The Official Beatrice Letters DISCUSSION thread

[jpgr007]

In line 6 of the sonnet, I believe the quoted definition of baticeer ("person who trains bats") is an anagram or some other coded message. I keep coming back to the word "twin" being able to be made from the letters in the quote. Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Does anyone know the significance of rootbeer floats?

[rindercella]

Is it possible that "root beer floats" is an anagram?

[Sixteen]

rindercella said:

Is it possible that "root beer floats" is an anagram?

How about "Realtor Boo Eft"?

[jpgr007]

re: Beatrice's 13 Questions -

These are my guesses for what some of her questions were

Question Two - Do you remember the first time you saw me/first time we met?

Question Four - I think this question is referring to THE sonnet "My Silence Knot" - I believe Beatrice wrote it for LS and it was supposed to be seen by him in the program of her play - This could be why LS scours the theatrical sections of newspapers in libraries - he's hoping to find the lost sonnet. (Which he finally does when he's written his letter to the editor at the end of TBL) LS's mention of the hatpin and costume in LS to BB #3 fits with his answer to question four.

Question Five - This one could have been - How many children do you want/are in your family/do the Baudelaire's have.

Question Six - What is a braeman?

Question Seven - What is a baticeer?

Question Eight - What is an anagram?

Question Nine - Do you still love me?

Question Eleven - What can be coded?

Question Twelve - refers back to question 5


In rereading TBL I noticed in LS to BB #2 he says "It' s easy to write letters in Code Class, as the tedious, [glow=red,2,300]flat-footed[/glow] instructor simply mutters the same lessons about [glow=red,2,300]business letter writing [/glow]over and over. He'll probably drone on for years and years to come."

Then in BB to LS #4 she says "I'm in my [glow=red,2,300]Business Letter Writing Class[/glow], which is taught by a [glow=red,2,300]flat-footed man [/glow]so sad and unaware"... "A "baticeer" is a person who trains bats. I learned that in a poem I watched you read."

First it seems that BB is in the same class LS took - I believe years before. Second BB refers to watching LS read "My Silence Knot" which seems to mean that she is not the same Beatrice that wrote it.

Perhaps when BB asks LS to,"untie "My Silence Knot", in her letters she wants him to decode the sonnet.

[lizzylou]

After spending a good part of the morning reading this thread and then registering, I have an interesting comment that may or may not make sense.

I used to work in an elementary school. One of our 1st grade teachers played a "game" with her students. It was called "Don't break the sugarbowl." It was a quiet game, intended to keep students working silently. The first student to speak 'broke the sugarbowl.'

Couple that together with "The World is Quiet Here" When the sugar bowl is safe the world is quiet.

Last line of the sonnet "The silence broken by the one who dies"
Silence is broken when Beatrice 1 dies, thus making the safety of the sugarbowl questionable.

Could 'My Silence Knot' have something to do with the sugar bowl??

[beatriceblake]

I myself am wondering why Beatrice asked Lemony about his siblings, not once, but twice.

In which letters does Beatrice ask Lemony about his siblings? I've re- read the book but I didn't pick up on this.

[Stencil Monkey]

Well obviously the question to answer 5 is not "How many children do you want" because in question 12 (which refers to 5) he includes the word "myself." I'm guessing that he doesn't want to name his child "myself."

beatriceblake said:

I myself am wondering why Beatrice asked Lemony about his siblings, not once, but twice.

In which letters does Beatrice ask Lemony about his siblings? I've re- read the book but I didn't pick up on this.

IN LS to BB #5, Lemony Snicket answers the question that Beatrice asked on page 189 of her two hundred page book about why she cannot marry him.
The question to answer5 may have been, "How many children are in your family?" and the quesion to answer 12 may have been, "How many children are in your family and what are there names?" Now of course the questions I have provided are probably very "off," being that Beatrice would have asked the same thing twice, and I am sure Lemony was not a child at the time of this letter (he wanted to get married).

[rym]

Hello, all. I've been reading this thread all day and am fascinated by many of your thoughts.

I've been reading the sonnet over and over. The first thing I noticed about it is the paper it's written on. Obviously TBL is very interested in the physical details of bookmaking and paper. The page with "My Silence Knot" is burnt on the edges; it barely survived a fire. Do we have any way to guess which of the many fires it survived?

I have the feeling that the keys to some of the remaining mysteries are in the sonnet's third stanza, but I'm only finding questions instead of answers. Who is the co-star, and why is he solitary? The letter that "fails to arrive" in the sonnet, who sent it and who was the addressee?

I bet that the sonnet is a coded message that we readers actually can't interpret, because the other half of the message is in a play we haven't seen. Specifically, I think the sonnet might be a message from Beatrice 1 to Lemony -- the only message we have from Beatrice 1 -- that, when read while viewing a performance of the play "A Silence Knot," interprets or explains the codes in the play. What if, say, Beatrice 1 wanted to tell Lemony that there was a letter she'd sent him that he hadn't received? It doesn't have to be a letter between Beatrice and Lemony. If a letter sent from any noble volunteer to any other went astray, and therefore something else went wrong in the vast and unfathomable plans of the VFD, it could be a sign that someone conveying the letter had betrayed the volunteers. Beatrice, knowing that, would have to tell Lemony secretly; since she can't talk to him publicly at this point, she'd put a lost letter into her play and then signal the lost letter's importance in the sonnet. Line 12, "This poignant melodrama' s based on fact," emphasizes that whatever Beatrice is saying is true in the real world as well as in the play and the sonnet.

Now, if I'm right, let's think about the ramifications of the sonnet. We know, because Lemony says so in LS to BB #5 Question 4, that Lemony didn't read the poem in the program when he attended "My Silence Knot." Whatever the message was in the sonnet -- I'm not partial to my explanation about another lost letter, there could have been several other messages there -- the sonnet message also went astray. In the end, when Snicket finds the sonnet in the warehouse, the other half of the message, that is, the play "My Silence Knot," is gone: Sadly, this missing sonnet is like a missing sock-- it had been lost for so long that everything else has completely unravelled in its absence. We can't understand the code, and neither can Lemony himself, because the play is gone.

(Maybe villains burned the program to prevent the message reaching Lemony? It's a stretch, but it would fit in with the rest of the hints about lost messages.)

One last point, on a different matter entirely (and I hope I haven't bored you too much with my lengthy newbie ramblings): What guarantee do we have that the LS to whom Beatrice 2 addressed her letters is actually our own Lemony Snicket? I'm pretty sure that she wanted to write to Lemony Snicket, because Snicket is the man studying the Baudelaire Case, and Beatrice 2 is looking for her family. But if she's gotten the wrong man all along (an outcome signaled in BB to LS #1 and BB to LS #3, if not elsewhere), we might have a reason why LS doesn't reply to Beatrice 2.

Edited because the HTML I'd been using doesn't seem to work here. Sorry.

[wingalls]

rym said:

I've been reading the sonnet over and over. The first thing I noticed about it is the paper it's written on.

The first thing I noticed was that the words "The End" were on the thirteenth page of the program.

The End is the name of the thirteenth ASOUE book.

[rym]

Yeah, so I'm almost as obsessed with the physical book as Lemony Snicket.

But you're right, Wingalls, The End on the last page, which is numbered 13, can't possibly be accidental. It's got a "Tune in for the next installment" quality to it.

(edited because I still fail at formatting!)

[Brownie]

I noticed that!

This is more proof that TE is indeed called TE.

[lizzylou]

I assume that page 13 says 'The End' because it is quite literally the back of page 12 (the sonnet). The sonnet is from the program for the play, and then 13 was the back page of the program.

[Stencil Monkey]

lizzylou said:

I assume that page 13 says 'The End' because it is quite literally the back of page 12 (the sonnet). The sonnet is from the program for the play, and then 13 was the back page of the program.

Wow, a 13-page program. What the heck could have been on the other 11?

[rym]

Names, descriptions and headshots of the actors, actresses and stage crew, advertisements for local establishments like the Veritable French Diner, a synopsis of the plot, and maybe some good-luck messages to the cast and crew in Sebald Code?

[Shelly]

I've been reading this thread, and I've noticed something that doesn't appear to have been discussed: The BEATRICE SANK anagram (what it means). If the boat on the poster's name is Beatrice, then Lemony could be connected to it.

Option 1. He named it Beatrice, after the woman he loves, but she rejects him.
Option 2. He asked her to marry him on that boat(?) something involved Beatrice on that boat, so he did Option 1.
Option 3. He neglected the boat (not before doing Option 1) when she rejected him.
Option 4. Maybe Olaf bought it off Lemony? (and Lemony did Option 1)
Option 5. Olaf stole it from Lemony? (and Lemony did Option 1)

There's a range of possibilities in the circumstances that it got it's name, and how Olaf got it, assuming that's the boat that the Baudelaires and Olaf used at the end of TPP.