berg8793
Reptile Researcher
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The world may be quiet here...but is it quiet somewhere else?
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Post by berg8793 on Jul 15, 2009 12:12:54 GMT -5
I thought the writer would be Josephine since the second half of the transcript is supposed to be hidden in a copy of Ivan Lachrymose: Lake Explorer that was hidden under someone's bed.
I can understand that Monty didn't know Sebald code, but maybe he was announcing that because he couldn't do it and other people could. Either that or Matilda was hosting the meeting, which doesn't make sense to me.
I just thought of another S that might work - Sally Sebald, although her letter in the fourth chapter can easily contradict that.
(By the way, Hermes, thanks for your input!)
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Post by Hermes on Jul 15, 2009 13:34:08 GMT -5
I thought the writer would be Josephine since the second half of the transcript is supposed to be hidden in a copy of Ivan Lachrymose: Lake Explorer that was hidden under someone's bed. Yes, that's a good point - there certainly seems to be a connection there - though other people also seem to have copies of Ivan Lachrymose. (Later in the book someone - it's not clear who - finds a tape of a conversation between the Poes between its pages.) Good thoughts - I'm beginning to think that they are indeed meant to be Monty and Josephine - and if they don't fit everything else we know about them, well, the UA is a notoriously confusing work. (But who says 'Please pass the brandy'? That doesn't seem right for either Josephine or Jacques.)
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berg8793
Reptile Researcher
![*](//storage.proboards.com/253263/images/vRVhpjGRlVGRHWCUOotK.png)
The world may be quiet here...but is it quiet somewhere else?
Posts: 36
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Post by berg8793 on Jul 17, 2009 13:01:31 GMT -5
Good point. It certainly doesn't seem like Josephine to be having brandy - she would probably be afraid that the bottle or the glass would shatter. Maybe Jacques? I suppose it would depend on the time this meeting occurred, and how old these people are at the time of the meeting.
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Post by Hermes on Jul 17, 2009 13:40:53 GMT -5
Good point. It certainly doesn't seem like Josephine to be having brandy - she would probably be afraid that the bottle or the glass would shatter. Good point. Well, Geraldine has started writing her 'Secret Organisations' column, which should mean Lemony has already been sacked from the Daily Punctilio - so the Snickets are adults. (Though it's a question how seriously you should take the dating in the UA.)
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Post by Dante on Jul 18, 2009 10:55:59 GMT -5
I suppose now would be a bad time to chip in with a cynical opinion? I doubt that all the letters had genuine characters assigned, and certainly not concrete ones. Otherwise, though, since Ramona Quimby is generally agreed upon, I'd be happy for Matilda and Laura Ingalls Wilder to be stuck in, problematic though they may all be on multiple levels of reality.
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Post by Christmas Chief on Aug 9, 2009 14:11:26 GMT -5
Good point. It certainly doesn't seem like Josephine to be having brandy - she would probably be afraid that the bottle or the glass would shatter. Maybe Jacques? But remember? It wasn't until after Ike died that she became scared of everything and anything.
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Post by Dante on Aug 9, 2009 16:02:24 GMT -5
Actually, I think TWW established that she'd always been afraid of things, and so was Ike - she refers to him only answering the phone when wearing a special glove, for example. She even says that she and Ike never had children because they were afraid to.
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Post by Christmas Chief on Aug 10, 2009 9:48:33 GMT -5
Maybe I'm confusing it with the movie, which got a lot wrong. Still, I think TWW implied that she was less afraid with Ike, they could have been afraid to have children for a perfectly rational reason, and I don't recall Aunt Josephine mentioning a glove... Which page? And even so, it doesn't seem likely Ike would wear a glove to answer the phone for safety purposes.
I have a question: Is Elenora Poe related to Mr. Poe in any way? I thought she was, but all the different articles are confusing me.
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Post by Dante on Aug 10, 2009 10:21:35 GMT -5
Maybe I'm confusing it with the movie, which got a lot wrong. Still, I think TWW implied that she was less afraid with Ike, they could have been afraid to have children for a perfectly rational reason, and I don't recall Aunt Josephine mentioning a glove... Which page? And even so, it doesn't seem likely Ike would wear a glove to answer the phone for safety purposes. TWW pages 59-60 beg to differ. Eleanora Poe is Mr. Poe's sister.
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Post by Christmas Chief on Aug 12, 2009 10:06:29 GMT -5
[TWW pages 59-60 beg to differ. Hmmm... Point taken.
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berg8793
Reptile Researcher
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The world may be quiet here...but is it quiet somewhere else?
Posts: 36
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Post by berg8793 on Sept 17, 2009 13:15:56 GMT -5
I suppose now would be a bad time to chip in with a cynical opinion? I doubt that all the letters had genuine characters assigned, and certainly not concrete ones. Otherwise, though, since Ramona Quimby is generally agreed upon, I'd be happy for Matilda and Laura Ingalls Wilder to be stuck in, problematic though they may all be on multiple levels of reality. Who ever said that this was real? Most of them seem to be concrete, but Matilda and Laura were just guesses because of the book list and Chapter Ten, respectively.
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Post by Hermes on Sept 18, 2009 13:02:28 GMT -5
I don't think anyone is suggesting it is really real; the point is just that having all thse characters in it makes it hard to work out a coherent backstory, as Laura, Ramona and Matilda were not all children at the same time.
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berg8793
Reptile Researcher
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The world may be quiet here...but is it quiet somewhere else?
Posts: 36
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Post by berg8793 on Oct 4, 2009 9:27:46 GMT -5
Ahhh... I see your point. How about this?
Since Ramona was nine years old at the time of the meeting, and the book Ramona Quimby, Age 8 was published in 1999, therefore it would be 2000 when the meeting took place. It doesn't specify if Matilda and Laura are children, because they don't need to be. Matilda's book was published in 1988, so she would most likely be a teenager. Laura's book (Little House in the Big Woods) was published in 1932, so she is an old woman by the time this meeting took place - she could also easily pass for one of V.F.D.'s oldest members.
Maybe not coherent, but a backstory nonetheless.
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Post by Dante on Oct 4, 2009 10:07:20 GMT -5
I think my actual objection was where the line between fiction and reality lies. Is it okay for Matilda, Ramona and Laura to be members of V.F.D. while also being the main characters of fiction books read by children? And what about Matilda's psychic powers - don't they conflict with the otherwise non-supernatural setting of aSoUE? My point is that I'm sort of okay with the letters being nods to those characters (so long as the actual words they speak in the transcript don't contradict that), but I think to write a fanfic in which Matilda and Laura and Ramona are hanging around with aSoUE characters is not something I would consider to be plausible as a genuine history of the series.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 4, 2009 12:21:03 GMT -5
Since Ramona was nine years old at the time of the meeting, and the book Ramona Quimby, Age 8 was published in 1999, therefore it would be 2000 when the meeting took place. It doesn't specify if Matilda and Laura are children, because they don't need to be. Matilda's book was published in 1988, so she would most likely be a teenager. Laura's book (Little House in the Big Woods) was published in 1932, so she is an old woman by the time this meeting took place - she could also easily pass for one of V.F.D.'s oldest members. I think they are children, though - Laura will be the one who asks 'what's the matter with your hand?', and Matilda, I think, is the one who says 'When you are older, you will realise...', which sounds to me like the voice of a slightly older child. (An added complexity is that I don't think Ramona's age in her own books can easily be fitted into real time. This is quite common in children's books, actually - they either don't get older at all, or they get older, but at their own rate.) I think my actual objection was where the line between fiction and reality lies. Is it okay for Matilda, Ramona and Laura to be members of V.F.D. while also being the main characters of fiction books read by children? And what about Matilda's psychic powers - don't they conflict with the otherwise non-supernatural setting of aSoUE? My point is that I'm sort of okay with the letters being nods to those characters (so long as the actual words they speak in the transcript don't contradict that), but I think to write a fanfic in which Matilda and Laura and Ramona are hanging around with aSoUE characters is not something I would consider to be plausible as a genuine history of the series. Yes. I see what you mean - and Matilda's psychic powers are definitely a problem, given how emphatic TCC and TE are about the unreality of magic. I guess it really turns on what we make of the fragments from Lemony's commonplace book. Are we meant to see these as descriptions of Laura and Ramona being recruited to VFD - in which case they are already incorporated in canon? Or are we meant to suppose that the the authors of these (fictional) books are sending coded message (thought the Laura Ingalls books aren't wholly fictional)? Or what? (And clearly Esme Squalor isn't actually the Esme from 'From Esme with Love and Squalor', and so on.)
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