The Perilous Preparation: The Reptile Room

[Esmé's meme is meh]

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From November 21st to December 3rd, 667 Dark Avenue invites all the fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events to do a re-reading of The Reptile Room while we get ourselves ready for the show (Una Serie de Eventos Desafortunados).



The main idea is to share interesting facts and phrases, stuff we would like to see in the Netflix show, analyse the plot, mention details about the characters and the story, etc.



It would be particularly interesting to have international readers talking about how they translated stuff in their respective languages: words definitions, linguistic games, phrases, intertextualities, etc. We know the ASOUE fanbase is big and vast, and it includes Spanish, French, Portuguese and German readers at the very least.



We'll have a Special Penthouse Day on December 4th to do a live chat session about the book and discuss the most interesting stuff mentioned during these two weeks.

[Invisible]

Insert fangirling over Monty here.

[mortinson51]

The one thing that always surprises me is how little the Incredably Deadly Viper is in TRR. It really only has 2 scenes when it's introduced and when sunny pretends to be attacked. I'm curious if he show will add more time to TIDV. I would really love that also looking forward to its new design wonder how different it will be from the movie.

[Linda Rhaldeen]

This is the book where Stephano carries a long, rusty knife and rubs it up and down Violet's leg all during dinner the night before Monty is killed. Definitely up there in terms of "creepy things Olaf has done"

[thathoboravioli]

Nov 23, 2016 23:21:04 GMT -5 Linda Rhaldeen said:

This is the book where Stephano carries a long, rusty knife and rubs it up and down Violet's leg all during dinner the night before Monty is killed. Definitely up there in terms of "creepy things Olaf has done"

And that's saying something. (looks at the list of creepy things Olaf has done) That is apparently number #4

[Linda Rhaldeen]

What are 1, 2, and 3?

[Invisible]

The "enjoying wedding night" line has to be in there. Uggh!!

[gliquey]

TRR is an interesting book. There are about a million times in the series where the children try to convince an adult that [Olaf disguise name] is Olaf in disguise, but them trying to tell Monty in TRR is the only one where I actually feel frustration every time I read it. The main reason is that every other time they do this, the adult listens to the children and doesn't believe them. This is the only book, if I remember correctly, where they don't actually get their point across to Monty, and this makes sense because if we're being honest, Monty is the only guardian in the series who is (a) not evil, (b) a normal and properly functioning human being and (c) actually their guardian [i.e. not Dewey/Widdershins etc], so he would believe them. So the option Handler takes is to make sure that Olaf is preventing the children from saying anything, and that during the one chance they get to speak to him, he misunderstands them, both of which are frustrating situations. The latter has always intrigued me, because up until that point Monty was essentially perfect, but in that conversation he was just as stupid and annoying as Mr. Poe. I guess this could seem out of character for him, but I think it makes sense because ASOUE has a theme of every adult, no matter how clever they seem, basically being gullible idiots.

I think Monty's death is the most disturbing in the series - there are plenty of deaths in ASOUE, but this is the first, and the children actually see his corpse (and it is even described to us). I mean, it is a children's series, so "disturbing" is a relative term, but I think this is the death in ASOUE that sticks out most in my mind.

(Btw can a mod or whoever has the power to do it un-sticky the TBB thread and sticky this one?)

[mortinson51]

I agree for me this is one of the more disturbing the series. For me this is because It is a death that could have been avoided and was caused by Klaus.

Even though Monty didn't believe that it was Olaf he still ripped up the ticket and was going to send Stephano away. So if Klaus hadn't said anything to Olaf. Olaf would not have known and Would want to kill Monty. Granted he was planning to anyway but it wasn't till Peru when he would kill Monty and if all went to plan they would have escaped

I really love how clever Monty is and I hope they play with that in the TV of Monty knowing things but not lettting on. I'm the movie Monty was kind but too naive for me. I never got that sense from the book that Monty was naive

[Dante]

The Netflix version of TRR is likely to be somewhat extended compared to the original, so we might well get more scenes of the Incredibly Deadly Viper; you could accomplish this partly by just having it be around the Baudelaires more, especially with Sunny. Speaking of which, The End hints that the Viper had spent some period of time on the island with the Baudelaire parents, so that could be alluded to, too - in addition to perhaps touching on the subplot from the U.A. about the reptiles somehow escaping from the Herpetological Society's attempts to remove them, which must ultimately have led to the Incredibly Deadly Viper winding up back on the island in The End, about which we can draw some conclusions (regarding its possible removal aboard the Prospero, again covered in the U.A.) but which is never really explained. Another touch from the U.A. that might show up in an adaptation of either TRR or TWW: The Daily Punctilio apparently reported that Dr. Montgomery died in an accident.

TRR's darkness I think comes partly from the fact that Handler was still establishing his style at the time; there was less overt comedy, less quirkiness - though we get shades of it in Mr. Poe's reaction to Sunny being "attacked." If there was as much humour and general oddness as the later books had, maybe TRR wouldn't seem so dark? But as noted, things like the rusty knife scenes and the rather brutal way Dr. Montgomery's corpse is presented would always undermine that. Let's recall that Olaf injected the venom into Monty just under his eye.

Edit: Also, I've switched over the Announcements now; I apologise for it being late, but I've been away for the past few days.

[gliquey]

Nov 24, 2016 23:31:58 GMT -5 mortinson51 said:

I agree for me this is one of the more disturbing the series. For me this is because It is a death that could have been avoided and was caused by Klaus.

Even though Monty didn't believe that it was Olaf he still ripped up the ticket and was going to send Stephano away. So if Klaus hadn't said anything to Olaf. Olaf would not have known and Would want to kill Monty. Granted he was planning to anyway but it wasn't till Peru when he would kill Monty and if all went to plan they would have escaped

I really love how clever Monty is and I hope they play with that in the TV of Monty knowing things but not lettting on. I'm the movie Monty was kind but too naive for me. I never got that sense from the book that Monty was naive

Until I joined 667 this idea didn't occur to me - I had always assumed Olaf formed his plan before Klaus told him what Monty was planning to do. But yes, it is an alarming thought that Klaus could have been (partially) responsible for Monty's death.

I suppose when Handler wrote these lines he didn't know how much trouble the Baudelaires would get themselves into (he was only planning on 4 books at the time) but Snicket mentions at some point that Klaus would lie in bed years after TRR, unable to sleep from the guilt of not saving Monty, so despite the fact that it's actually got some very happy moments in it (mostly at the beginning when they meet Monty), I think it is very a dark book.

And I agree that Monty doesn't seem like a naive character, although the conversation where the children try to tell him Stephano is Olaf is an exception.

[benjamin1799]

Just like my comment for the first book. Adults are completely useless. The only adults in TRR that we encounter are Uncle Monty, Count Olaf, Mr. Poe, and The Hook Handed Man (THHM)
Uncle Monty: Although he is a genius and a savior to the seemingly end of the children's affairs, he is...almost full of himself?? I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be proud of your own work but the reason he would not listen to the children about Stephano being Count Olaf is because "his brilliant work was going to be stolen"    Now I absolutely love Uncle Monty, but his (I hate to use this word to describe him) narcissism, led to his death.

Mr.Poe: As always he is absolutely ridiculous!!! He looks at these brilliant children as uneducated children! He never listens... If I could talk to Mr. Poe I would tell him that most of the time children have something to say and we should always listen.  This is a lesson all of us should learn.

Count Olaf/ THHM: Now I don't need to describe the uselessness of these characters because they are the reasons for the children's misery. 
I've read this series about 5 times now, and really the first 3 books I have memorized then the rest is kind of a blur...and I wish I could remember the first time I read TRR to see if I could tell that Dr. Lucafont is THHM. It frustrates me to see these brilliant kids not able to look past his disguise...It's ironic that Sunny is the one to look past it! 

And lastly, I want to talk about what we see of Uncle Monty in the trailer for the Netflix series, there is a moment when he looks through the eyeglass at what I assume is the movie theater, this is how he see's a secret code in the movie "Zombies in the Snow" 

I'm excited to see how Handler handles the "Useful" adults in the series as I read them again (and hopefully retain the plot lines).

[gliquey]

Nov 26, 2016 3:23:07 GMT -5 benjamin1799 said:

I've read this series about 5 times now, and really the first 3 books I have memorized then the rest is kind of a blur...and I wish I could remember the first time I read TRR to see if I could tell that Dr. Lucafont is THHM. It frustrates me to see these brilliant kids not able to look past his disguise...It's ironic that Sunny is the one to look past it! 

I first read the series when I was only about 7/8 years old, so I sometimes think it's a shame I can't ever go back and read them again for the first time, to see if I would have spotted the henchpeople's disguises. I'm sorry to say I didn't spot a single one of the disguises until their reveal at the end of each book. Maybe if I was reading them now for the first time, I'd notice that "Lucafont" is almost an anagram of "Count Olaf" (it's missing a second 'o') or at least work it out after the hook-handed man says "Uh, boss" (p.149) to Olaf.

I also find that I generally have a better recollection of early books in a series than later ones, not just for ASOUE but for Harry Potter, the Gone series, The Hunger Games etc., maybe because I wasn't the most thorough reader when I was younger, but I think I've re-read ASOUE so often that by now I know the whole series pretty well.

[Dante]

Even if you weren't fooled by Dr. Lucafont, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that there's a pattern in the series, with one troupe member returning each book. TWW doesn't even bother to disguise its henchperson, though that would have been impossible anyway. With that said, there are factors in each book which make them worth discussing on an at least slightly more individual level; Dr. Lucafont is, to my recollection, comparatively convincing, while TWW doesn't attempt to convince; TMM brings in Dr. Orwell to muddy the waters; the white-faced women do basically nothing in TAA, while in TEE then not only does Esmé add an extra layer of deceit, the hook-handed man also fails to do much and even seems kind of out of the loop at times. The variations on the formula are small, but fascinating - at least, to me.

It's still really odd that it's the troupe members who use anagrams of Olaf's name for their disguises, while Olaf borrows a literary allusion. And also that nobody (as in, Daniel Handler and Sue Rich) noticed the missing "O" in Lucafont, though THH fixes this error. I wonder what the Netflix series will do about names, considering that all the troupe members seem to be showing up in each book; just not give disguised names for most of them and have just one prominent returning troupe member whilst the others are more in the background, perhaps. TEE didn't give its returning troupe member a disguised name as he'd already had one and even the Baudelaires couldn't fail to make the connection, and while TVV has a sort of troupe member then she follows the allusion naming scheme rather than the anagram one.

I'm aware that this is a TRR thread rather than a whole-series discussion, though, but in this aspect it's hard to separate the two as TRR is very important in establishing the aforementioned "formula" which is both consistent and consistently varied; that is, it's a formula, but the formula has lots of variables which can be switched one way or another. There's a new guardian - good, evil, clever, incompetent? There's a returning troupe member - how important, how antagonistic?

[Hermes]

Nov 26, 2016 3:23:07 GMT -5 benjamin1799 said:

Just like my comment for the first book. Adults are completely useless. The only adults in TRR that we encounter are Uncle Monty, Count Olaf, Mr. Poe, and The Hook Handed Man (THHM).

There's also Bruce. But your point holds.

I do wonder if they will change the 'trying to steal my brilliant work' theme, which only made sense before the invention of VFD: given what we know now, it's hard to imagine Monty doesn't know of the threat to the children.