Why I was dissapointed with the fourth book.

[Strangely]

Aug 8, 2011 8:15:37 GMT -5 Christmas Chief said:

That sword fight was too odd even for a Snicket book too. Dr. Orwell would have to be aiming at Sunny's mouth in order to only be hitting teeth, and even then teeth aren't that big so it seems fantastically impossible even for a book that Sunny wouldn't get hurt.

Ah, but this was a joke; we're meant to laugh at the sheer absurdity you've observed. Although I can see how one might take it otherwise, since nothing else in the scene meets this level of wild impracticality.

I realize it's supposed to be funny and absurd, but quite honestly I don't think it is. When you think about it it's really a grim situation, Sunny's about to diced to pieces by a sword, Charles is going to be cut in half, and to top it off Dr. Orwell has an unfortunate incident with the saw. I mean it's hard to see absurdity when the entire scene ends with a gruesome death which more than likely spattered blood all over everybody. I mean its far too grizzly.
Usually in the final confrontation of Baudelaire's and villains we have a chase, an off-screen murder, and a lot of crying, but this confrontation was morbid through and through and just sours the book for me.
Don't get me wrong, there are things I like about TMM, but all in all it's definitely different from the other books.

[Christmas Chief]

Here's one way to explain the oddities in the scene, which has just occurred to me: The article from The Daily Punctilio in the UA, "Accident at Lucky Smells Lumbermill!", was presumably published rather than the alternative "Murder at Lucky Smells Lumbermill!". If there's another part to the article we can't see, it's possible Lemony confused the accounts and used part of the detective's version of the story in his research. They (the detectives) seem careless enough to claim a baby used her teeth as swords and villains were jerking Violet's arms.

But as a literary scenario, I agree the exhibitions of ridiculous and gruesome did not slot well.