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Post by Sora on Apr 18, 2009 0:58:19 GMT -5
Welcome devoted re-readers of the canon, to Dilemma Deepens. In our seventh installment of A Series of Unfortunate Events we re-examine the undeniably critical turning point in the life of the Baudelaires (namely the place where Poe goes bye-bye) known as The Vile Village. In this novel we face ice cream sundaes, ugly fountains, evil octogenarians, vague couplets, unhelpful handymen and prison birthdays. Enjoy.
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Post by katekor on Apr 18, 2009 8:35:40 GMT -5
I never contribute to these threads, but I'm always reading along... until now. My books 7-9 have mysteriously disappeared . I'm still keeping an eye on the thread though
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Post by cwm on Apr 18, 2009 11:37:48 GMT -5
Chapter One First appearance of The Daily Punctilio, although TUA retcons it so it covers several previous events as well.
'Count Omar' first appears. This is important, since both this and the framing means that Olaf can safely do anything he likes without being suspected of villainy - everyone believes that Count Omar is dead and nobody is on the lookout for Count Olaf.
This is the first suggestion - after two murders, one accidental death and one attempted murder and a double kidnapping - that people are beginning to turn the Baudelaires away to avoid the problems they bring. Mr. Poe notes that he asked Fagin to take the Baudelaires in 'just for a couple of months', so he appears to have stopped looking for a permanent guardian and is instead looking for temporary guardians until a long-term substitute can be found.
Mr. Poe shows no real remorse at the fact that the Quagmires have been kidnapped. All he cares about is getting his face in a well-known newspaper. This is the first time he's actually done anything leaning towards villiany, really.
Tedia is near Lousy Lane. Exact details are never mentioned.
I have just noticed that there is a lump of very old wax stuck to the cover of my book. Yuck.
Chapter Two
Buses are another thing to further muddy the identity of the series' time period.
The TDP article is not completely effective - not all of the townspeople call Olaf 'Omar', although Mrs Morrow at least is confused.
Chapter Three Let's use this opportunity to clear up the number of fake V.F.D.s we encounter in the series, not counting V.F.D.s used by the organisation itself for its various assets.
Very Fancy Doilies - delibrate red herring Village of Fowl Devotees - coincidence Volunteers Fighting Disease - coincidence Valley of Four Drafts - was it always called this or was it named by the organisation? Possible coincidence. Olaf calls it 'appropiate' in TCC, so it may be a coincidence.
That's up to three coincidental V.F.D.s. Perhaps a bit unlikely.
I'd intended to do a few more chapters but ran out of time. See you tomorrow.
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Post by Dante on Apr 18, 2009 14:50:47 GMT -5
Chapter OneFirst appearance of The Daily Punctilio, although TUA retcons it so it covers several previous events as well. Not really a retcon, as such. It could easily have been covering events prior to its first appearance in the series proper; the Baudelaires just never need to have seen (or never mentioned) it before. The edition that appears in TCC, however - well. I'll get onto that for TCC, I imagine. But I'll be looking at related issues when I get onto TVV. If I was writing a very comprehensive fanfic, I might hint at V.F.D. influence or connections very far back. The founder of Volunteers Fighting Disease could have been a member of V.F.D., for example. But indeed, canonically they're just coincidences. Kinda off-topic, but I would doubt it was a coincidence. We know from TGG that volunteers have also been great explorers. I'll probably get onto the book in the week.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 18, 2009 15:36:22 GMT -5
This is an important book, because it's where the VFD plot really begins to take shape, as more than just a name. It's clear that by now the author knows that VFD is an organisation, that there is a good side and a bad side, and that the eye tattoo is their symbol. It's fairly clear that he knows, too, what the initals stand for, if he didn't earlier. I think far more of Sunny's utterances in this book are meaningful - she is really beginning to turn into the distinctive Sunny of the later books now. Chapter OneFirst appearance of The Daily Punctilio, although TUA retcons it so it covers several previous events as well. Yes, that struck me as well- it seems such a constant feature of the Snicket universe, and yet we have gone through six books without it. One might have expected that the police, at least, would know his real name and not rely on the DP for information. But in Snicketland that is probably too much to hope for. I think this was established in TRR. The map in TUA gives more details, though I'm not sure if that should be seen as canonical. I tend to agree with Dante about this - there may have been a connection a long way back. This fits in with my idea that VFD is an organisation in decline, which has left behind various fragments of its former influence. Indeed, some continuing conection is suggested by the reference in TSS to carrier crows - though it's not clear what this means; the VFD crows are clearly not regularly employed carrying secret mesages, or Hector would not be so surprised by Isadora's couplets. My own comments, chapters 1-3.: It will turn out in TUA that The Littlest Elf is probably by Lemony himself (and was of course made into a movie by Sebald). Klaus's reference to the Mbuti pygmies makes it clear, jsut in case we needed it, that the series is not set in Africa. I was wrong to say that Fagin was the orphans' 91st cousin - he's merely their nineteenth. Still, allowing 25 years for a generation, this would mean they had a common ancestor almost five hundred years ago. The way it is described, Mr Poe makes the arrangements and the orphans leave for VFD on the same day they are told about the plan. However, Olaf clearly knows in advance that they are going, so this does not really make sense, unless Olivia does have prophetic powers after all. (Indeed, aren't we told she found the news in a newspaper reporting that the Village of Fowl Devotees was to take part in the programme?) This book gives rise to problems with distance as well as with time. We are first told that the villages participating in the scheme are 'just outside the city' - though in TMM Paltryville seems to be a long way off; it's described as 'in the middle of nowhere'. Then we are told that VFD would take several weeks to reach by mule. I'm not sure just how fast mules go, but I take it they can do several miles in a day, so a village they took several weeks to reach would not be 'just outside' - and indeed I'm doubtful it could be reached in an afternoon by bus.
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Post by Dante on Apr 18, 2009 16:09:18 GMT -5
The way it is described, Mr Poe makes the arrangements and the orphans leave for VFD on the same day they are told about the plan. However, Olaf clearly knows in advance that they are going, so this does not really make sense, unless Olivia does have prophetic powers after all. (Indeed, aren't we told she found the news in a newspaper reporting that the Village of Fowl Devotees was to take part in the programme?) We are indeed told that; however, given the massive time paradox this introduces, I would suggest that the Baudelaires' interpretation of the newspaper there is wrong - Olivia, and therefore Olaf, didn't find out through the Punctilio that the Baudelaires were in V.F.D. In fact, given that Fowl Fountain and Officer Luciana were already set up there, it seems the only plausible thing to do is to suggest they were headed out there anyway - perhaps on a scheme to steal the crows, much as they would later take charge of the lions and the sinister duo obtained the reptiles and the eagles? The Quagmires were stuffed into the fountain so as to keep them within easy reach, to keep an eye on them. However, when the Baudelaires turned up, the crow-thieving plot was abandoned in favour of good old-fashioned fortune-snatching - although Olaf and Esmé were surely disappointed that they couldn't, aheh, kill two birds with one stone. I think we'll also face similar problems making the days go by in some of the later books. And isn't it the THH-TCC Kind Editor letter that makes an inexplicable reference to "DOOBY kilometres"?
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Post by cwm on Apr 19, 2009 8:28:48 GMT -5
Yep. Never appeared in the book itself; there's also something that 'should not be repaired under any circumstances' that doesn't seem to fit anything in the book.
Here's two theories about how the timeline works: - Olaf guessed that the Baudelaires might think this was the real V.F.D. and headed out there in advance. - The Village is so remote it was a good place to hide the Quagmires.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 20, 2009 14:20:47 GMT -5
We are indeed told that; however, given the massive time paradox this introduces, I would suggest that the Baudelaires' interpretation of the newspaper there is wrong - Olivia, and therefore Olaf, didn't find out through the Punctilio that the Baudelaires were in V.F.D. In fact, given that Fowl Fountain and Officer Luciana were already set up there, it seems the only plausible thing to do is to suggest they were headed out there anyway - perhaps on a scheme to steal the crows, much as they would later take charge of the lions and the sinister duo obtained the reptiles and the eagles? The Quagmires were stuffed into the fountain so as to keep them within easy reach, to keep an eye on them. However, when the Baudelaires turned up, the crow-thieving plot was abandoned in favour of good old-fashioned fortune-snatching - although Olaf and Esmé were surely disappointed that they couldn't, aheh, kill two birds with one stone. That's interesting, because it's certainly true that in all the subsequent books the Baudelaires aren't Olaf's primary target, but just keep coming within range of him. His targets include: THH - the Snicket file. TCC - information from Madam Lulu. TSS - the Mortmain Mountains HQ, and the possible survivor of the Baudelaire fire. TGG - the sugar bowl. TPP - the sugar bowl again, the last safe place, the whole of VFD. TE - does Olaf really have a target in this? The island, I suppose. On to chapters 3-6. Is 'Klaus had known the word X since he was Y' a recurring feature of the books? I'm beginning to think it is. Does anyone think Hector talks rather in the way Lemony writes? 'About three hundred and six years ago', 'a flock of geese or a herd of cows or a convention of orthodontists' - these are very much in Lemony's style. I don't suppose Hector is Lemony in disguise - certainly not in retrospect, since Hector has been swallowed by the Great Unknown, while Lemony is still alive and at work. But one wonders what the connection between them is. (From TUA we know they did know each other.) I think Isadora is improving as a poet - her couplets scan much better than earlier ones. 'Attempting to rescue Lemony Snicket by writing letters to a congressman, instead of digging an escape tunnel'. This shows that Lemony is still in prison, though his execution has been, if not cancelled, at least delayed. It also shows he lives in a country where there are congressmen. (Or perhaps it doesn't. Writing to a legislator in a country other than the one where he is held prisoner would indeed be very ineffective.) Klaus proposes turning Olaf over to 'the authorities'. This is of course an attempt to save him from being burnt at the stake; nevertheless one might wonder just who these authorities are. If the Council of Elders employ a police chief, and have the right to sentence people to death, one might think they are the authorities. Why does Jacques say 'I'm so relieved to see that you are still alive'? Was this ever in doubt? But perhaps he has been out of the region for a long time, and has heard only that the Baudelaire mansion was destroyed, without any details about who was killed. Are we ever told why he came to VFD, by the way?
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Post by Sora on Apr 20, 2009 16:45:25 GMT -5
Why does Jacques say 'I'm so relieved to see that you are still alive'? Was this ever in doubt? But perhaps he has been out of the region for a long time, and has heard only that the Baudelaire mansion was destroyed, without any details about who was killed. Are we ever told why he came to VFD, by the way? We are told, in great detail, in TSS. Remember Quigley's monologue about meeting up with Jacques after the Quagmire fire? Quigley remarks that Jacques had been fervently searching for the Baudelaire orphans, but they had disappeared everytime he had gotten close. VFD must have been his next option, and by a stroke of luck got there (almost) on time.
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Post by Dante on Apr 21, 2009 10:17:15 GMT -5
Better late than never. Here are my notes on the first three chapters.
The Littlest Elf came a long way after being mentioned in TVV; I’m pretty sure there’s an allusion to it in another book, as I’m sure I remember Lemony criticising it at some point, and we see a brief excerpt from it in the U.A.. Eventually it formed a fake opening for the movie, which was a stroke of brilliance. We also saw promotional adverts for a new book in The Littlest Elf series through TheNamelessNovel.com (which I’ll cover in great detail when we get to TPP – but if you missed that, you missed out). Anyway, Lemony’s positive treatment of the book here does support the suggestion in the U.A. that Lemony wrote it himself – perhaps to actually distract people from the woeful tales of the Baudelaires?
Journalists really get a savaging in aSoUE – but then again, so does pretty much everyone else.
I notice here that it’s clearly specified that Olaf’s tattoo is on his left ankle; this is consistently true in illustrations, but I haven’t noticed how often the books actually mention which ankle it is.
I also find it interesting that it’s reported that Esmé was kidnapped by “Omar” – this allows her to re-enter society and go about her wicked deeds much more easily than Olaf.
“The reasons aren’t unknown. We know them. We know the reasons Esmé, Count Olaf, and all of Olaf’s associates have done so many terrible things. It’s because they’re terrible people.” This massive generalisation by Violet is surely an example of dramatic irony, as the Baudelaires go on to commit several crimes and terrible acts themselves, in addition to Olaf and his comrades getting some much better character development beyond “terrible people.” (Although others don’t, but perhaps they would have if the books were longer.)
The Baudelaires having acquired a reputation as troublemakers perhaps foreshadows the later, yet more inaccurate reputation they have.
Notice that the journalist’s gender is not identified, which allows the journalist in question to be retroactively identified as Geraldine Julienne… although there are a lot of troublesome issues related to Geraldine Julienne.
“A number of villages just outside the city” – raises a couple of problems. For one thing, V.F.D. seems to be extremely isolated, and for another, if I recall correctly its size seems to vary – it’s described as a village here, and it has “Village” in its name and even in the title of the book, not to mention the aphorism. Mr. Poe seems to make an estimate of about “three thousand people” as the sort of population size we’re looking at, although V.F.D. always seems smaller than that to me.
Even Mr. Poe starts saying “Omar” instead of “Olaf.” This can’t end well for anyone. “I meant to say ‘Omar’,” honestly.
~~~
I think all the buses and coaches I’ve been on only have two seats in each row, a window seat and an aisle seat.
“All he had time to do was make arrangements with the city government and take them to the bus station” does, as noted, indicate that the Baudelaires are off to V.F.D. the same day, even the same hour, that they choose it. I refer to the theory I posted earlier in the thread – or alternatively, Olivia made an extremely educated guess, based on the fact that the Baudelaires would be running out of potential guardians and that the “it takes a village to raise a child” pamphlet was going around.
“No lean!” seems to be one of Sunny’s first pieces of actual English, outside the odd single name.
The length of the bus ride is ambiguous – when the Baudelaires start the chapter, it seems as if the bus ride has only just started, judging from “Before they knew it” etc. Klaus then tells us that “we should be at V.F.D. any minute now,” indicating that it’s not as far from the city as we thought – however, then we get “and they sat in silence for the rest of the ride,” and “the bus driver finally called out,” which makes it sound like it’s been a while.
One wonders how the Council of Elders set up relations with the bus company in the first place.
And of course, it takes several hours to walk to V.F.D.
Much like when I asked whether Esmé fooled you in TEE, I’m also asking whether Officer Luciana fooled you in TVV. She rarely struck me as important enough, I think, to be a villain in disguise, but on the other hand she’s wearing a motorcycle helmet, which should be a massive tip-off.
More details on the population of V.F.D. – there are “perhaps one hundred folding chairs,” only “most of which” were occupied, suggesting that the population of V.F.D. is around or beneath one hundred and twenty-five (including the Elders).
Officer Luciana’s big black boots are the sort of thing that might make you look suspiciously for an eye tattoo, if they were on Olaf. But I don’t think anyone imagined that Olaf was disguising himself as a woman disguised as a police chief.
The former Chief of Police accidentally swallowing a box of thumbtacks fits in with the disappearance of previous people who have been replaced by Olaf and his assistants – Miss Tench, if I recall correctly, fell out of a window, and Foreman Firstein simply stopped turning up to work. Of course, none of these were really accidents.
“A tall skinny man in rumpled overalls” – most people in aSoUE tend to be tall and skinny. Most people also tend not to get any more description than that. A lot would be resting on Helquist’s shoulders if it weren’t for the fact that he tends to avoid illustrating new characters…
“there appear to be several hundred townspeople” – again, the size of V.F.D. seems inconsistent.
“Please pay particular attention to our new fountain, which was just installed this morning” – an alert to the readers as much as it is to the Baudelaires. And, as noted, impossibly quick timing considering that it’s later specified to have been built by Olaf’s associates, I think.
“no villains are allowed within the city limits” is about as effective as the Advanced Computer having a picture of Olaf.
I see Hector as very much a clone of Jerome – and probably of Charles in turn.
~~~
“a special sauce I learned from my second-grade teacher” – Hector sometimes sounds a lot like a non-villager, and I sort of wonder if he was educated outside the village… it is possible, as discussed, that he’s associated with V.F.D., but it’s unclear how much TVV supports that. I’ll look into it as we go along. However, it’s worth noting that the only evidence of Hector’s association with V.F.D. is that Jacques apparently mentions him, and his plans for a self-sustaining hot air mobile home, in the U.A. – and we’ll see later if there’s any indication that Jacques and Hector recognise each other, but I suspect that there is not. Perhaps Hector’s father?
“Who told you about this secret?” could be some cautious probing from a person associated with V.F.D.
In TPP, the Baudelaires apparently forget that they also told their whole story to Hector – at least, as it stood at the time.
I can still read Hector talking about V.F.D. on page 55 as potentially being from someone who knows what V.F.D. is, but it also works straight.
Interesting – V.F.D. has 19,833 rules, but Hector was around when they wrote Rule #67 – he simply recites Rules #108 and #4561, but one doesn’t imagine that the rules were written out of numerical order.
Slightly surprising that the self-sustaining hot air mobile home has twelve baskets when it could easily have been thirteen.
“The sounds of the crows remind me of the ocean” – this implies that Hector has been outside the village. Actually, conceivably he’s responsible, as the town’s handyman, for purchasing many of the town’s supplies – and the city is by the sea.
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Post by Very Funky Disco on Apr 21, 2009 11:26:26 GMT -5
As they didn't seem to be any other children at the Village of Fowl Devotees - coupled with the fact that most of the villagers weren't too fond of children - I was under the impression that Hector was raised outside the village, even though his father and grandfather also worked as handymen for the village.
Also, has anyone noticed that Olaf and Esme act so modern in this book - which is a stark contrast to the grossly outdated society of the village, even by ASOUE Universe standards?
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Post by Hermes on Apr 21, 2009 12:07:32 GMT -5
We are told, in great detail, in TSS. Remember Quigley's monologue about meeting up with Jacques after the Quagmire fire? Quigley remarks that Jacques had been fervently searching for the Baudelaire orphans, but they had disappeared everytime he had gotten close. VFD must have been his next option, and by a stroke of luck got there (almost) on time. Good heavens, how did I miss that? Thanks. Having checked the passage, it seems to me - though Quigley definitely says Jacques was looking for the Baudelaires - he was probably doing something else as well. It is a bit odd, though; where the Baudelaires are is not a secret at this point (as opposed to later, when they're on the run); Olaf is finding out, through Olivia, from published sources; the citizens of VFD obviously know their reputation, even if a bit inaccurately. So if Jacques has taken so long to find them he doen't seem to be a very efficient detective. And 'I'm so relieved to see that you are still alive' is odd given that Olaf was, most of the time, not trying to kill them. [We also saw promotional adverts for a new book in The Littlest Elf series through TheNamelessNovel.com (which I’ll cover in great detail when we get to TPP – but if you missed that, you missed out). Never saw it, I'm afraid - I look forward to your coverage. 'Dramatic irony' is a delicate concept, since it implies the author knows what is going to happen next. But perhaps he did at a rather broad-brush level, in that he knew the Baudelaires were going to so some terrible deeds. Indeed, I wonder if the passage in this book where they try to save Olaf from being burned at the stake (it's not really Olaf, of course, but they don't know that at the time) is a set-up for their later transformation. I wonder if this is a matter of the scale you are thinking on. Suppose the village is, say, thirty miles from the city. Now, I wouldn't call a village that was thirty miles from London 'just outside London', but in a large continent where the cities are hundreds of miles apart it might be thought of in that way. 'Village' can be quite variable. I spent my early years in a very small village - basically one street, with a church at one end and a pub at the other - but the place my grandparents lived was also called a village, and that was quite a substantial place with shops, schools and what have you - it may well have had a population of three thousand. Nice thought - of course, that wouldn't in itself tell them which village to look in, but you could combine it with cwm's suggestion that the children might have thought it was the real VFD. I can't now remember. But isn't the fact that she's new - like the new assistant in TRR, the new foreman in TMM, the new coach in TAA - rather a giveaway (along with the rather improbable excuse given for her predecessor leaving - as, I now realise, you point out a bit later on)? Do we have reason to think the whole population of the village was at the meeting? If they haven't met for - what? - eighteen years, they might not, I suppose. Do you mean perhaps Hector's father was in (the real) VFD? The King of Hearts, you will remember, insisted that rule 42 was the oldest rule in the book, to which Alice replied that in that case it ought to be rule one. (And the rule - 'all persons more than a mile high must leave the court' - had a rather VFDish feel to it.) Seriously, though, might the rules be classified in some way, which would explain them not being in order of writing?
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Post by Dante on Apr 21, 2009 15:35:58 GMT -5
'Dramatic irony' is a delicate concept, since it implies the author knows what is going to happen next. But perhaps he did at a rather broad-brush level, in that he knew the Baudelaires were going to so some terrible deeds. Indeed, I wonder if the passage in this book where they try to save Olaf from being burned at the stake (it's not really Olaf, of course, but they don't know that at the time) is a set-up for their later transformation. This is one area where the quote sticks out so much that I'm perfectly content to think that Handler had a good idea what he was going to do with the Baudelaires for the next few books. There's a sort of general plot arc to TVV, THH and TCC, anyway, moving the series into the next phase and concerning the search for the Snicket File. I'm often sceptical about how far Handler plans ahead, but in this case I think he had a pretty good idea of the next couple of books. Good point; it's somewhat relative. A village can be essentially a suburb on the outskirts of a city, or it can have far more abrupt edges. And now that I think about it, Tedia is also on the list; that seems to be a little way from the city (and in the U.A. map it's heading off the north edge, handily). I think Olaf would be able to jump to the conclusion that the Baudelaires would head straight for V.F.D., as he knows they don't know what it means but are desperate to find out. Depending on how much Olaf has told her, Olivia might reach a similar conclusion. Entirely true, but I really like the idea of being able to read the books with every twist coming as a surprise. "The person who's obviously Esmé in disguise turns out to be Esmé in disguise" isn't as exciting as "That random quirky townsperson turned out to have been Esmé in disguise," etc. No, but I think that's the sort of feel we're meant to get, and Klaus's later remark about how there "appear to be several hundred townspeople" reads to me like he's going off who's in the room (er, despite all hundred folding chairs not being filled...). Something like that. It strikes me as a potentially plausible fix. I had considered the possibility that various sets of numbers were set aside for certain sets of rules, e.g. all the #60s pertain to inventions of some kind, say. But that would leave them a problem if they ever went over the limit, or for that matter under the limit. That, or Hector's a lot older than he seems.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 22, 2009 10:01:12 GMT -5
Also, has anyone noticed that Olaf and Esme act so modern in this book - which is a stark contrast to the grossly outdated society of the village, even by ASOUE Universe standards? True, though Olaf's modernity seems to be a rather old-fashioned kind. Does anyone say 'It's just not cool' nowadays? Perhaps he's remembering when he was a teenager. OK, chapters 7-9. Actually, first one more comment on chapter 6. When Lemony is describing the difference between Jacques and Olaf, he doesn’t mention age. I believe a lot of people thought, before TBL, that Olaf was a lot older than Lemony et al. (as the illustrations certainly suggest). But this suggests that that was never the author’s intention. Jacques is in ‘the uptown jail’. Does this imply that there is also a downtown jail? ‘We can enjoy these huevos rancheros’. Yes, Hector is very like Jerome (‘We can slide down the banister’), isn’t he? Did Charles say something similar? I suspect he did. A lot of Sunny’s remarks in this section (merganser, grebe, etc.) are names of birds, though I don’t think this is kept up for very long. ‘a very, very sad morning for me, a morning that I wish I could strike forever from the Snicket calendar.’ This brings Lemony into the heart of the story as never before. But – because we haven’t been told Jacques’ surname – we don’t find out why for several chapters. ‘The Cherokee tribe of North America’ – this suggests we aren’t in North America; one wouldn’t put it like that if one were. (Though one thing that gives this book a North American feel is the names; America is the place you are most likely to find a Morrow, a Lesko and a Verhoogen living side by side.) The style of the psychology book is similar to several other books in the series – Dr Orwell’s book, the VFD code manual in TSS, and the mushroom book in TGG. Does this mean that it was written by a member of VFD? More likely it’s just a parody of academic language as it would be seen by a child.
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Post by Very Funky Disco on Apr 22, 2009 11:28:06 GMT -5
Does anyone say 'It's just not cool' nowadays? Perhaps he's remembering when he was a teenager. I could be wrong, but I don't think the word "cool" was used in that context until the 1950s.
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