering Dashiell Qwerty. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHEN DID YOU SEE HER LAST?
CHARACTERS:Pocket (note before the second title page) Lemony Snicket (1) S. Theodora Markson (1) Prosper Lost (1) Ellington Feint (1) Kit Snicket (1): he is on the phone with her! Hangfire (1) Jacques (m) (1) previous apprentice (1) (m): Who was this person? Miss Cleo Knight (1) Zada (2) Zora (2): Are Zada and Zora the two women with white powder all over their faces? Mr. Ignatius Knight (2) Mrs. Doretta Knight (2) Dr. Flammarion (2) Ingrid Nummet Knight (2): Cleo’s grandmother, founder of Ink Inc. nurse with a sharp knife (2) Polly Partial (3): owner of partial foods Hungry Hix (3): owner of Hungry’s Jake Hix (3): Hungry’s nephew Bouvard Bellerophon (3) Pip? Pecuchet Bellerophon (3) Squeak? their father (3) (m): he’s always sick Moxie Mallahan (3) Colonel Colophon (4) (m): Ingrid’ business partner; injured in an unveiling of a statue in his honor; there was an explosion, and now he lives in the clinic: he does not live in the clinic anymore – he was thrown out the window. (11) Stew Mitchum (m) (4): he is actually quite dangerous (9) Harvey Mitchum (5) Mimi Mitchum (5) Dashiell Qwerty (6) Snicket’s parents (m) (6): they sound like fierce and formidable people Moxie’s mother (m) (6) a mysterious woman (6): Nurse Dander (7) Dame Sally Murphy (m) (8) Murphy Sallis (m) (8) Armstrong Feint (m) (8): likes wine. Also Hangfire likes wine. Are they the same person? (11) one of his friends who captured her first bat (12) Widdershins (13) Gustav (m) (13): he is on the submarine with Widdershins RIGHT QUESTION:How could someone who was missing be in two places at once? (1) Why was she wearing an article of clothing she did not own? (2) How can a town find out what’s going on if nobody’s there to report it? (5) QUESTIONS FROM THE FLAP:Did you get the message? Who has the formula? What’s for breakfast? Schoenberg Cereal/cinnamon rolls REFERENCES (real and made up):book where a guy named Johnny takes a train and goes to Constantinople in 1453 (3) a book about a lighthouse (3) a book about a girl named Amanda, who is either a witch or a step-sister or both (4) Despair (6) Chemistry (6) a book about a girl who spies on her neighbors (6) a book about creepy notes that ruin a family’s summer (6) a book about a family that doesn’t change even though the children want it to (6) an author from Sweden (7): wrote a book about a girl with long braids who has adventures with her neighbors the big fight over an apple and a pretty woman (9) a book about Kit and Nathaniel (10) the book about the girl who goes to live with the Reeds (12) SNICKET DICTIONARY:a fifth wheel: someone who is of no help at all (3) asinine: not very smart (7) defenestration: throwing someone out a window (11) eternal enemies : moths (6) flinch: the usual reaction people have to a loud noise or unfortunate event (12) his ear to the ground: his ear to our conversation (13) impertinent: not suitable to the circumstances (3) indulging: doing something that is not really necessary (6) intimidating: it was supposed to scare me (5) no reality has the power to dispel a dream: no matter what happens in the world, you can keep thinking about something, particularly if it’s something you like (13) provoke: to irritate someone so much that they might not notice what’s going on around them (7) the triumph of hope over experience: it’s never going to happen (2) GEOGRAPHY:Lost Arms (1) Stain’d-by-the-Sea (1) Hungry’s (1) Clusterous Forest (1) Ink Inc. (2) Partial Foods (1) Black Cat Coffee (1) Colophon Clinic (2) Handkerchief heights (3) the lighthouse (3) City Hall (5) Library (5) Museum of Items (m) (6): place Kit is going to rob Wade Academy (6) Offshore Island (6) Diceys Department Store (7) Les Gommes (7) “UARIU” (7): aquarium Killdeer Fields (8) Corner of Caravan and Parfait (8) FOODOLOGY:fried egg served on a towel (1) apple (1) cinnamon roll (2) Schoenberg Cereal (2) honey dew melons (3) canned smelt (3) coffee (4) pineapple (4) bread (9) gashouse eggs (10) S:Silence! (2) Such a tone! (13) ‘there was a phone in a small booth in the corner that was nearly always in use’ (p. 3) Since this is starting to come up often, I suppose my explanation would be that most people staying in the Lost Arms are far from home, family, and work, and looking to find or return to those as soon as possible. It’s a sign that everyone in Stain’d-by-the-Sea is more interested in the outside world than in remaining where they are. If the town is so abandoned, how are there so many people visiting the hotel that the telephone is always in use? Unless she took #51. Say, if L & K are doing their apprenticeships at the same time, are they twins? I agree with you. I think Lemony is predisposed to not liking Bertrand based on this experience.
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 9, 2019 13:23:04 GMT -5
Are the tadpoles actually Lachrymose Leeches? (9) This seems unlikely, given their relationship to the Bombinating Beast; but not impossible. There's some extremely obscure evidence in ASoUE that Kit and Jacques are twins, but not Kit and Lemony. In ?1, Hector is only just twelve, while Lemony is almost thirteen; but Hector's already working under a chaperone, so it seems clear that age is not necessarily a factor in when neophytes are apprenticed. And I had assumed it to be a period lasting up to several years. Chapter TwoZada and Zora’s maid uniforms are conveniently monochrome, fitting the family theme. Do they share some conceptual DNA with the white-faced women? Perhaps, but I don’t think they can be one and the same. (p. 18) “We’re the Knight family servants. Don’t worry about telling us apart. Miss Knight is the only one who can. […] We’re the ones who took her home from the hospital when she was born.” (p. 19) It’s quite evident that Zada and Zora are Cleo’s true parental figures. It’s almost not worth drugging the Knight elders. “The Knights were just packing up to move when this dreadful thing happened.” (p. 20) My recollection is that it’s never entirely clear if the Knights actually do leave town, or when. In their drug-addled state, it’s not clear how the Knights could have the willpower to make such a decision or follow it through. It’s not clear if Ignatius Nettle Knight and Doretta Knight genuinely refer to their daughter as “Miss Knight,” or if they’re simply repeating the words being fed to them. It’s conceivable that they do relate to her so remotely, though; as noted, Zada and Zora are clearly far closer to Cleo. In which case, it’s almost not worth drugging them. (p. 22) Dr. Flammarion is established in ?1, on page 197. The idea of Hangfire having willing accomplices is as yet novel, so it’s not necessarily evident that that’s what Flammarion is, even if he is a clear villain. (p. 23) “For years, Dr. Flammarion worked at the Colophon Clinic, just outside town, before coming here to treat the Knights.” (p. 25) The timeline of ATWQ’s backstory is extremely vague, but this is interesting on a number of levels. Flammarion was clearly no friend of Colonel Colophon, so was he simply keeping himself in money and Colophon in check while he was working there? And what did the Knights need treating for? “It made Miss Knight very lonely […] It is a lonely feeling when someone you care about becomes a stranger.” (pp. 25-26) So Cleo, at least, cares about her parents, though it’s not clear that the reverse is true. Such is sometimes the case. “The Dilemma was one of the fanciest automobiles manufactured.” (p. 27) Business, we understand, has not been going well for Ink Inc.; but apparently they can still afford a car that must cost a small fortune.” “Mr. and Mrs. Knight give their daughter whatever she wants […] New clothes, a new car, and all sorts of equipment for her experiments.” (p. 28) This provides an alternative perspective on the Knight parents – as doting, to the extent of it sounding like they spoil their daughter. Again, though, it’s possible to read this as them furnishing her only with material goods as a substitute for genuine emotional engagement. “She probably inherited her abilities from her grandmother […] Ingrid Nummet Knight founded Ink Inc. when she was a young scientist, after years of experimenting with many different inks from many different creatures.” (pp. 28-29) Ingrid Nummet Knight is in my opinion a character we don’t learn enough about. We’re encouraged, I think, to regard her as a positive figure next to her tycoon son; but how was that ink extracted? (We might also ask questions about her association with Colonel Colophon.) Cleo’s new invisible ink, as far as we can tell, is based on non-animal resources. “When are you leaving?” “Whenever the Knights give the word.” (p. 29) I suppose Dr. Flammarion must have sufficient sway over the Knights to be able to effectively order them to order their servants to pack up and go. “Dr. Flammarion stopped Zora from calling the police and suggested we call you instead.” (p. 33) Was it always Hangfire’s plan to get Lemony and Theodora involved? It’s not clear why, so perhaps this was a desperate move to bring in a less competent investigator. But then again, Lemony frustrated Hangfire’s plans in ?1 – and the police are the Mitchums! Would they really have done a better job? Perhaps what Hangfire really wanted was for Lemony to get Ellington out of a scrape – a scrape he must have known she was in, given that two of his cohorts were keeping two separate Cleo Knights prisoner. ‘I followed my chaperone as she followed Zada and Zora through the packed-up house, with Dr. Flammarion close behind me, his breath as unpleasant as the rest of him. Soon we were in a room I recognized from the photograph’ (p. 33) It’s interesting that this description refers to the corporate tower as a ‘house’, and doesn’t mention stairs. It’s later established that Cleo is afraid of heights, so I tend to imagine that her bedroom was also on the ground floor, perhaps with the Knights’ personal lodgings, with business conducted on the higher floors. ‘The first was the scent of the sea, a strong and briny smell that still came from the seaweed of the Clusterous Forest when the wind was blowing in the direction of Stain’d-by-the-Sea.’ (p. 35) This smell is consistently associated with Hangfire. In this case, though, it seems to be because Cleo’s ingredients come from the drained valley – from “near Offshore Island, just a short hike from [Handkerchief Heights]” (p. 260). The two blank pages are a kind of inversion of the two dark pages from TEE (pp. 182-183), and another unusually ASoUEesque formal flourish in this book. (pp. 38-39) ‘But the curious thing was that the nothingness was finally a clue I could use.’ (p. 40) Was it, though?
|
|
|
Post by Hermes on Jul 9, 2019 16:48:08 GMT -5
Regarding ages: we know that Hector is doing his apprenticeship at the same time as Lemony, despite being almost a year younger. When we read this before, the most likely speculation seemed to be that one's graduation and apprenticeship depended on when one was recruited; and we know, from 'The Little Snicket Lad', that the Snicket siblings were recruited at the same time.
(This may lead us to wonder about Olaf - although he was in the same class as L at school, he may be quite a bit older, which would fit with the idea that he was previously at Wade Academy. On the other hand, according to TPP he knew Beatrice when he was seven, so the difference can't be that great.)
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 10, 2019 7:40:51 GMT -5
Chapter Three
‘Zada and Zora had insisted that Miss Knight would have left a note if she had run away, but Dr. Flammarion had said there was no note.’ (p. 43) No he didn’t.
‘But I had found a sort of half note—a message written in invisible ink that hadn’t worked. Miss Knight was a chemist. She would have known that invisible ink hardly ever works.’ (pp. 43-44) This note will later transpire to be more or less a red herring.
‘I was standing in front of a Dilemma. There are people in the world who care about automobiles, and there are people who couldn’t care less, and then there are the people who are impressed by the Dilemma, and those people are everyone.’ (p. 45) Even so, Lemony’s fawning over this car has always stood out to me as strange and unlike him.
‘I could not imagine who would eat such a thing in a kitchen where fresh-baked cinnamon rolls could be had.’ (pp. 49-50) Cleo is perhaps an individual of idiosyncratic tastes.
‘It was the kind of needle doctors like to stick you with, and it was sticking out of the flattened tire.’ (p. 54) Evidently the Dilemma’s tyres are not quite so sturdy as the rest of it. Kind of Dr. Flammarion to leave a clue like that lying around, but it’s possible to conceive that he may not have had time to remove it.
‘and shaggy red hair in his eyes’ (p. 56) Try to reconcile Jake’s description with Seth’s suave illustration.
“I work for her in exchange for room and board.” (p. 57) Implying that he has parents elsewhere who he could be living with, but isn’t. One wonders why. I’m not sure if we get more information on the subject.
“Going to see your friend again, in Handkerchief Heights?” (p. 61) As it later transpires, Pip and Squeak had already given Ellington Feint a taxi ride somewhere completely different; and we also learn that the hideout Cleo’s set up is in fact in Handkerchief Heights. Pip and Squeak shouldn’t have said this, and Jake shouldn’t have let it slide.
|
|
|
Post by Foxy on Jul 10, 2019 8:08:58 GMT -5
Zada and Zora’s maid uniforms are conveniently monochrome, fitting the family theme. Do they share some conceptual DNA with the white-faced women? Perhaps, but I don’t think they can be one and the same. (p. 18) What makes you think they are not the same person? My hypothesis is the Knights are extremely wealthy and maybe hypochondriacs, so Flammarion easily duped them into thinking they were ill and needed medicine. Is Colonel Colophon a good guy? Regarding ages: we know that Hector is doing his apprenticeship at the same time as Lemony, despite being almost a year younger. When we read this before, the most likely speculation seemed to be that one's graduation and apprenticeship depended on when one was recruited; and we know, from 'The Little Snicket Lad', that the Snicket siblings were recruited at the same time. So Jacques may have been doing his apprenticeship at the same time? ‘I was standing in front of a Dilemma. There are people in the world who care about automobiles, and there are people who couldn’t care less, and then there are the people who are impressed by the Dilemma, and those people are everyone.’ (p. 45) Even so, Lemony’s fawning over this car has always stood out to me as strange and unlike him. Is it a guy thing to like cars? I mean, I am sure there are some women who are really interested in cars, but this has always struck me as an interest of men more than women. This surprises me, though, considering her boyfriend is Jake Hix, cooker of food real and good. Probably for the same reason all the kids' parents in this series are MIA, other than Prosper. Has anyone else listened to the audiobooks read by Liam Aiken? His voices for Prosper and Qwerty are scary. Does anyone else get the title of this book messed up a lot? I always think it is "When Did You Last See Her?"
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 10, 2019 11:27:04 GMT -5
Zada and Zora’s maid uniforms are conveniently monochrome, fitting the family theme. Do they share some conceptual DNA with the white-faced women? Perhaps, but I don’t think they can be one and the same. (p. 18) What makes you think they are not the same person? No positive evidence, and arguable negative evidence in the form of their completely different personalities. I'd also expect some nod to white or powdered faces, an absent third sibling, etcetera. The white-faced women aren't even described as being identical. Good idea. Reasonable. He could also have offered to alleviate the anxiety they must have felt at the deteriorating state of their business. I expect I'll be thinking about this later. My perception at present is too coloured by the backstory I constructed for The Stain'd Myth Murders. That appears to be the cliché, but I wouldn't really know about such things. Yes, that thought crossed my mind as well. We learn later that Cleo and Ellington first met up some weeks previous; could Cleo have switched to Schoenberg Cereal then, to establish it as a characteristic which Ellington could then duplicate? I've always wondered what the ATWQ audiobooks are like. How did you find them overall? The fact that it's not necessarily the natural formation is exactly why I don't get it messed up; but it's understandable.
|
|
|
Post by Christmas Chief on Jul 10, 2019 11:40:28 GMT -5
‘Recently my sister and I had been communicating through the library system. Now she seemed to be telling me that it would no longer be possible.’ (p. 6) Since ?1 (p. 82) appeared to establish that Kit and her chaperone worked at the research desk of the Fourier Branch, it is somewhat mysterious that this line of communication should be cut off. Perhaps Kit’s chaperone realised what she was up to? I’m sure Kit must have been apprenticed to someone ranked rather higher than S. Theodora Markson. Yes, this strikes me as a probable explanation. It doesn't take a great detective to figure out that I'll Measure it Myself by Don T. Worry is not an actual book title. I suppose Hector pricked his conscience after all. If it is no great trouble, could you quote yourself? I'd like to read your references, but they can get difficult to track in the threads. Notes on Chapter 1: Chapter 1
“Instead, I asked the wrong question—four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the second.” “Four wrong questions” does make it sound like the four titular questions are the key reasons Lemony failed, as opposed to four wrong questions Lemony asked along the way that proved inopportune for various reasons. Nonetheless, the latter seems to better describe how these “wrong questions” are used throughout the series. “It was cold and it was morning and I needed a haircut.” I like that this transition mirrors the structure of the first line but with Lemony’s present dilemma in mind. It shows it’s self-aware of the melodramatic feel the opening lines in ATWQ can have. “When you need a haircut, it looks like you have no one to take care of you. In my case it was true. There was no one taking care of me at the Lost Arms, the hotel in which I found myself living.” Another line emphasizing Lemony’s need for a good chaperone. He wants independence to complete his mission in the city, but also desires someone to take care of him. With S. Theodora Markson, he has neither. “There was a man named Prosper Lost, who ran the place with a smile that made me step back as if it were something crawling out of a drawer …” Lost’s smile carries much of the suspicious / sinister impression we get of him in ?1, so it’s fitting he’s introduced with it in ?2. “There was a careful pause before she said ‘Good morning.’ ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘I’m conducting a voluntary survey. ‘A survey’ means you’ll be answering questions, and ‘voluntary’ means—’’I know what voluntary means,’ I interrupted, as planned.” I wonder when they could have been in communication to plan this? “‘What if there were no other suitable companions?’ she asked, and then her voice changed, as if someone had walked into the room. ‘That’s my third question, sir.’” Why does Lemony in particular need to be Kit’s accomplice to this mission? “Another way of saying this is that it is vexing. Another way of saying this is that it is annoying. Another way of saying this is that it is bothersome. Another way of saying this is that it is exasperating. Another way of saying this is that it is troublesome. Another way of saying this is that it is chafing. Another way of saying this is that it is nettling. Another way of saying this is that it is ruffling. Another way of saying this is that it is infuriating or enraging or aggravating or embittering or envenoming, or that it gets one’s goat or raises one’s dander or makes one’s blood boil or gets one hot under the collar or blue in the face or mad as a wet hen or on the warpath or in a huff or up in arms or in high dudgeon, and as you can see, it also wastes time when there isn’t any time to waste.” A game we see sometimes in ASOUE, like in the “ever” sequence in TRR. “Black Cat Coffee had a solitary figure at the counter, pressing one of the three automated buttons that gave customers coffee, bread, or access to the attic, which had served as a good hiding place.” Not really, though. Lemony found the place Ellington tried to hide her package almost immediately. This scene in ?1 would have worked better, I think, if there were some kind of puzzle or code attached to opening the attic. “Inside was nothing but a piece of paper with a photograph of a girl several years older than I was. She had hair so blond it looked white … the hat she was wearing [was] the color of a raspberry …” A photograph … in color?! “But the sea had been drained away, leaving behind an eerie, lawless expanse of seaweed that somehow still lived even when the water had disappeared. Nowadays there were few octopi left, and eventually there would be nothing at all but the shimmering seaweed of the Clusterous Forest. Soon everything will go missing, Snicket, I thought to myself.” Lemony uses “missing” here similar to how he uses “fading” in ?1. That is, one wouldn’t normally use the term in the context Lemony applies it. “Missing” usually implies that one does not know where the disappeared thing has gone, which doesn’t apply to the octopi or the remnants of the town. Lemony’s use of the word connotes an emotional unknown, perhaps. I also note that this is a classic case of Lemony’s tendency to despair. “Soon ‘everything’ will go missing,” he says. He’s quick to generalize misfortune, and this tendency is magnified by the time he grows up to narrate ASOUE.
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 11, 2019 5:16:43 GMT -5
Please see my note to ?1 page 133. If it is no great trouble, could you quote yourself? I'd like to read your references, but they can get difficult to track in the threads. Some of the items in Ellington’s suitcase, like the “long, fancy evening gown” and “red wig”, seem like they might have been placed for possible use in later books, though I don’t believe they are ultimately employed; the “two small hats I’d seen on the heads of Frenchmen in old photographs” “both the color of a raspberry” (p. 133) will appear in ?2, at least. “Instead, I asked the wrong question—four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the second.” “Four wrong questions” does make it sound like the four titular questions are the key reasons Lemony failed, as opposed to four wrong questions Lemony asked along the way that proved inopportune for various reasons. Nonetheless, the latter seems to better describe how these “wrong questions” are used throughout the series. Good analysis; I happen to agree. I'm all the more convinced he would have made a good red herring for Hangfire; though I suppose arguably he's a red herring for himself, as we subsequently learn that he's far from a terrible person. Off-screen interlibrary loan requests? Maybe there are other suitable companions who are similarly indisposed. Nonetheless, we later learn that Ellington had indeed been hiding out in the attic between ?1 and ?2. Chapter Four“I know I haven’t been around lately, Moxie” (p. 66) This is another instance of it seeming like Moxie doesn’t leave her home very much, if Snicket not going there means not seeing her; nonetheless, on the following page she remarks on having seen Cleo’s Missing poster up around town. “If it’s something to do with that girl who took that statue […] I’m not interested at all.” (p. 67) Moxie has never met Ellington, though it’s possible she saw her briefly when she escaped towards the end of ?1. But if she’s had the history of ?1 recounted to her, she’ll know Ellington only as a liar and a thief, and as someone who Lemony has a strange bias towards – while he leaves Moxie sitting around at home. It’s little wonder if Moxie develops a predisposition against Ellington. She’s probably right to do so. ‘There was a pot of coffee bubbling away, so I knew her father was somewhere close by, but Moxie did not mention him’ (p. 68) I don’t think Moxie’s father ever appears again after his one brief showing in ?1. In a way, he’s as absent as her mother. ‘It is my great hope that this portion of the story, should it ever be published, is not illustrated, as a person looks like a fool with a bowl over his head.’ (pp. 69-70) It’s rare for Snicket’s text to mention the illustrations; he would occasionally allude to props to aid Mr. Helquist in the ASoUE Kind Editor letters, but some of those were never actually illustrated (Dr. Lucafont in TRR, for instance). It’s my understanding that authors, and Handler personally, rarely have much control over these things; but this is a more or less unique example of Handler pretty actively pushing to get a certain scene illustrated. “Ingrid Nummet Knight, Cleo’s grandmother, was the genius who founded Ink Inc. along with her business partner, Colonel Colophon, our town’s greatest war hero. Ingrid died some time ago and left the company to her son, Ignatius Nettle Knight. Cleo’s father is not a genius at all, nor a scientist. He is a tycoon, which is a sort of businessperson, and business has not gone well.” “Colonel Colophon was not injured in the war. He was injured at the unveiling of a statue in his honor. It was a huge statue, right in front of the library, depicting him untangling a child’s kite from a tree while a battle raged all around him. But there was an explosion at the unveiling, and the colonel suffered terrible burns. There was a special clinic built, way out on the outskirts of town, to help him with his injuries. The colonel was wrapped up in so many bandages he looked like a mummy. He’s lived at the clinic ever since.” “It was his [Ingatius Nettle Knight’s] idea to drain the sea so that Ink Inc. might harvest the last of the octopi inkwells. It turned out to be a very expensive plan.” (pp. 73-74) All interesting stuff, though I’m not convinced Handler agreed. I’ve tended to get the impression that the Colophon Clinic was built in the drained valley, which would put the date of the explosion as after Ingrid’s death and the draining of the sea; but looking back, I’m not sure there’s any particular evidence for this. “They’re in such a state of unhurried delirium that he could steal whatever he wanted without going to the trouble of kidnapping. Besides, most of the ink money is gone.” (p. 76) This doesn’t quite seem to fit with Lemony’s ideas on page 43; but he’s had more time to think since then. “Don’t you have to tell your father you’re going out?” “I’m going out!” (p. 78) It’s curious how easy it would be to believe that Moxie’s father wasn’t even there. Please see my note to page 68. “Pip, did you and your brother take Cleo Knight anywhere yesterday morning, say about ten thirty?” (p. 78) “Cleo Knight’s never been in our cab […] and I can’t say I blame her, with a Dilemma like that.” (p. 79) As we later learn, Pip and Squeak made a significant omission here, and not necessarily a natural one. In fact, I think I may have missed an actual clue as to this. When they’re discussing Ellington briefly on page 61, Pip says “She seemed nice enough to me”; but I’m not sure he’d actually met her at any point in ?1 – and so this is an indication that they have in fact met since. Her being nice is presumably why he didn’t mention to Snicket that he and his brother had driven her somewhere at the time in question while she was dressed as Cleo Knight! Please see my note to page 61.
|
|
|
Post by Foxy on Jul 11, 2019 7:53:09 GMT -5
What makes you think they are not the same person? No positive evidence, and arguable negative evidence in the form of their completely different personalities. I'd also expect some nod to white or powdered faces, an absent third sibling, etcetera. The white-faced women aren't even described as being identical. I know it's not very strong evidence, but Z & Z are wearing white aprons that mostly cover their black clothes. I have so far only listened to the first one because my library's online borrowing system does not have ?2, but they do have 3 & 4, so I will be listening to those. My impression from the first one is that Liam Aiken is a little bit stiff of a reader who puts some emphasis on letters in words not usually emphasized, but I think he's all right as a young Snicket. “‘What if there were no other suitable companions?’ she asked, and then her voice changed, as if someone had walked into the room. ‘That’s my third question, sir.’” Why does Lemony in particular need to be Kit’s accomplice to this mission? I think because she can trust him. I just wonder how this system has worked so long in this town. “If it’s something to do with that girl who took that statue […] I’m not interested at all.” (p. 67) Moxie has never met Ellington, though it’s possible she saw her briefly when she escaped towards the end of ?1. But if she’s had the history of ?1 recounted to her, she’ll know Ellington only as a liar and a thief, and as someone who Lemony has a strange bias towards – while he leaves Moxie sitting around at home. It’s little wonder if Moxie develops a predisposition against Ellington. She’s probably right to do so. I completely agree. Moxie is level-headed about Ellington, but Lemony uses his heart instead.
|
|
|
Post by Christmas Chief on Jul 11, 2019 13:58:55 GMT -5
I'm commenting on chapter notes as I read each chapter. I hope it's not too confusing. "...We’re the ones who took her home from the hospital when she was born.” (p. 19) It’s quite evident that Zada and Zora are Cleo’s true parental figures. It’s almost not worth drugging the Knight elders. Yes, and I somehow skipped over the significance about the hospital line. It shows that the Knight parents' absence is not a side effect of their drug-addled state, but additional to it. Although if Cleo became lonely as a result of her parents being drugged, couldn't that be a sign her parents were warmer to her before? They could have invested their money in out-of-town ventures. This would add to the ink / oil analogy I mention in my notes below. I make a similar note, but didn't think of the Ellington theory. That adds clarity to the hiring decision. More likely to get misprinted, too. (That is, not printed at all.) CHAPTER 2“‘I promise to try my best,’ Theodora replied, but Zada looked at Zora—or perhaps Zora looked at Zada —and they both frowned.” Theodora may have learned from her last assignment that promises mean something and chooses to be more conservative this time. “The dark was real, though. It almost always is.” When would the dark ever not be “real”? “...a sitting room that appeared to have been entirely packed up and then unpacked for the occasion. A tall lamp sat in its box with its cord snaking out of it to the plug. A sofa sat half out of a box shaped like a sofa, and in two more open boxes sat two chairs holding the only things in the room that weren’t ready to be carried into a truck: Mr. and Mrs. Knight.” Lemony also learned something from his last case: pay attention to the furniture in the room and why it’s there. There are a lot of details about furniture in these few paragraphs. We know right away that Mr. and Mrs. Knight are being drugged by Dr. Flammarion, probably with laudanum. The mystery is: why? This is a change for ?1, where the mystery was "who?" “It was the wrong question, both when I asked it and later, when I asked the question to a man wrapped in bandages. The right question in this case was ‘Why was she wearing an article of clothing she did not own?’ but this is not an account of times when I asked the right questions, much as I wish it were.” Like in ?1, Lemony’s “wrong” question is subjectively right. It is only “wrong” given all the information about the case. It seems unhelpful to think of right and wrong in this way, except insofar as it helps one make future decisions. “Before long Ink Inc. made the Knights the wealthiest family in town. But those days are over. Ink Inc. is almost finished, and so is the town. That’s why we’re leaving Stain’d-by-the-Sea.” Another analogue that Ink in Stain’d has with oil: the Knights are ink tycoons. “I gave [Cleo's parents] an extra injection of medicine so that they might pass the afternoon in a comfortable state of unhurried delirium.” It seems like this line should strike Zora and Zada, if not Theodora, as deeply worrisome. "Medicine" of any kind is not the cure to shock (except in extreme cases, of course). But there are many unusual reactions in the Knight household. “‘I’m Zada,’ she corrected him again, ‘but it’s true. Dr. Flammarion stopped Zora from calling the police and suggested we call you instead.’” Dr. Flammarion must know that Lemony and Theodora are - on paper, at least - terrible at their jobs. On the other hand, the police are also terrible at their jobs. Flammarion must believe he has a better chance of getting away with crime with these two, or else wants something only the pair can provide. “This was not the place Miss Knight was last seen. It was simply the place Zada and Zora had seen her last. The girl had driven off in a fancy automobile. It was likely someone else had seen her afterward.” This is one of the places Lemony seems too critical of Theodora. The place Cleo’s caretakers saw her last is a perfectly reasonable place to start a search, and you never know what clues you could find on the clothes left behind. (Even if Theodora is highly unlikely to find such clues if they exist.) “A young man should not take an interest in fashion. We have a crime to solve.” I’m surprised Lemony doesn’t make any comments on this. I suppose he thinks it speaks for itself. “The third thing to know about invisible ink is that it hardly ever works.” A key detail left out of The Puzzling Puzzles.
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 12, 2019 7:51:50 GMT -5
Chapter Five
‘The police station turned out to be one long room, about the size of a bus.’ (p. 91) One half of the town hall is the police station; the other half is the library. No flights of stairs are ever mentioned. Just how small is this town hall, and just how small is this library? The smaller the better, actually, considering certain questions of scale which will be introduced in ?3.
‘It meant that the Officers Mitchum were not good police officers but they were good people. They would try to help someone in trouble. They would fail, but at least they would try’ (p. 100) I like this. It would have been very easy for the Officers Mitchum to be not merely incompetent but corrupt and openly lazy, but for all Snicket’s cynicism in this statement then it’s actually quite an optimistic view of these characters.
|
|
|
Post by Foxy on Jul 12, 2019 8:37:28 GMT -5
“Before long Ink Inc. made the Knights the wealthiest family in town. But those days are over. Ink Inc. is almost finished, and so is the town. That’s why we’re leaving Stain’d-by-the-Sea.” Another analogue that Ink in Stain’d has with oil: the Knights are ink tycoons. I appreciate this parallel you've made. Chapter Five‘The police station turned out to be one long room, about the size of a bus.’ (p. 91) One half of the town hall is the police station; the other half is the library. No flights of stairs are ever mentioned. Just how small is this town hall, and just how small is this library? The smaller the better, actually, considering certain questions of scale which will be introduced in ?3. I always imagined there being stairs, one flight going down to the library, and one flight going up to the police station, but I guess there's no proof of that being the case. Just my imagination! I like this, too. It's too bad their son is corrupt, though.
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 13, 2019 8:23:41 GMT -5
I always imagined there being stairs, one flight going down to the library, and one flight going up to the police station, but I guess there's no proof of that being the case. Just my imagination! I think that's fairly reasonable; we might also wish to posit that there are a lot of locked or boarded-up doors which Snicket simply doesn't mentioned. It's also fairly likely that both the library and the police station once occupied larger buildings during Stain'd's golden days, but over time they were gradually downsized. Chapter Six“A few books have gone missing […] and there have been some threats.” “In any case, I’m completely reorganizing the shelves, and in a few days a sprinkler system will be installed so we don’t have to worry about fire.” (p. 108) As will subsequently be demonstrated, the missing books are the ones Lemony purloined when hiding the Bombinating Beast in the library in ?1, and which constitute a kind of loose end in not having been mentioned since Hangfire got his hands on them (?1 pp. 200, 210, 215). The sprinkler system, as was always obvious, is foreshadowing for ?3; though not quite the dramatic irony we expected. I’m curious as to exactly what the threats were, and why the Inhumane Society (who else?) thought they might be effective; but presumably they simply want to prevent access to any books which might help an investigator to understand their plans. ‘I had to walk through Fiction, where there was a gap, three books wide, blank and obvious like a missing tooth. It was my fault. I had found it necessary to remove three books from the library without checking them out, and now the books were in Hangfire’s possession.’ (p. 112) Per my previous note. As I said, I don’t believe these are ever thought of again in ?1 after Hangfire picks them up, and I wonder if Handler always planned to re-employ them in the manner they will subsequently be employed, or if that was simply a clever way of filling in a plot hole. ‘Then I thought of my parents.’ (p. 114) Questions have been raised about how this anecdote lines up with the chronology of Snicket’s recruitment into V.F.D. per the U.A., in which he was either a baby or an infant. But as is noted in the discussion of The Little Snicket Lad, the line “and they never brought him back” would be more accurate if “never” were replaced with “rarely” (U.A. pp. 18-19); and so we may posit that on one of those rare visits home, the Snickets went hiking. “I thought the war was a simple matter, with one side good and the other evil. But the more I read, the less clear it was.” (p. 116) Which was is not specified, of course, because the chronology of the Averse and how it relates to our world is also not specified. No matter when you think this took place, there’s likely to have been a war of not wholly clear-cut morality within recent memory. In any case, the more you question the morality of the war, the more you question Colonel Colophon’s heroism. ‘The caption told me that politicians, artists, scientists, tycoons, naturalists, veterans, and other citizens were gathering in front of City Hall for the first day of work on the statue honouring Colonel Colophon.’ (p. 116) ‘Naturalists’ I think will in retrospect be the key clue here. ‘I thought I saw the Officers Mitchum in the crowd, looking much younger’ (p. 117) How long ago did this take place? We can be reasonably certain it was before Ellington was born, I think; Polly Partial is described as having been a ‘young woman’, so perhaps even a teenager, but Dr. Flammarion is ‘with a group of other men and women’, indicating that he’s an adult. Of course, we don’t know the ages of any of the characters, now or then, so you’re more or less free to make up your own mind. I placed them all on the younger end of things when writing The Stain’d Myth Murders as it suited my theme. ‘Some of them looked happy, and some of them didn’t.’ ‘I took a good look at the bench where the colonel was sitting. The Bombinating Beast, Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s legendary monster, stared back at me from the photograph.’ “It looks like that bench is made from the same wood as the statue Hangfire’s after” (p. 118) This indicates that the wood itself is a substance of significance, but later books drop this line of thought. I, on the other hand, emphasised it. “I need information on laudanum, or other sleeping draughts, or a history of chemical espionage, and anything on Colonel Colophon and the explosion that wounded him and the clinic founded in his honor.” […] “most of the books covering the subjects you mentioned have been checked out. A cardholder reserved them some time ago and picked them up just now.” (pp. 120-121) We will learn that the books on chemistry were checked out as part of Ellington’s cover story; the ones on town history were either not checked out at all (“most of”, remember, and of course Moxie was reading them), or removed specifically to obstruct the investigation of anyone wanting to research the Inhumane Society’s history and motives. ‘The woman had returned three books to the library, three books that fit perfectly into a gap in Fiction.’ (p. 122) Nice of Hangfire to have those books returned. Perhaps he’s not so bad, or perhaps, as I’ve suggested, he has a plan to lure Snicket into getting Ellington out of trouble, and ordered their return as a part of that plan. Why this was necessary, as opposed to simply ordering Dander to release her, implies that either Nurse Dander doesn’t know Hangfire’s true identity, or he simply doesn’t want to give away any free hints to Snicket or Ellington.
|
|