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Post by Dante on Jul 4, 2009 13:13:40 GMT -5
How convenient that you've lost your copy of TSS. Despite the speed of your analysis earlier in the week, it gives me a chance to catch up.
~Chapter Ten~
In the illustration for this chapter, and the cover for The End, the tattoo on Olaf’s ankle is incorrectly stylised and faces the wrong way. Helquist has never drawn the tattoo accurately where it appears on characters’ ankles, but he gets it right every single time when drawing it on documents, tents, signs and architectural designs. What’s he up to?
We’ve discussed possibilities for Duncan and Isadora as volunteers; this chapter features Quigley and Violet’s speculation, and as such is rife with the possibility for error, although one has to bear in mind that Handler, too, has motives for writing such a sequence.
“Maybe all our guardians have been members of V.F.D., on one side or the other of the schism.” I wonder. The way this is presented is much like Quigley’s conclusion that V.F.D. stands for Volunteer Fire Department – there’s no real defiance to the claim within the text. But for Sir and the teachers it doesn’t really hold true, and even TPP acknowledges this – the teachers don’t respond to volunteer codes, and while Sir has a connection to V.F.D., it’s just business. However, there have been V.F.D. elements to everywhere they’ve stayed – Olaf, Monty, and reasonably Josephine were members, Sir worked with the organisation, Prufrock Prep. may have been used by volunteers, Esmé knows a lot about the organisation and lives on top of a V.F.D. secret passage, Jacques showed up in the Village of Fowl Devotees and there are implications that Hector knew the Snickets, Heimlich Hospital’s Library of Records has held at least one piece of V.F.D. information, Olivia is a former volunteer, etc.
“My father always used to say that a good meal can cheer one up considerably.” “My father always said the same thing… Do you think that was a code, too?” I think that this illustrates a worrying tendency among fans to think that whenever a phrase is repeated twice or more, it suddenly must be a code – particularly certain phrases within TPP. I think it’s purely stylistic – and as for this saying, it doesn’t have to be a code, just sound advice that friends learn from one another.
Violet and Quigley’s moment of privacy takes place within full view of Violet’s brother, of course.
Pedantic note: Set isn’t strictly speaking an aardvark, and in actual fact I understand that Egyptologists aren’t quite sure what his head is meant to resemble. Possibly a composite. But it’s just for humour.
Worth noting, I think, that Sunny’s language on pages 218-219 isn’t strictly coded – they’re proper English words or portmanteaus from which one can figure out the full situation by working through the implications. It’s not a piece of gibberish, it’s more of a one-word summary which Violet or Snicket then expands on.
Also, I find the nickname “Babylaire” more amusing than I should.
I think that the sinister duo aren’t really picking on Olaf and Esmé to spread out the net – they were delegating their task to the next most important pair there. They only really flip out when Esmé protests, questioning their decision-making process and therefore their authority. As such, Esmé and Olaf have to be forced to spread the net as punishment for their defiance.
Note that the sinister duo seem to think the sugar bowl might still be in the headquarters – while they searched for days, they also admit that it’s hard to find everything in the ashes, with the implication they may have overlooked it. If they hadn’t been interrupted by the end of the book, they might’ve taken the troupe and their new recruits down to the headquarters and set them all to work sifting through the wreckage.
~Chapter Eleven~
“It’s as if we were being trained for all this, and we didn’t even know it.” I think the education they so enjoyed here served a double-purpose – it was also a useful skill that would aid the Baudelaires or Quagmires later in life, whether in regular employment or, if necessary, in relations with V.F.D. On the other hand, not everyone who writes couplets has to be a volunteer, unless the conspiracy goes even deeper than we thought. As I’ve suggested before, V.F.D. membership as of TPP seems more symbolic…
“The message can’t be for Jacques Snicket… He’s dead.” But we never really establish who it could be. This is very much a matter for TPP, but I’m not satisfied that all our J.S.s are accounted for.
And here’s another problem with the destruction of the headquarters and the dating of the codes, etc. Five olives indicates Thursday – this Thursday, not a previous Thursday. And, as Quigley states, today is Friday. Unless the code was anticipated not to be discovered for some time, the code must’ve been set either that very day or possibly the day before. Klaus also points out that it’s a little too convenient that the only scrap of paper that survived the destruction of the headquarters is the one he needs. But how could V.F.D. ensure this? This sequence is outright magical as it implies that V.F.D. was able to stage the situation such that only the absolutely most relevant fragment survives despite everything else being torched, and the code can only have been set up that same day. No wonder people had a theory that the whole series was just secret volunteer training, as the ruins of the headquarters are a complete set-up. Unless one of the sinister duo is a double agent, or a covert volunteer was sneaking about the headquarters even while it was being burnt down, there’s no way this situation could have turned out right.
As has been pointed out, The Garden of Proserpine is a very V.F.D. poem – the opening line is “Here, where the world is quiet.” It is presumably from here that Handler created the V.F.D. pledge.
“somewhere safe to sea” – not that the Stricken Stream leads there, but the Hotel Denouement is by the sea. …And is also dangerously unsafe. I think it’s just a metaphor, though. If the code is necessary, though, the weariest river does wind somewhere safe, to sea – because the headquarters would evidently no longer be a safe place, particularly for the sugar bowl. Gorgonian Grotto is neither safe nor unsafe – it’s a terrible place to visit, but it’s also nigh-impregnable. And it was a safe place once.
Because of a line that appears later in the book (which I have a strong opinion on), some people have taken the lemon juice as being a sign indicating an element of the code was intended for Lemony. I wholeheartedly agree with this theory.
Ah, the sugar bowl. Olaf has the Snicket File, Sunny could probably sneak up and take it any time – yep, let’s never mention it again! Onto the next impossible McGuffin!
It’s not like the Baudelaires and Quigley couldn’t just sneak up at night and take Sunny back. It’s not like the villainous camp is guarded. Although I guess plausibly the sinister duo might have set up a watch. The whole sequence is fairly contrived… but then again, given what I was saying earlier about the whole code, and indeed the whole series, I’ve no right to complain about just one instance.
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Post by Hermes on Jul 6, 2009 8:47:08 GMT -5
How convenient that you've lost your copy of TSS. Despite the speed of your analysis earlier in the week, it gives me a chance to catch up. [Looks round suspiciously.] I think it may be meant to signal that food is important to VFD - so that Sunny's cooking skills can be seen as her contribution to the cause. I agree, not a code. Well, yes, technically, but he's a long way off, and would have to look up. We know, from a line in ch. 12. that the sugar bowl was thrown at the start of the fire. (Which in itself is odd given that the sinister duo thought there was no one there.) However, this message must have been left after the fire - so yes, there must have been a volunteer hanging around the neighbourhood - in a cave, perhaps? - or else someone who left at the start of the fire came back later. They presumably also carried off the books that were needed for the code. It's all a bit of stretch - the truth is probably just that Handler, as so often, wasn't thinking about timing - but I think it can just be made to work, and it's clearly preferable to the 'training' theory. |
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Post by Dante on Jul 6, 2009 9:43:12 GMT -5
I've got Chapters 12 and 13 right here, in which I think I commented a little more on the timing of things like the throwing of the sugar bowl. I don't really remember, I wrote it yesterday and I have to go out for a minute so I don't have time to reread it.
~Chapter Twelve~
The white-faced women’s pity for Sunny is somewhat misplaced; they begin to feel sorry for her after coming to the conclusion that “Sunny is only a helpless baby, and a not a spy,” when in fact Sunny is a spy and is not a helpless baby.
One has to wonder how Esmé could even fit her dress in that tent. Or where she got it from. Maybe there’s a way to collapse it quite easily when it’s not being worn. Or maybe there’s some sort of frame inside that makes it so huge – there’s no mention of it being quite so enormous when Olaf wears it in The End.
“Just the idea of the Hotel denouement in flames makes me so excited, I’m going to open a bottle of wine!” “The idea of all those eagles filling the sky makes me so excited, I’m going to smoke one of those in green cigarettes!” The way this is constructed makes it sound like Esmé thinks the eagles are going to be used in the destruction of the hotel, rather than the recruitment scheme.
On which note, for all the buzz about volunteers and villains using the same codes, the villains have no idea what a Verdant Flammable Device is, although the sinister duo realised that it could be used as a signal.
The villains are all idiots for not realising that toboggans only move under their own steam going downhill. The sinister duo don’t seem to be present at this moment, or they would correct this assumption. …Actually, they’d probably find amusing the idea of Esmé standing herself down there, although equally they’d probably figure that it was a trap.
Oft-noted mistake: “The world is quiet here” is counted as “four tiny words.”
It seems like the Baudelaire parents were attending a funeral, considering the emphasis of the black suit and the deathly connotations of the language. If Violet was quite that young, I wonder how this plays in with The End. It wouldn’t be Lemony’s funeral, for instance – at least, not retrospectively.
I think page 272 is pretty definite about V.F.D. standing for Volunteer Fire Department. Handler could probably have left it at that.
“You volunteers are never brave enough to do something for the greater good.” This backs up the philosophical essence of the schism that I mooted earlier.
This is a new low for our heroes – dragging Esmé up a hill like sled dogs.
“And none of the Baudelaires would ever meet some of the organization’s most beloved volunteers, including the mechanical instructor C. M. Kornbluth, and Dr. Isaac Anwhistle, whom everyone called Ike, and the brave volunteer who tossed the sugar bowl out the kitchen window so it would not be destroyed in the blaze, and watched it float away on one of the tributaries of the Stricken Stream.” A few comments. First, confirmation that Ike Anwhistle was a volunteer, and also held the rank of doctor. Second, a passage in TPP suggests that Kit or Dewey would’ve been doing such bowl-tossing activities, but the Baudelaires have met them so it can’t be either of the two. Also, it strikes me that the headquarters needn’t already be ablaze at the point where the sugar bowl is lost – there just needs to be anticipation of a fire. Consider especially that the sinister duo said they burned down the kitchen first, so whoever threw the sugar bowl threw the kitchen window would definitely need to have done so before the sinister duo arrived.
Notice that the sinister duo lose some of their usual confidence when faced with actual volunteers, even young ones – they don’t know how to react, “scared or scornful,” probably because the volunteers possess such a range of skills that any three who willingly come after them might actually be quite capable.
The tea set appears to be V.F.D.-issue, since it has eye decorations – unless Olaf had it decorated according to his interests. It doesn’t really matter, ultimately, whether the sugar bowl is a normal one or V.F.D.-issue, because all that would change is what it’s normally used for.
Would it be a possible interpretation of this passage that Violet has actually figured out where the sugar bowl is? She hasn’t, of course, but it strikes me that in another kind of book this might be one of those “aha” moments.
~Chapter Thirteen~
Re: Olaf and Esmé’s disagreement over what the “greater good” is: Some people have taken this as indicating that Esmé is more endangered by the sugar bowl than Olaf is, but there are other factors. Esmé is already unbelievably wealthy. The sugar bowl used to belong to her personally. I don’t think we should read the dispute too seriously, though. “We wouldn’t have argued all day long… After a few hours—”
Some of the eagles appear old enough to have been around when the Baudelaire parents were children, which suggests that their training doesn’t have to be too recent… possibly the younger eagles are taking after their parents, too?
As I’ve already suggested, despite the reference to the schism, it seems unlikely that the animals were immediately split between the two sides of the schism. Monty’s reptile collection is definitely post-schism.
“All of the reptiles except one—” A glimpse of a plotline that we only ever get glimpses of.
“They’ll either be recruited, or they’ll be our prisoners. But one thing is for certain—we’ll burn down every single one of their parents’ homes.” There’s a practical reason for this – the murder of the children’s parents gives the sinister duo access to any fortunes the children will inherit when they are of age (a motive Olaf and Esmé acknowledge), but it also ensures that none of those children have any homes to go back to. They’ll have no choice but to join the villains, just as the freaks had nowhere else to go.
Important is the fact that even Olaf and Esmé seem uneasy about the prospect of murder and destruction on a huge scale. They seem to think it’s okay if one is just doing it for the fortunes, which implies that fortunes aren’t the primary motive. Perhaps Olaf and Esmé rationalise their arsons as being “for the greater good,” whereas the sinister duo do it for fun.
Also note Esmé’s implication that members of the Kornbluth and Winnipeg families are among the Snow Scouts. Kornbluth is entirely possible, but we don’t know of any Winnipeg children, and we’ve never heard of R. having a spouse. Maybe it’s a nephew or niece.
The sinister duo also seem to have some sense of honour – they’re quite willing to let the “volunteers” go with Sunny, just so long as they uphold their side of the bargain.
One of the most interesting features of this chapter, to my mind, is the glimpse of the white-faced women’s backstory. “For a while, it was fun to fight fire with fire, but we’ve seen enough flames and smoke to last our whole lives.” “We don’t think that it was a coincidence that our home burned to the ground… We lost a sibling in that fire, Olaf.” My theory about this ties in with the arson theory I explained earlier – when Olaf acquires new recruits, he destroys their homes so that they have nowhere else to go. The white-faced women didn’t know that he destroyed their home, of course, but having heard the words of the sinister duo earlier they’ve figured out the truth of why their home burnt down and who killed their sibling. It also suggests that the white-faced women joined Olaf’s troupe with something resembling noble intentions – fighting fire with fire. Maybe they even thought they were avenging their lost sibling by joining Olaf, but got suckered into a life of crime instead? More on this next book, when we learn Fernald’s history.
It’s entertaining how, despite all evidence to the contrary, the troupe seem to think that Sunny’s still going to be working for them after these events are resolved. They’re quite appreciative of Sunny’s talent as a cook, so much so that it leads them to completely ignore the situation.
I also really like the presentation of Carmelita in this scene – she shows things from a plausible different angle. Not that plausible – she’s still a spoiled brat. But as a spoiled brat, it’s plausible for her to see the Baudelaires and a Quagmire as just troublemakers who didn’t appreciate her and who made themselves a nuisance to Nero (who, as we learn in TGG, had some influence on Carmelita). It’s just such a nice change to the dynamic for her to just cut the tension, walk over to the Baudelaires, and elbow them aside.
The troupe are really thick in this scene, aren’t they? A few moments ago they were ignoring the drama to discuss Sunny’s merits as a cook, and now they’re joining a dance in the middle of a giant net which they know is being used to capture a bunch of children! In the next book, the hook-handed man is one of the most serious characters in the series.
The passage on pledges is a significant insight into the thoughts of both sides of the schism of V.F.D. – after some time, anyway, as, as I’ve explained before, it’s hard to believe that people who were volunteers one minute would the next start thinking that well-read people ought to be lit on fire. That’d take a few years.
Off-screen (as it were), Olaf tricked Bruce out of a reptile collection that Olaf needed – we must assume it is Monty’s. Olaf also clarifies that this took place a long time ago. This would seem to tie in somewhat with the U.A., in which Monty’s collection is scattered – in the wild, not to private bidders or any such thing. Olaf’s henchmen are sent around to collect them up, but this doesn’t exactly fit in with Olaf’s plans either; he wanted the reptiles direct. Still, it’s an interesting revelation. One is curious as to exactly what would have happened. Both the release of the reptiles into the wild, and Olaf’s trickery, support untold stories which we can only imagine.
“With these eagles at our disposal… we can finally catch up to that self-sustaining hot air mobile home and destroy those volunteers!” This is a somewhat problematic statement. Hector, Duncan and Isadora aren’t quite volunteers, but the sinister duo clearly think they are – which I take as signifying that they at least have volunteer associations, or perhaps have been contacted by actual volunteers. The point of the SSHAMH may be to hide from the world, but they didn’t want to leave the Baudelaires behind, remember. The threat to destroy them using the eagles isn’t carried out in the most straightforward way either, as we’ll see in TPP and The End, but certainly it doesn’t occur between now and TPP, as the sinister duo are aiming for in this bit.
Carmelita is in fact exactly the sort of child Olaf and Esmé are looking to recruit – just as wicked and selfish as they are. She’ll complain about having to do work, sure, but she’ll have boundless enthusiasm for villainy and is sure to have plenty of evil ideas, as seen here. It’s also an interesting development to her character – from spoiled brat to criminal arsonist. This says something about Olaf and Esmé – indeed, about the state of the world.
“They’ll burn your parents’ house down. I have the evidence right here, in my commonplace book.” Another piece of Quigley knowledge that we can’t be sure how he obtained, although the events of this chapter certainly support the conclusion.
“What are you going to believe, Carmelita?... A silly book, or something an adult tells you?” Again, I think this is an important insight into the attitude of the villainous side. What do you believe – something that anyone can write, or the real experiences of a person of the world?
Esmé’s version of the alphabet pledge makes even more of a mockery of the concept by having several words just turn into modifications of “adorable.”
“I’m going to push these cakesniffers off the mountain, and start an exciting and fashionable new life!” See Esmé, white-faced women, Fernald, etc.
“…the headquarters had been destroyed by people the children’s parents had devoted their lives to stopping.” Well, not really. Spent most of their time looking after the kids, too. But we don’t know how things might have changed, and we know they were still involved with V.F.D.
“We’re not outnumbered at all… There are four of us, and only three of you.” I feel this is a particularly clever line because of how hard it is to keep track of all these comings and goings. Olaf could just have said they were outnumbered, and I’m sure many wouldn’t even have realised that this was false until they came back to think about it later.
And once again, I like the stylistic device employed as the Baudelaires escape – Lemony recommends reading a book in which villains do not roar at children who are trying to escape, and immediately afterwards this does indeed happen. The self-referential nature of aSoUE is one of my favourite aspects.
The Baudelaires’ and Quigley’s discussion of how difficult it’ll be for Olaf to catch up don’t seem to have been borne out, but we’ll discuss this in TGG. Worth noting is that Olaf’s car is never mentioned again (except maybe for a certain chapter illustration that I’ll be sure to comment on), but I think he had a spare tire in the trunk, at least? If not in this book, then in a prior one.
If the Hotel Denouement is on one of Quigley’s maps, it’s probably a map of the city or the coastline. It’s not somewhere he’d remarked on in particular, though. It’s probably just a copy of an existing map, or somewhere he passed distantly by on his quest, or heard mentioned in passing on another occasion.
“Do you really think [Bruce is] a member of V.F.D.?” Why would you? Nobody had even suggested it, Violet! Anyway, it seems likely that he is not. Doesn’t really fit the mould, for the same reason that Mr. Poe doesn’t (I’ve said this before, haven’t I?).
“My siblings—” I wonder what the rest of this sentence was going to be. Whenever a sentence is interrupted in aSoUE, you know that it’s important.
Sunny’s teeth cease to be important tools… or at least, they should be. I feel that TSS had originally wrapped up some things that were later resurrected in TPP – Sunny’s tooth-related exploits, the Baudelaires’ moral ambiguity. TGG doesn’t have either, to my recollection.
So where was Violet meant to wait for Quigley at? It feels like a reunion was intended, but it’s yet another resolution that is promised but which never happens. That he was waving his commonplace book around, though, strikes me as a hint that the Hotel D. was the intended location. They’re all ultimately headed there, after all.
“Maybe he’s going to try to reach his siblings before the eagles do… but we don’t know where they are.” I don’t know how Quigley would catch up with his siblings, or even why they’d be in a specific place. I guess this is ultimately what happens to Quigley, but not without a bit more fluctuation in his storyline, I think – more on this in TPP.
“We can’t even be certain what V.F.D. stands for, or if our parents are truly dead.”
The refrigerator also pops up in a chapter illustration later on. It may also have been alluded to in the BBRE, as the refrigerator once contained in a box in Olaf’s house, although this was presumably before it came to the headquarters.
Lemony seems to have one of Quigley’s maps – “I know exactly where the Baudelaires went, and can even trace their path on a map drawn by one of the most promising young cartographers of our time…” If I recall correctly, Snicket’s notes in The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily back up the suggestion that he’s met Quigley.
Much has been noted about how the explanation of Swinburne’s verse confirms the Baudelaire father’s death, but not their mother’s. I feel some people represent this. No mention is made of the Baudelaire mother here because the poem only refers to dead men.
The last couple of pages suggest that the Stricken Stream ultimately leads to the Hotel Denouement… which it doesn’t, and surely Snicket himself must have known that, since he knew the plot of the following book. Certainly, the Baudelaires, Quigley, and the sugar bowl do all go there, but their route is somewhat more winding than even the weariest river’s curves. Also, Quigley is referred to as a volunteer, in one of many small clues that led people to think he knows more than he’s letting on. It does seem as if Handler had something in mind, but I think, like the Baudelaires, he’s more of an honorary volunteer – a volunteer in practice, even if not one formally inducted.
I’m not sure if I was around at the time, but this is the first Kind Editor letter to obscure the name of the following book, and people did have fun speculating on what the next title would be. “The Grim Grotto” is, in retrospect, extremely obvious, but in the letter it’s not even clear that the second letter is “r” – I think there were suggestions like Graveyard, Gameroom, etc. I guess the river could end up throwing them ashore near a graveyard, or near a place which would eventually lead to a graveyard, but a gameroom seems too sudden a return to civilisation, don’t you think? I also think that Handler addresses the title speculation in TGG itself, but that can wait.
Oh, and there were also claims that “damaged submarine” was actually “somaged submarine,” “somaged” being a word which supposedly meant “damp.” It might not’ve been “somaged,” though, as I’m sure I actually looked it up and discovered the word did exist, whereas now I look it up and discover that it doesn’t and is in any case associated with restaurants. It seems I can’t even rely on my own memories, much less the text.
Another clue was released online referring to the next book, a couple months before TGG came out. I’ll do some research this week and try and figure out when it was, and when the TGG reread thread gets posted up, I’ll mention it.
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Post by Hermes on Jul 6, 2009 14:24:06 GMT -5
Dante, you earlier mentioned a passage which links up with the the lemon juice in the Verbal Fridge Dialogue, suggesting Lemony is involved - I'd be interested to hear more about that. On which note, for all the buzz about volunteers and villains using the same codes, the villains have no idea what a Verdant Flammable Device is, although the sinister duo realised that it could be used as a signal. Yes, I noticed that. I think it's emphasised too much to be simply a mistake; I take it as evidence that VFD did go on developing its methods to some extent after the schism. I think it's possible Lemony has had several funerals in the course of his life. But so as not to multiply them unnecessarily, perhaps one of his parents'? Well, that depends on what you take the greater good to be. O thinks it's money. . The passage reads to me as naturally suggesting that the kitchen was already burning, but you're right that it doesn't have to mean that - and since the sinister duo say there were no volunteers there when they arrived, I guess the throwing must have happened before that, as they were approaching. Yes, that makes a lot of sense. How sad that she didn't. I think, though, that O is unlikely to have reacted the same way if the SB had taken on the massive significance it seems to acquire in the next two books - where if he should get it 'all the labours of the volunteers would be in vain' (or something) etc. How so? Some of the reptiles are, no doubt, but the collection may have been begun before then. (M has been a herpetologist for forty years, if I remember rightly, which means he started before the schism even with the TPP dating.) Well, that isn't strictly true - the Baudelaires and Quagmires have not joined the villains, despite their homes being burnt - but no doubt the villains could hope to convince them of it. It does seem to me that, given his experiences with the B's and Q's (and earlier the Snickets, etc.) O is unreasonably confident about the prospect of getting fortunes. I agree. For one thing, if R had, or hoped to have, children, I think it unlikely she would have given L her ring. My worry is that in the passage on pledges - which I can't check, owing to the mysterious disappearance of my copy - my memory is that 'fight fire with fire' is used just to stand for a life of spreading fires or something like that. However, it's true that the villainous actions of the bad side of VFD often seem to be directed against the good side of VFD - whom they may see as people who have injured them, as in some cases they have (e.g. poyzon darts). So it looks as if there are three phases of villainy - first, villainous acts as a way of combating evil (what 'fighting fire with fire' ought to mean, but doesn't always), then villainous acts for personal gain, and finally villainous acts just for fun. The first phase is one that most characters, including the officially good ones, sometimes reach; the second is where Olaf and friends are, and the third where the sinister duo are. Of course, it can't be more than a few months ago - this is the time-dilation effect we often get in ASOUE, especially, I suspect, the later books. Yes, it's an example of the 'Look, here's a mystery' feature which seems to run through this book. There are an infinite number of things we don't know, most of which, fortunately, we have no particular desire to know - until, of course, they are drawn to our attention. If Handler had not drawn attention to these mysteries no one would have worried about them; as it is, people did. I agree about teeth. As for moral ambiguity - well, planning to desert Fiona might be called morally ambiguous, though no attention is drawn to it. But even if they don't actually do anything ambiguous in TGG, the general idea of ambiguity is emphasised through Fiona, Fernald, Gregor - the question whether anyone really can be morally pure is raised, so I don't think that theme can be seen as over. I think the Baudelaires' withdrawal from the abyss in TSS was not meant to be the last word, and we might guess that in the end they would fall. See? 'Oh, it's a mystery'. We've had reasonable - and, as it turns out, correct - answers, but are they satisfied with them? Yes indeed. When was the Snicket edition of TBFIOS published, relative to this? Hm. Swinburne, by 'men', clearly meant 'people'. Lemony is reading it as 'male people', which would be a more normal reading nowadays; but there's no necessity to read the passage in this way and draw attention to it. So I think the absence of the mother is significant - not, of course, that she is alive, but that Lemony still wants to think she is. Well, in the end Q doesn't go there. (I think. Or did he go there with Kit before the Baudelaires arrived? I thought they met in a disused department store or something.) Now, that the poem does not in fact refer to the Hotel Denouement but to the Gorgonian Grotto is suggested by some words of Dewey in TPP, on the lines of 'We've thrown things out of windows so that they end up somewhere safe at sea' - though as you pointed out, this doesn't quite fit what happened anyway. Certainly, that's not how L is reading the line. But I wonder whether there may not be an implicit meaning which is actually closer to Swinburne's own, on which the 'last safe place where all the volunteers can gather' is in fact death - later symbolised by the Great Unknown. There's a line in chapter 12 where V, K and Q are referred to as 'the three volunteers'. Since V and K certainly haven't been formally recruited, I think this makes it clear you can become a volunteer just by intention - something the next two books will confirm. |
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Post by Dante on Jul 6, 2009 16:11:36 GMT -5
Dante, you earlier mentioned a passage which links up with the the lemon juice in the Verbal Fridge Dialogue, suggesting Lemony is involved - I'd be interested to hear more about that. Fine work - I quite forgot. I think it's... yes, page 284. --- The Baudelaires would never do any of these things, any more than I will ever see my beloved Beatrice again, or retrieve my pickle from the refrigerator in which I left it, and return it to its rightful place in an important coded sandwich.--- Lemon juice and pickle were items in the refrigerator that Klaus couldn't decode. The following line appears in TPP, Lemony describing the taxi driver from Chapter Ten, emphasis mine: --- I do know who the man was, and I do know where he went afterward, and I do know the name of the woman who was hiding in the trunk, and the type of musical instrument that was laid carefully in the back seat, and the ingredients of the sandwich tucked into the glove compartment... --- Yes, I agree with that. The sugar bowl seems somewhat more hyped in the following books. I'm not willing to go back and check, but I'm fairly sure Monty implied that he'd personally created his entire reptile collection. But I won't press the point; certainly the reptile collection could have been started earlier. That's true, actually. Perhaps he's better at it off-screen - he focusses all his most elaborate schemes on the Baudelaires, but employs simpler methods en masse if he's not personally attending. Or he would do if he thought of it - Olaf's not a rich man, although he has a rich girlfriend. A good point. A very good point. I've sometimes wondered if R. doesn't have a soft spot for Lemony. If it were true, her suffering through unrequited love would quite possibly be even more agonising than Lemony's. I like the progression you establish. That quite accords with how I read the characters. Anyway, the passage itself - I need to start quoting these again, or at least listing page numbers. I've gotten lazy in these rereads. --- If you feel, for instance, that well-read people are less likely to be evil, and a world full of people sitting quietly with good books in their hands is preferable to a world filled with schisms and sirens and other noisy and troublesome things, then every time you enter a library you might say to yourself, "The world is quiet here," as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good. If you feel that well-read people out to be lit on fire and their fortunes stolen, you might adopt the saying "Fire fire with fire!" as your pledge, whenever you ordered one of your comrades around.--- Fortunately, it's not definitive; while it's a clear insight into the motivations and ideals of either side of the schism, the villainous side is clearly somewhat caricatured. Given that the phrase "fight fire with fire" is something of a motif in TSS, I feel that the link to fighting fire with fire for noble reasons will be one that readers can be trusted to make. Yes indeed. A relatively long time ago, compared to the recent rush of events. With the earlier books, there were a few days of peace and quiet, and even a few days with the Poe family between books, but from TVV it's action, action, and more action. Again, relatively; even they have their quiet days on which the Baudelaires spend all day driving a submarine or some such. Quite so. There's one example in Chapter One of TGG that particularly - some metaphor or other. Of course, in retrospect, Handler's flagging it up because it's part of the point, although I myself must cynically wonder whether it was always part of the point or whether he wrote himself into a corner and had to make it a point. I distrust authors. Well, within reason. Well, I felt that it was wrapped up for the Baudelaires. They were all hunky-dory in TGG - well, as you rightly point out, Fiona got treated very sorely. I always take umbrage when I read a piece of fanfiction or something in which the Baudelaires allude to Fiona's "betrayal" as if they hadn't been planning to ditch her a few minutes earlier for exactly the same reasons. But I digress. TSS feels like the Baudelaires come to the right conclusion, hurrah, let's look at it in other people and feel sad but let's not ignore the character development the Baudelaires went through in TSS, oh wait now we have, let's force them into some more cheap situations which they can feel guilty over despite having done nothing wrong whatsoever (dropping a harpoon gun = omfg murder). Uh, groan. Let me check. Amazon.com, doop de doo... February 15th, 2005, which is about a year and a half after TSS. I disagree. Swinburne clearly means people in general, yes, but Lemony's reading it over-literally (because of course the weariest river is not really the Stricken Stream specifically, etc.), and as such we are to take his male examples for just that, examples of dead men, because to explain and attempt to justify the grammatical implications of using a single gender for both would kill the flow and tone of the passage. I don't regard it as concealing secrets. My memory was that Quigley was actually at the Hotel D. at some point, having not immediately received the message from his siblings while in the disused department store and therefore can be reasonably assumed to have headed to the hotel... Ah, darn. Just reread. Nah, he never got there. It doesn't sound like he and Kit were in the disused bathrobe emporium all the time, but it doesn't look like he ever went to the hotel - the plan was to meet the Baudelaires at the beach and proceed there, but he was summoned away first. Well, he'd have had to have left the bathrobe emporium to steal a helicopter from a botanist, which I know we'll be talking about when we get to TPP. I think the end of TSS is hinting that he's heading there and will be found there, though. I like your alternative reading, partly for the fact that the Great Unknown is one of my favourite figures in the series, but I think it would be a little presumptuous to consider that as being implied at the time of writing. I don't think we're meant to be looking forward to Gorgonian Grotto, either. I think Hotel D. is the straight and unambiguous place intended; it's just that our heroes and the precious McGuffin take the long way around. (As we're sure to discuss at some point, the sugar bowl is actually off the radar for some time, rendering the "pursuit of the sugar bowl" plotline moot.) Edit: A page full of enormous long posts packed with quote and re-quote - this is what this forum is about! I've missed this. |
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Post by Hermes on Jul 7, 2009 6:32:30 GMT -5
The Baudelaires would never do any of these things, any more than I will ever see my beloved Beatrice again, or retrieve my pickle from the refrigerator in which I left it, and return it to its rightful place in an important coded sandwich.--- Lemon juice and pickle were items in the refrigerator that Klaus couldn't decode. The following line appears in TPP, Lemony describing the taxi driver from Chapter Ten, emphasis mine: --- I do know who the man was, and I do know where he went afterward, and I do know the name of the woman who was hiding in the trunk, and the type of musical instrument that was laid carefully in the back seat, and the ingredients of the sandwich tucked into the glove compartment... Oh, that's interesting. That makes it sound as if it was Lemony who left the message in the refrigerator, which has all sorts of implications. (One thing it implies is that the Swinburne quote in this context means what he thinks it means. Hm.) I'm getting the distinct sense that the whole 'division of animals' story makes more sense with the pre-TPP dating of the schism, though it can be squeezed into fitting the earlier dating. I had quite a different view - which I don't think I am alone in holding - but yours would work as well. I don't like the 'wrote himself into a corner' theory at all. As far as I can see, the major mysteries of the middle part of the series - who is Beatrice, what is VFD, who is the survivor of the fire - are solved. It's at the point that mystery becomes a theme that he begins both creating major unsolved mysteries, and blowing up insignificant details into mysteries. As I read it, the Great Unknown is meant to be insoluble from the point it is introduced, and the sugar bowl is meant to be insoluble from the point where it becomes really central. I suspect his problem is not that he found he had a puzzle - originally written to be soluble - which he couldn't solve, but that he realised that if he just gave the explanation of everything it would be unsatisfying, leaving people saying 'Is that all?' So he creates more puzzles. Perhaps the one thing from earlier on in the series that really would be worth knowing about, and isn't solved, is the cause of the schism; but I honestly can't see how he's in a corner there; any number of explanations would be possible, but he just doesn't give one. [/i]).[/quote] As I read it, it's a theme of TGG that everyone is morally ambiguous - the 'chef's salad' passage - though Fernald is wrong to conclude from that that there's nothing to choose between the two sides. If everyone, then the Baudelaires. I agree that some of the situations which are treated as morally ambiguous aren't really - the assumption that everything that has a bad consequence is a bad act whether you could have foreseen it or prevented it or not is is a weird one - but the burning down of the hotel is ambiguous if anything ever was; and my feeling is that something like that is is the point they were always moving towards. In-story, you can just take it as L reading it over-literally; but there was no actual need to give an interpretation of these lines at all, so the fact that L's over-literal reading is highlighted may still be significant. Glad to be of service! |
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Post by Dante on Jul 7, 2009 10:32:26 GMT -5
Well, Hermes, you've raised a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas, and I prepared a lengthy response to some of the points you raise about the mysterious nature of the series:  I trust that this answers your questions. |
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Post by Hermes on Jul 7, 2009 11:53:19 GMT -5
Oh Dante, that's really sad. I'm sure that the mysteriousness issue will come up a few times in our reading of the last 3.5 books, though, so I'll get to see your thoughts in due course.
Edit: OK, I have acquired a second-hand copy (American - interesting cover) so can now add my comments on Ch. 12.
The white-faced women address Esme as 'Your Esmeship', whereas they called Olaf simply 'Olaf'. This confirms the theory that Esme is upsetting the balance of the group.
The idea of sending Sunny to get the 'cigarettes' is fairly mad - their only fear is that she'll keep the cigarettes for herself; they don't consider she might escape. (Of course, they don't know that her siblings and Q are there; but the 'cigarette' smoke is surely a sign that someone is there.)
'The World is Quiet Here' - the first time this phrase has been used in the actual series, amazingly enough.
Just to make it explicit; the Baudelaire parents were singing 'The Little Snicket Lad' (which, if you have not read TUA, as I had not when I first read this, makes the passage rather puzzling). This may also explain how the Baudelaires first knew the name 'Snicket'.
'The three volunteers peeked round the archway and saw the treacherous girlfriend...'
It's interesting that E was supposed to spend the summer reading Anna Karenina. One might wonder if this was the same summer as Beatrice read it - she might well have been reading it for VFD, though Klaus wouldn't know that - but this would wreak havoc with the schism, which, whether you accept the early or the late dating, certainly happened before Violet was born.
In the 'they would never...' passage, some of the activities mentioned fit the Baudelaires' interests, others less so. I was particularly struck by 'Klaus would never use the balance beams at the gymnasium'. I would not have thought of him doing so in any case.
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Post by cwm on Jul 9, 2009 5:10:37 GMT -5
Selfish POV again: could we please wait until after the weekend for TGG 'cause that's good for me?
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Post by Dante on Jul 9, 2009 10:56:32 GMT -5
I'm away from Saturday 'til Saturday. If you want to start TGG in-between those two days, you'll have to either ask Sora or take the responsibility on yourselves and ask Tragedy to Announcement-ise the thread.
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Post by Hermes on Jul 9, 2009 11:23:32 GMT -5
I'm happy to wait. (Still have to do chapter 13, for one thing.)
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Post by Dante on Jul 9, 2009 12:08:27 GMT -5
In that case, we'll see how everything works out, then. There's also something I should post before you start TGG, but not until after you've finished TSS.
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Post by Hermes on Jul 9, 2009 16:30:51 GMT -5
It just did the same thing to me as to Dante - ate all my comments on Chapter 13. 667 has been playing up a bit lately, I've noticed.
Executive summary.
Throwing away Sunny, why, exactly? Because once they have V and K she's not needed? But they might still want her for the pleasure of having an infant servant - this is later considered.
White faced women, part of a set of three siblings.
Recruiting Carmelita, a good idea? Swiftly regretted by O - not by E, suggesting a repressed desire for children.
Esme's pastiche of Snow Scout pledge suggest she may have been in Snow Scouts in her youth. 'Thin' as term of praise is disturbing.
JS here assumed to be Jacques. Note: the message only works if you know where the last safe place is, suggesting it was meant for a trained volunteer.
Final description of L's research implies he is writing long after the events. What did happen to refrigerator? No obvious reason why it would be removed.
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Post by Dante on Jul 10, 2009 3:19:33 GMT -5
It just did the same thing to me as to Dante - ate all my comments on Chapter 13. 667 has been playing up a bit lately, I've noticed. Actually, IE crashed on me for some unrelated reason which I now forget. Possibly because Photobucket suddenly decided it was unhappy while I was batch-uploading images, not sure. Also, I save all my actual direct reread commentary to MS Word, but what got eaten was a response to your commentary. As a threat, it's a pretty good one, especially since Violet and Klaus are now still alive - and for that matter, he could snatch Quigley too, and not worry about Isadora and Duncan being blasted from the sky. As for when he gets angry later and demands Sunny be thrown off the mountain anyway - that's just Olaf being evil, I think. Three-sibling families seem to be quite popular, but that's probably because it's the most interesting figure for characterisation purposes. Four would be too many. There are a couple of two-child families - we don't know of any more Poe siblings (and that applies both to Arthur and Eleanora, and Edgar and Albert), and it seems likely that the "Widdershins" family (which isn't actually called that, but we don't know what else to call them, save that their original surname probably began with F) only has Fiona and Fernald. Maybe Esmé's projecting all her childish selfishness onto Carmelita, or trying to bring up Carmelita the way she'd like to have been brought up. Which are in themselves parenting tropes, I guess. Some of Esmé's terms of praise were pretty eerie, but then again so were some of the original Snow Scout pledge. "Quarantined"? Also, I now wonder if "recent" defies some of our own recent theories on the age of the Snow Scouts, but the members of the Snow Scouts are quite young, which "recent" may be used in favour of. Because they don't ever change the pledge, so "recent" in terms of the organisation's historical status would quickly become inaccurate. ...Actually, that would be part of the point, wouldn't it? I guess Jacques did only die a couple of days ago (about a week, I think, by my calculations), so people might still be trying to communicate with him, but as we later learn, the initials J.S. are not uncommon, especially if some people think that it could refer to someone whose initials are actually G.J. Good point, that the necessity of knowing the location of the last safe place implies the message was meant for a trained volunteer - given that there are still instructions magically lying around, one could be forgiven for thinking that... but then again, figuring out this stuff from the clues given would also be a volunteer skill. Well, as we've already discussed, the coded message works by magic anyway. Also worth noting that this wasn't the only message - there must have been many such messages sent out to the scattered volunteers worldwide, as they certainly didn't all pass through the headquarters ruins. The headquarters ruins message must've been for people who would otherwise be difficult to contact. Destruction of the slippery slope effectively flooded the ruins of the V.F.D. base, if I recall correctly? Which is why Quigley was able to grab onto a bit of bannister. I assume the fridge was washed away in the flood too, which may account for where it eventually seems to turn up. *looks up* Certainly implied, I think, albeit not outright stated. The great quantity of ashes being washed away down the Stricken Stream also suggests this is the case. Presumably when the headquarters still stood it had some walls built flush agains the river. Edit: Tomorrow I will be posting a super-fun game for you to tide yourselves over with while you wait for TGG to begin whenever that begins. It will take you right back to those heady days of 2004. |
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Post by Hermes on Jul 10, 2009 9:49:49 GMT -5
Three-sibling families seem to be quite popular, but that's probably because it's the most interesting figure for characterisation purposes. Four would be too many. There are a couple of two-child families - we don't know of any more Poe siblings (and that applies both to Arthur and Eleanora, and Edgar and Albert), and it seems likely that the "Widdershins" family (which isn't actually called that, but we don't know what else to call them, save that their original surname probably began with F) only has Fiona and Fernald. That's probably true, though not obvious at first - I wondered for a while if there were a third sibling, and later thought, very briefly, that we had found her. (I don't think I was the only one to think this, either.) Meanwhile, a four-child family is mentioned in TPP. I take it this is a deliberate breaking of the three-child pattern that has prevailed up till then. The Baudelaires actually find out where the LSP is through Sunny. There was no way of predicting that they would do this - likewise with Justice Strauss or Jerome Squalor. (My own suspicion is that at this point JS isn't any particular person - volunteers are getting messages signed 'JS' and responding with messages addressed to JS, whoever that is.) That's a bit odd, since the waterfall presumably melts every year, and doesn't normally destroy the HQ. But all right, let it pass. I can't wait! |
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