Post by joshspazjosh on Mar 26, 2006 22:50:18 GMT -5
So I wrote my high school senior paper on Daniel Handler under the assumption that Adverbs would come out well within my deadline. When I realized it wouldn't I chose the entire ASOUE series as one big book instead. (I had to write about three books that my author wrote.)
This is the first draft and I know there are some academic types here so any critique would be appreciated. Or if you just want to read it that's fine. :-D
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Senior Paper
Handler’s novel, “The Basic Eight,” is a compilation of the narrator, Flannery Culp’s, diaries that were edited and typed up by herself from jail. On the third page, in the introduction, she speaks in the present and recalls a photo of herself and her friends from before she was incarcerated. Among these friends, she introduces the character of Natasha Hyatt. Natasha proceeds to become arguably the most outgoing and outrageous character in the entire book, as retold from Culp’s diary at the time of her senior year in high school. She brazenly reads erotica in coffee shops, slips a dangerous amount of absinthe into her science teacher’s drink (thus rendering him comatose), and, towards the end of the book, murders a fellow classmate and stuffs him in the trunk of a car. At the end of the book, it is revealed that there was never a Natasha Hyatt: all the acts that Natasha committed were actually those of Flannery’s; Natasha was a figment of Culp’s imagination. This may be a somewhat derivative plot point, but it’s interesting to note the nature in which the book was written. In the introduction, Culp makes it clear that she is writing the book to get the reader to sympathize with her position, or even believe that she was unjustly sentenced. However, a close second reading of the book shows that Natasha is hopelessly intertwined with the narrative: other characters mention her by name, she has conversations with other characters while Culp is not present, and she often has conversations with Culp that make it clear that they are two separate characters. (Culp describes, for example, surrounding passers-by’s initial reactions to Natasha and Culp as two individuals.) It is impossible for the reader to take a moral position with regards to Culp, or, indeed, even fully comprehend the events that occurred, because you have no idea what is truth, lies or figments of Culp’s imagination. Handler does not place the absolute truth of a series of events as a matter of high importance, relying, rather, on the recollections of the narrator to piece together a story, regardless of its coherence.
Handler has written 12 smallish volumes of “A Series of Unfortunate Events”, as well as a companion book, “Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography”; he plans to write thirteen. The story works on a couple of different levels. As it is written for children, someone of a younger age level could enjoy the story based solely on the superficial narrative. However, many of the reasons for the events taking place in the books and the motivations of the characters involved within them are heavily dependent on a large amount of back-story that has not yet been divulged. Currently, the only way to uncover this back-story is to both scour previous books for clues and look through “The Unauthorized Autobiography”, an assortment of diary entries, restaurant menus, letters, maps, and sections of commonplace books. “The Unauthorized Autobiography” contains many hints that reference previous books. (For example, a movie mentioned offhand in dialogue in one book, Zombies in the Snow, is revealed in “The Unauthorized Autobiography” to contain important coded information.) Handler obviously wants his readers to keep track of these clues, take notes and figure out the story: his pseudonymous narrator Lemony Snicket urges many characters in the Autobiography to keep commonplace books of their own to work towards a common goal.
Yet most of the information we receive is extremely subjective. Almost all of the hints and clues the reader receives are in the form of personal mementos: specifically, a character’s writings. Often the writings of two different characters contradict each other. One can never be sure whether the writer is telling the truth, lying, attempting to deceive or just exaggerating greatly. Even the books themselves are subjective: “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is the story of three orphans told from the perspective of a researcher [Snicket] who often veers off into personal anecdotes and was never actually present at the events he describes. Even after the conclusion of the penultimate volume of the series, one is still not entirely sure what exactly is going on.
It would seem, then, that the credibility of any information presented in the books should be dependent on the trustworthiness of that character. However, the books are incredibly morally ambiguous: one cannot easily judge the moral standing of a character in the books. Snicket describes the aforementioned orphans in the books as having upstanding personal qualities; indeed, they are the assumed protagonists, and they are kind, resourceful, and intelligent. However, due to various circumstances of mistaken identity and wrongdoing by the main antagonists, they are on the run from the law. In their ensuing rush to avoid getting caught by the police, they have set fire to a carnival and a hotel filled with people and murdered a (supposedly) innocent man. Snicket often goes on rants in the middle of narratives about how he remembers a time there was a clear distinction between people who were “noble” (of good character) and people who were not. In the almost amoral world that Handler depicts, however, it is difficult to determine whether this was ever true or is just a bit of subjective nostalgia on Snicket’s part.
Handler’s second novel, “Watch Your Mouth” uses this device in a peculiar fashion. It is made clear from the beginning that this is a work of fiction: on the copyright page, Handler denotes that he “would like to remind readers that Watch Your Mouth is a . . . work of fiction.” He goes on to say that he “cannot imagine that anyone would think otherwise, but it takes all kinds.” This message is repeated in the first pages of the book, when Joseph, the narrator, is setting up Part I of the narrative, which takes the form of an opera. He says that “this [the story] is, you know, an opera. Fiction, like all operas: a lie . . .” He goes on, however, to add a condition to his statement: “a lie is sort of a myth, and a myth is sort of a truth” (p. 4). He then proceeds to tell the story in the style of a memoir. Although wildly fantastical elements occur throughout Part I of the book (each member of the family proceeds to casually justify incest as “intergenerational sex” and a golem, a mythical giant clay monstrosity, terrorizes the family in Part I’s climax), the style in which Joseph tells the story makes it sound like he is recounting events that actually took place.
In Part II, the final section of the novel, Joseph writes the narrative in the format of a 12-step program: he buys a self-help book called “Breaking the S.P.E.L.L.” that contains a 12-step program of sorts for life improvement, and a new section heading (“Step 5”) appears when he has accomplished a step. In Part I, the story seemed very theatrical: for example, when a character was introduced, Handler would denote the voice type (soprano, contralto) of the actor that would play the character in the opera. None of this is in Part II: aside from the section headings denoting steps in the program, it’s a pretty straightforward style. One might assume, then, that the content in the latter half of the novel has more “truth” in it than the former. Indeed, this part feels much more “real”: Joseph spends a lot of his time wandering from job to job, sounding more like an actual person than a slightly pompous, omniscient narrator. He constantly doubts whether the events of Part I ever occurred; maybe it was a figment of his imagination. The reader’s almost surprised when, at the end of the book, the golem appears out of the ocean and demolishes a cruise ship where Joseph works. One is left, like Handler’s other works, not sure of what actually happened.
The phrase in “Watch Your Mouth” that a lie is similar to a myth, which is in turn similar to a truth, seems to be key to understanding Handler’s work. The point of mythology is not to retell something that actually happened: examining its validity is useless. Rather, mythology is almost like an allegory: it’s it meant to teach us something or force us into thinking about something from a new perspective. Perhaps the absolute truth of these stories is not as important as the reaction they elicit from the reader.
This is the first draft and I know there are some academic types here so any critique would be appreciated. Or if you just want to read it that's fine. :-D
-----
Senior Paper
Handler’s novel, “The Basic Eight,” is a compilation of the narrator, Flannery Culp’s, diaries that were edited and typed up by herself from jail. On the third page, in the introduction, she speaks in the present and recalls a photo of herself and her friends from before she was incarcerated. Among these friends, she introduces the character of Natasha Hyatt. Natasha proceeds to become arguably the most outgoing and outrageous character in the entire book, as retold from Culp’s diary at the time of her senior year in high school. She brazenly reads erotica in coffee shops, slips a dangerous amount of absinthe into her science teacher’s drink (thus rendering him comatose), and, towards the end of the book, murders a fellow classmate and stuffs him in the trunk of a car. At the end of the book, it is revealed that there was never a Natasha Hyatt: all the acts that Natasha committed were actually those of Flannery’s; Natasha was a figment of Culp’s imagination. This may be a somewhat derivative plot point, but it’s interesting to note the nature in which the book was written. In the introduction, Culp makes it clear that she is writing the book to get the reader to sympathize with her position, or even believe that she was unjustly sentenced. However, a close second reading of the book shows that Natasha is hopelessly intertwined with the narrative: other characters mention her by name, she has conversations with other characters while Culp is not present, and she often has conversations with Culp that make it clear that they are two separate characters. (Culp describes, for example, surrounding passers-by’s initial reactions to Natasha and Culp as two individuals.) It is impossible for the reader to take a moral position with regards to Culp, or, indeed, even fully comprehend the events that occurred, because you have no idea what is truth, lies or figments of Culp’s imagination. Handler does not place the absolute truth of a series of events as a matter of high importance, relying, rather, on the recollections of the narrator to piece together a story, regardless of its coherence.
Handler has written 12 smallish volumes of “A Series of Unfortunate Events”, as well as a companion book, “Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography”; he plans to write thirteen. The story works on a couple of different levels. As it is written for children, someone of a younger age level could enjoy the story based solely on the superficial narrative. However, many of the reasons for the events taking place in the books and the motivations of the characters involved within them are heavily dependent on a large amount of back-story that has not yet been divulged. Currently, the only way to uncover this back-story is to both scour previous books for clues and look through “The Unauthorized Autobiography”, an assortment of diary entries, restaurant menus, letters, maps, and sections of commonplace books. “The Unauthorized Autobiography” contains many hints that reference previous books. (For example, a movie mentioned offhand in dialogue in one book, Zombies in the Snow, is revealed in “The Unauthorized Autobiography” to contain important coded information.) Handler obviously wants his readers to keep track of these clues, take notes and figure out the story: his pseudonymous narrator Lemony Snicket urges many characters in the Autobiography to keep commonplace books of their own to work towards a common goal.
Yet most of the information we receive is extremely subjective. Almost all of the hints and clues the reader receives are in the form of personal mementos: specifically, a character’s writings. Often the writings of two different characters contradict each other. One can never be sure whether the writer is telling the truth, lying, attempting to deceive or just exaggerating greatly. Even the books themselves are subjective: “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is the story of three orphans told from the perspective of a researcher [Snicket] who often veers off into personal anecdotes and was never actually present at the events he describes. Even after the conclusion of the penultimate volume of the series, one is still not entirely sure what exactly is going on.
It would seem, then, that the credibility of any information presented in the books should be dependent on the trustworthiness of that character. However, the books are incredibly morally ambiguous: one cannot easily judge the moral standing of a character in the books. Snicket describes the aforementioned orphans in the books as having upstanding personal qualities; indeed, they are the assumed protagonists, and they are kind, resourceful, and intelligent. However, due to various circumstances of mistaken identity and wrongdoing by the main antagonists, they are on the run from the law. In their ensuing rush to avoid getting caught by the police, they have set fire to a carnival and a hotel filled with people and murdered a (supposedly) innocent man. Snicket often goes on rants in the middle of narratives about how he remembers a time there was a clear distinction between people who were “noble” (of good character) and people who were not. In the almost amoral world that Handler depicts, however, it is difficult to determine whether this was ever true or is just a bit of subjective nostalgia on Snicket’s part.
Handler’s second novel, “Watch Your Mouth” uses this device in a peculiar fashion. It is made clear from the beginning that this is a work of fiction: on the copyright page, Handler denotes that he “would like to remind readers that Watch Your Mouth is a . . . work of fiction.” He goes on to say that he “cannot imagine that anyone would think otherwise, but it takes all kinds.” This message is repeated in the first pages of the book, when Joseph, the narrator, is setting up Part I of the narrative, which takes the form of an opera. He says that “this [the story] is, you know, an opera. Fiction, like all operas: a lie . . .” He goes on, however, to add a condition to his statement: “a lie is sort of a myth, and a myth is sort of a truth” (p. 4). He then proceeds to tell the story in the style of a memoir. Although wildly fantastical elements occur throughout Part I of the book (each member of the family proceeds to casually justify incest as “intergenerational sex” and a golem, a mythical giant clay monstrosity, terrorizes the family in Part I’s climax), the style in which Joseph tells the story makes it sound like he is recounting events that actually took place.
In Part II, the final section of the novel, Joseph writes the narrative in the format of a 12-step program: he buys a self-help book called “Breaking the S.P.E.L.L.” that contains a 12-step program of sorts for life improvement, and a new section heading (“Step 5”) appears when he has accomplished a step. In Part I, the story seemed very theatrical: for example, when a character was introduced, Handler would denote the voice type (soprano, contralto) of the actor that would play the character in the opera. None of this is in Part II: aside from the section headings denoting steps in the program, it’s a pretty straightforward style. One might assume, then, that the content in the latter half of the novel has more “truth” in it than the former. Indeed, this part feels much more “real”: Joseph spends a lot of his time wandering from job to job, sounding more like an actual person than a slightly pompous, omniscient narrator. He constantly doubts whether the events of Part I ever occurred; maybe it was a figment of his imagination. The reader’s almost surprised when, at the end of the book, the golem appears out of the ocean and demolishes a cruise ship where Joseph works. One is left, like Handler’s other works, not sure of what actually happened.
The phrase in “Watch Your Mouth” that a lie is similar to a myth, which is in turn similar to a truth, seems to be key to understanding Handler’s work. The point of mythology is not to retell something that actually happened: examining its validity is useless. Rather, mythology is almost like an allegory: it’s it meant to teach us something or force us into thinking about something from a new perspective. Perhaps the absolute truth of these stories is not as important as the reaction they elicit from the reader.
