Post by Tamaghis on May 3, 2004 10:28:04 GMT -5
First post. Be gentle. 
I read an interview with Daniel Handler once in which he talked about the Snickett books outselling 'his' books becuase TB8 and WYM were 'strange literary novels'.
Now it seems to me that the ASOUE books deserve to be considered as being pretty damn literary in effect themselves, certainly as much as those Philip Pullman kids novels that people take so inexplicably seriously.
Anyway, I thought I's start this thread so that anyone who agrees could chime in with what they think ASOUE acheives as literature.
Here's some of my thoughts -
The books are a fairly equal mixture of the didactic and the parodic. They're constantly claiming to be teaching you something while at the same time making fun of the whole idea of teaching; Words are explained, but meaninglessly, incorrectly or pointlessly. Facts are exhaustively researched, but keep taunting the reader with the fact that they are fiction.
What's happening though is a complex double bluff. Through the figure of Snickett, Handler is not just making fun of the victorian notions of 'improving' books, novels that are meant to teach you stuff and make you a better person. He is actually persuing a didactic effect through parodying the didactic. I've not had a chance to read TB8 yet, but it sounds like he's playing the same game there too.
Some film critic I saw on BBC2 a few weeks ago was talking about the difference between watching a classic Hitchcock style horror film, and watching the low-budget nasty horrors of the 70's and 80's. Watching a film Hitchcock directs, you're frightened...but you know you're in the hands of a master craftsman who is playing everything to perfection - so it's a comfortable kind of fear. Watching something like the original 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' or the original 'Dawn of the Dead' however you feel less sure that you can trust the director...it feels like you're watching the work of a madman - you can't be sure what he's going to show you next. The split between Snickett and Handler allows us to feel we're in the hands of a madman... 'Snickett' can't write - he breaks all sorts of 'rules' in any number of clumsy ways, accidentally destroys the tension he's building up, goes off on crazy digressions, makes mistakes, gets words wrong, etc. But 'Snickett' is of course Handler's puppet...the reader is in the hands of a madman, but the madman is in the hands of a craftsman.
What all this does is that while Snickett is teaching us bad lessons, Handler is teaching us all sorts of usefull ones that we should bear in mind no what what book we're reading.
Kids who grow up reading these books are going to find it so much easier to identify the stylistic features of any bit of writing they're given to look at. Anybody who reads these books is going to find themselves thinking more deeply about the relationship between the reader, narrator and author when they pick up thier next non-Snickett book.
Journolists are often taught to keep the question "Why is this person lying to me?" in thier head at all times, but readers are better off asking, "How is this person lying to me?" ASOUE shows that pulling a story apart and looking at the bits doesn't spoil the simple pleasure of following a story. Rather it shows that just being told a story is only part of the fun - the rest comes from investigating who's doing the telling, what their motives are and what it all really means.
All stories are mysteries.
All poems are codes.
I read an interview with Daniel Handler once in which he talked about the Snickett books outselling 'his' books becuase TB8 and WYM were 'strange literary novels'.
Now it seems to me that the ASOUE books deserve to be considered as being pretty damn literary in effect themselves, certainly as much as those Philip Pullman kids novels that people take so inexplicably seriously.
Anyway, I thought I's start this thread so that anyone who agrees could chime in with what they think ASOUE acheives as literature.
Here's some of my thoughts -
The books are a fairly equal mixture of the didactic and the parodic. They're constantly claiming to be teaching you something while at the same time making fun of the whole idea of teaching; Words are explained, but meaninglessly, incorrectly or pointlessly. Facts are exhaustively researched, but keep taunting the reader with the fact that they are fiction.
What's happening though is a complex double bluff. Through the figure of Snickett, Handler is not just making fun of the victorian notions of 'improving' books, novels that are meant to teach you stuff and make you a better person. He is actually persuing a didactic effect through parodying the didactic. I've not had a chance to read TB8 yet, but it sounds like he's playing the same game there too.
Some film critic I saw on BBC2 a few weeks ago was talking about the difference between watching a classic Hitchcock style horror film, and watching the low-budget nasty horrors of the 70's and 80's. Watching a film Hitchcock directs, you're frightened...but you know you're in the hands of a master craftsman who is playing everything to perfection - so it's a comfortable kind of fear. Watching something like the original 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' or the original 'Dawn of the Dead' however you feel less sure that you can trust the director...it feels like you're watching the work of a madman - you can't be sure what he's going to show you next. The split between Snickett and Handler allows us to feel we're in the hands of a madman... 'Snickett' can't write - he breaks all sorts of 'rules' in any number of clumsy ways, accidentally destroys the tension he's building up, goes off on crazy digressions, makes mistakes, gets words wrong, etc. But 'Snickett' is of course Handler's puppet...the reader is in the hands of a madman, but the madman is in the hands of a craftsman.
What all this does is that while Snickett is teaching us bad lessons, Handler is teaching us all sorts of usefull ones that we should bear in mind no what what book we're reading.
Kids who grow up reading these books are going to find it so much easier to identify the stylistic features of any bit of writing they're given to look at. Anybody who reads these books is going to find themselves thinking more deeply about the relationship between the reader, narrator and author when they pick up thier next non-Snickett book.
Journolists are often taught to keep the question "Why is this person lying to me?" in thier head at all times, but readers are better off asking, "How is this person lying to me?" ASOUE shows that pulling a story apart and looking at the bits doesn't spoil the simple pleasure of following a story. Rather it shows that just being told a story is only part of the fun - the rest comes from investigating who's doing the telling, what their motives are and what it all really means.
All stories are mysteries.
All poems are codes.
