Post by Christmas Chief on Nov 5, 2012 21:36:47 GMT -5
This wasn't listed as part of the WCTBATH tour stops, but it seems to be functioning as one.
Lemony Snicket to host unfortunate event in Calgary
~~~
How Daniel Handler turned despair and deadpan humour into children's literature gold
Daniel Handler has a fantasy about what caused the demise of Edward Gorey, the writer and artist known for his dark and twisted children’s books.
In 1999, when Handler first began publishing his own dark and twisted children’s books under the name Lemony Snicket, he sent Gorey a package that contained the first two volumes of A Series of Unfortunate Events. In a letter, Handler said how much of an influence the older writer had been with his famously macabre collection of abecedarian books. He also begged forgiveness for shamelessly borrowing Gorey’s style and tone.
“He died shortly afterwards,” Handler says, in an interview from his home in San Francisco. “So I like to think that I killed him. But I have no evidence of that. Probably the package was never opened. But I like to imagine that it was opened and he gasped in horror and while stumbling to the phone to call his solicitor succumbed to his death.”
Handler, who will be appearing as a “representative of Lemony Snicket” on Wednesday at the Calgary Public Library’s John Dutton Theatre, certainly carries some of his nom de plum’s traits in conversation. There’s the deadpan humour, the cheerful nihilism and the overwhelming sense that we should all resign ourselves to the notion that life is full of cruelty and misfortune.
Even an introductory query about his Alberta visit prompts a decidedly Snickety response.
“I guess something terrible could happen to me before I arrive,” he ponders. “Then I wouldn’t be there.”
But what generally happens at these events is that the reclusive Lemony Snicket fails to show up. This forces Handler,“a stumbling, awkward man,” to appear in his stead.
While ostensibly created as a pen name for Handler back in the 1990s, Lemony Snicket was given an elaborate backstory from the get-go. Always pictured on book flaps with his back to the camera and sporting a fedora, his bio would refer to his “perplexing youth” and “despondent adulthood.” He was the author and narrator of the 13-part children’s book collection A Series of Unfortunate Events, which chronicled the misadventures of the calamity-prone but resourceful Baudelaire orphans. In 2004, the first three books were turned into a film starring Jim Carrey as the orphans’ evil but inept foil Count Olaf.
The final chapter of the series, entitled The End, was published in 2006. Other books have since been released under the Snicket moniker, but the four-part All the Wrong Questions is being viewed as the proper followup to Unfortunate Events.
Snicket steps into the spotlight as the hero of the faux-autobiographical series, which kicks off with the recently released Who Could That Be at This Hour? (Harper Collins, 258 pages, $16.99). Using the language, style and imagery of hard-boiled detective noir, it centres on the beginnings of Snicket’s teenage apprenticeship within the shadowy V.F.D., a secret organization that also figured largely into the lives of the Baudelaire siblings. Under the not-so-watchful eye of his easily irritated but generally useless mentor, the wild-haired S. Theodora Markson, Snicket is enlisted to help solve the mystery of a missing statue in the dismal town of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, a seaside town no longer by the seaside. As with much of Handler’s work, there are numerous allusions that will no doubt be lost on younger readers. The Maltese Falcon, Franz Kafka and Raymond Chandler all get subtle or not-so-subtle nods. But Handler says he saw the genres of detective-noir and coming-of-age as being compatible, offering similar life lessons. As with Unfortunate Events, the children in young Lemony’s life are generally wise and alert while the adult characters operate with various levels of incompetence.
What’s the main lesson for young readers?
“That the journey of childhood is similar to that of a young detective making his way in a morally corrupt universe in which the twists and turns of each sinister mystery threaten to envelope him in darkness and despair,” Handler says.
Is it getting through?
“They seem to be getting depressed, yes,” Handler says. “Of course, I don’t know what else they are reading. Maybe they are going home and reading Kafka’s Diaries, where some of the same lessons can be found.”
Whatever the case, this new series also has a new look for Lemony and his adventures. The illustrations are done by Canadian cartoonist Seth, best known for his comic-book Palookaville. Handler was close to finishing the writing for Who Could That Be at This Hour when he saw a Seth illustration on the cover of Poetry Magazine. It was of a lonely seaside town and looked exactly how the author imagined Stain’d-by-the-Sea would look. When he learned Seth — whose real name is Gregory Gallant and who dresses in vintage suits and fedora, not unlike Lemony Snicket — was coming to a comic convention in San Francisco, he decided to brave the crowds and approach him.
“I walked among many people in stormtrooper costumes and found Seth sitting lonely in his suit signing his latest volume,” Handler says. “I think he was so dazed by the experience of a comic convention that he agreed to do things that later in a sober state of mind he would never agree to do.”
Still, it was a perfect fit.
“A lonely man in a suit wandering through an empty town thinking digressively of terrible things could describe either the work of Lemony Snicket or of Seth,” Handler adds. “There’s a lot of overlap. Furthermore I think Seth’s work has the sort of following that I always assumed Lemony Snicket would have at best, which is a few sad obsessives obsessing along.”
Handler says the plan is to release a new volume every year, providing neither he nor Seth “succumb to despair before we’re finished.”
As for his live appearances, Handler says the events are often attended by adults. Part of this may be because Lemony Snicket first appeared nearly 15 years ago. Then again, grown-ups have been coming all along, he says.
“I think over the years, the shame factor of being interested in children’s literature has been removed,” he says. “In the beginning, there would always be adults but they would often have children quite distant from them that they were bringing. They would say ‘Oh, I’m bringing my boss’s daughter.’ I would think ‘Why don’t you just say you wanted to go? That would be fine.’ Some of them are adults who have grown up with me. But some of them are adults that are my age or older and have just decided ‘I don’t have to apologize for it anymore. I don’t have to pretend that I thought it was a Philip Roth event and I stepped into the wrong tent.’”
evolmers@calgaryherald.com
Lemony Snicket will appear Wednesday at the Calgary’s Public Library’s John Dutton Theatre at 6:30 p.m. Visit wordfest.com for details.
~~~
Lemony Snicket to host unfortunate event in Calgary
~~~
How Daniel Handler turned despair and deadpan humour into children's literature gold
Daniel Handler has a fantasy about what caused the demise of Edward Gorey, the writer and artist known for his dark and twisted children’s books.
In 1999, when Handler first began publishing his own dark and twisted children’s books under the name Lemony Snicket, he sent Gorey a package that contained the first two volumes of A Series of Unfortunate Events. In a letter, Handler said how much of an influence the older writer had been with his famously macabre collection of abecedarian books. He also begged forgiveness for shamelessly borrowing Gorey’s style and tone.
“He died shortly afterwards,” Handler says, in an interview from his home in San Francisco. “So I like to think that I killed him. But I have no evidence of that. Probably the package was never opened. But I like to imagine that it was opened and he gasped in horror and while stumbling to the phone to call his solicitor succumbed to his death.”
Handler, who will be appearing as a “representative of Lemony Snicket” on Wednesday at the Calgary Public Library’s John Dutton Theatre, certainly carries some of his nom de plum’s traits in conversation. There’s the deadpan humour, the cheerful nihilism and the overwhelming sense that we should all resign ourselves to the notion that life is full of cruelty and misfortune.
Even an introductory query about his Alberta visit prompts a decidedly Snickety response.
“I guess something terrible could happen to me before I arrive,” he ponders. “Then I wouldn’t be there.”
But what generally happens at these events is that the reclusive Lemony Snicket fails to show up. This forces Handler,“a stumbling, awkward man,” to appear in his stead.
While ostensibly created as a pen name for Handler back in the 1990s, Lemony Snicket was given an elaborate backstory from the get-go. Always pictured on book flaps with his back to the camera and sporting a fedora, his bio would refer to his “perplexing youth” and “despondent adulthood.” He was the author and narrator of the 13-part children’s book collection A Series of Unfortunate Events, which chronicled the misadventures of the calamity-prone but resourceful Baudelaire orphans. In 2004, the first three books were turned into a film starring Jim Carrey as the orphans’ evil but inept foil Count Olaf.
The final chapter of the series, entitled The End, was published in 2006. Other books have since been released under the Snicket moniker, but the four-part All the Wrong Questions is being viewed as the proper followup to Unfortunate Events.
Snicket steps into the spotlight as the hero of the faux-autobiographical series, which kicks off with the recently released Who Could That Be at This Hour? (Harper Collins, 258 pages, $16.99). Using the language, style and imagery of hard-boiled detective noir, it centres on the beginnings of Snicket’s teenage apprenticeship within the shadowy V.F.D., a secret organization that also figured largely into the lives of the Baudelaire siblings. Under the not-so-watchful eye of his easily irritated but generally useless mentor, the wild-haired S. Theodora Markson, Snicket is enlisted to help solve the mystery of a missing statue in the dismal town of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, a seaside town no longer by the seaside. As with much of Handler’s work, there are numerous allusions that will no doubt be lost on younger readers. The Maltese Falcon, Franz Kafka and Raymond Chandler all get subtle or not-so-subtle nods. But Handler says he saw the genres of detective-noir and coming-of-age as being compatible, offering similar life lessons. As with Unfortunate Events, the children in young Lemony’s life are generally wise and alert while the adult characters operate with various levels of incompetence.
What’s the main lesson for young readers?
“That the journey of childhood is similar to that of a young detective making his way in a morally corrupt universe in which the twists and turns of each sinister mystery threaten to envelope him in darkness and despair,” Handler says.
Is it getting through?
“They seem to be getting depressed, yes,” Handler says. “Of course, I don’t know what else they are reading. Maybe they are going home and reading Kafka’s Diaries, where some of the same lessons can be found.”
Whatever the case, this new series also has a new look for Lemony and his adventures. The illustrations are done by Canadian cartoonist Seth, best known for his comic-book Palookaville. Handler was close to finishing the writing for Who Could That Be at This Hour when he saw a Seth illustration on the cover of Poetry Magazine. It was of a lonely seaside town and looked exactly how the author imagined Stain’d-by-the-Sea would look. When he learned Seth — whose real name is Gregory Gallant and who dresses in vintage suits and fedora, not unlike Lemony Snicket — was coming to a comic convention in San Francisco, he decided to brave the crowds and approach him.
“I walked among many people in stormtrooper costumes and found Seth sitting lonely in his suit signing his latest volume,” Handler says. “I think he was so dazed by the experience of a comic convention that he agreed to do things that later in a sober state of mind he would never agree to do.”
Still, it was a perfect fit.
“A lonely man in a suit wandering through an empty town thinking digressively of terrible things could describe either the work of Lemony Snicket or of Seth,” Handler adds. “There’s a lot of overlap. Furthermore I think Seth’s work has the sort of following that I always assumed Lemony Snicket would have at best, which is a few sad obsessives obsessing along.”
Handler says the plan is to release a new volume every year, providing neither he nor Seth “succumb to despair before we’re finished.”
As for his live appearances, Handler says the events are often attended by adults. Part of this may be because Lemony Snicket first appeared nearly 15 years ago. Then again, grown-ups have been coming all along, he says.
“I think over the years, the shame factor of being interested in children’s literature has been removed,” he says. “In the beginning, there would always be adults but they would often have children quite distant from them that they were bringing. They would say ‘Oh, I’m bringing my boss’s daughter.’ I would think ‘Why don’t you just say you wanted to go? That would be fine.’ Some of them are adults who have grown up with me. But some of them are adults that are my age or older and have just decided ‘I don’t have to apologize for it anymore. I don’t have to pretend that I thought it was a Philip Roth event and I stepped into the wrong tent.’”
evolmers@calgaryherald.com
Lemony Snicket will appear Wednesday at the Calgary’s Public Library’s John Dutton Theatre at 6:30 p.m. Visit wordfest.com for details.
~~~
