The Perilous Preparation: The Wide Window

[gliquey]

Dec 10, 2016 14:32:19 GMT -5 benjamin1799 said:

What I find interesting is everything happens so fast which does make this book a weaker one.
In TRR it seems that it a bit past halfway until Uncle Monty dies, In TWW Aunt Jo gets "pushed out the window" towards the beginning. 
But because it happens so soon I read this book as a mystery book. Like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. It had that same sleuth feel as Klaus figured out the note. 

It's interesting that you say this. When I reread TRR, one of the things that stuck out to me was that Monty isn't actually around for very much of the book; the children learn of his death in Chapter Six. He's around for less than half of the book. Josephine is alive for almost all of the book, but her supposed death takes place in Chapter Four, so less than a third of the book is spent with the children meeting her and living with her. Personally, even though I know most of the ASOUE books are actually very short, I never feel like the plot is rushed, but it's certainly understandable that you find TWW in particular very fast-paced.

[Timmixxa]

Does anyone object with TV series's Aunt Josephine looks?

[Esmé's meme is meh]

No

[mortinson51]

Dec 11, 2016 0:16:40 GMT -5 Timmixxa said:

Does anyone object with TV series's Aunt Josephine looks?

As long as the stay true to the character I have no problems with her looks. I like we are getting a different interpration from meryl streep.

[lorelai]

This is the first book where Violet doesn't have a shoulder injury while getting an invention to work. In TBB we have it getting cut with the hook, and it gets hit by Olaf's suitcase in TRR.

[benjamin1799]

Dec 13, 2016 14:34:40 GMT -5 lorelai said:

This is the first book where Violet doesn't have a shoulder injury while getting an invention to work. In TBB we have it getting cut with the hook, and it gets hit by Olaf's suitcase in TRR.

That's funny. So I'm sure you said this because it's kinda ironic that her shoulder injury has happened twice. But what if Handler is pointing out Violet is growing up. Becoming smarter and stronger. The invention on the boat in TWW has definitely been the hardest invention to think of in such a short amount of time! And she did it and without injury! Thanks for bringing that point out to me!

[lorelai]

You're very welcome, and I agree that her not getting injured is supposed to be a show of Violet maturing. This is also the most physical she's had to be in the making of an invention, since climbing up the mast was a crucial step, which is a nice display of the expansion of Violet taking on a traditionally male role.

[gliquey]

Here are my thoughts on TWW:

I think Josephine's fear is supposed to be partly humorous and partly irritating / dangerous to the Baudelaires, and I like the irony in her being afraid of just about everything apart from the one incredibly dangerous thing in her life (the fact her house is unstable and leaning over the edge of a cliff, and ends up falling into the lake). One thing I was thinking when I re-read TWW was that maybe this is supposed to be a social commentary - we're afraid of flying rather than driving; we fear sharks when you're more likely to be killed by a ladder or a walnut (I'm not making this up) - but maybe I'm reading too much into that juxtaposition of what Josephine is and isn't afraid of.

Again on the subject of her fear, I think Josephine is one of the weirdest characters to be retconned into V.F.D. - what makes her so different in TWW to how she must have been? Is it possible that Snicket, or whoever his source of information was, vastly exaggerated her fear? Or was there some terrible event that traumatised her (and maybe Ike as well)?

Mr. Poe says to the children, "I will think of the Baudelaires as often as I can" (p.8) as a way of saying goodbye. That strikes me as bizarre. That doesn't seem to me like something you would say directly to the Baudelaires, and I would even say my first reaction was that it sounds like the Baudelaires are severely ill from that phrase (similar to if he said "I'll pray for you").

Josephine's gifts nicely illustrate how the children (or at least, Violet and Klaus) subvert traditional gender roles: Violet never liked dolls and Klaus never liked trains. And when Klaus is dissatisfied with being left with a rattle, "Violet put her hand on Klaus's shoulder and gave it a little squeeze of comfort" (p.25) - I like this moment, as it hints again at Klaus being slightly more likely to react emotionally, and shows that even though the children treat each other as equals almost all of the time, Violet is still slightly older and slightly more mature and protective over her siblings.

The comment by Snicket, "When [Josephine] saw Count Olaf she stopped speaking, and for a second Violet thought that Aunt Josephine had recognized him", probably didn't have any intentional deeper meaning at the time Handler wrote it, but considering that we know from TGG and ATWQ that Josephine was involved with V.F.D., perhaps it would be foolish to overlook this line. In TWW, Josephine is so constantly afraid and such a shadow of her former self that I think it's perfectly reasonable to think that had she recognized Olaf, she would have just pretended she didn't, and indeed her knowing about Olaf's reputation and past crimes would help explain why she immediately runs away when he threatens her.

Snicket says "Violet said, with more bravery than I would have had when faced with meeting Count Olaf again...", and I think now this is the third time he's praised Violet for being braver than him - he's done it in every book in the series so far!

I think TWW marks the start of the series' references to Judaism, with "wasps at a bat mitzvah" (p.26) and Olaf "disguised as a rabbi" (p.211).

Snicket brings up his friend Gina-Sue, and says that she "is socialist". Am I missing a joke here or something? Why is her political orientation the first thing he thinks to mention about her?

It's a tiny pedantic note, but Snicket says "everyone jumped—Violet, Klaus, Sunny and even Aunt Josephine" (p.58) and surely that should be the other way around, as Josephine is much more easily scared than the children.

Klaus isn't always the emotional one isn't always the case: later, when Klaus thinks something about Josephine's suicide note is odd, Violet cries "Stop it!" and "Stop reading it out loud, Klaus!" (p.72). She even goes as to far as to say "You are being unbearable, with a U", to which he retorts, "And you are being stupid, with an S", which must be one of the very few times in the series the Baudelaires get seriously angry at each other.

Most of Klaus' "Bluh"s are either obvious (e.g. "Bluhcause" = "Because") or, I presume, not meant to mean anything ("Bluh bluh bluh bluh bluh"). But there's just one that I can't work out - "So that's what I've been doing bluh" (p.112) - I'm sure it's not an important word, but I can't think of anything that sounds right in place of that "bluh" ("now" is the closest I can come). Does anyone have any ideas?

Contrary to the principle of Chekhov's gun, Klaus doesn't actually seem to use "Basic Rules of Grammar and Punctuation", based on the fact that he only quotes rules from the other two books he picked up.

Violet's interpretation of the meaning of "Curdled Cave" has always seemed like quite a leap to me - "Aunt Josephine isn't dead" is a suspiciously specific and accurate conclusion to jump to. Why does she not think, for instance, that Josephine's suicide was real but that she wanted to alert them to something that would keep them safe or some item that would be useful that they could find at Curdled Cave?

Josephine's death is quite heavily implied by "Aunt Josephine is not dead. Not yet." (p.81) and "new grammar books [...] that Aunt Josephine [...] would never read" (p.120); the latter can be explained by her house falling into the lake, but the former does seem to slightly contradict Snicket later telling us that he doesn't know whether Josephine is dead or not - that's how I've always read that passage, that Snicket isn't the type to euphemize and so he genuinely is trying to convey that he doesn't know whether Josephine survived.

I think it's interesting that it's Violet that thinks to look in the index of the atlas - and yet, in TPP Klaus takes all the credit for her idea! ("I'll look in the index just like I did at Aunt Josephine's" / "I always wondered how you did that" - TPP p.309)

"I have seen a woman I loved picked up by an enormous eagle and flown to its high mountain nest" (p.126) - I think this is the first time Beatrice has been alluded to (outside of the dedications) since TBB, assuming of course it is her that Snicket is describing.

Olaf owns a rental sailboat company, so maybe he's fairly rich already, although I guess he could have killed (and then maybe stolen the identity of) the former owner.

On page 159, we have a nice contrast with Josephine referring to "Captain Sham" and the children saying "Count Olaf" - it almost reminds me of "You-Know-Who"/"Voldemort", and it's interesting to note that Snicket always refers to Olaf by his disguise names, but maybe not quite for the same reason as Josephine doing it out of fear of him.

Where does time go in this book? Presumably it can only take a couple of hours to sail across the lake, as Josephine eats a banana before the children arrive, and after having crossed about half of Lake Lachrymose ("... the approximate middle of the lake" - p.164), the leeches can still smell it on her (so it probably took them less than an hour). But it is afternoon when everyone is at the Anxious Clown, it can't take the children more than an hour or two to decode the message and steal the boat, and somehow it's "the middle of the night" when they're halfway across the lake and then dawn is breaking at the end of the book (again, I reckon an hour later at most). Fiction has a tendency to do this, and it annoys me.

"Next to Mr. Poe was the Brobdingnagian creature" (p.194) - and Mr. Poe doesn't recognise this person? What? They aren't wearing a disguise. I was sure Mr. Poe knew who each of Olaf's henchpeople were.

When Mr. Poe lists Olaf's crimes, Olaf can't help himself from adding "And arson" (p.207) - firstly, I love this line. But this is important because it implies Olaf burned down the Baudelaire mansion; clearly, it's not explicit, and Olaf has of course committed many crimes before meeting the Baudelaires (as the Quagmires see in TAA). I prefer thinking that Olaf wasn't the person responsible for the Baudelaire mansion fire, based on what he says to the children in TE, but that seems to be what Handler was thinking at the time he wrote TWW.

"[...] about the time when the Baudelaire orphans were forced to attend a miserable boarding school" (p.211) - did Handler know at this point that he was going to write 13 books rather than 4? Or was this line not originally intended to foreshadow the plot of a future novel?

I like the way the book ends with each of the Baudelaires thanking the other two: it's just a really nice instance of parallelism and ends the book on a nice note.

And I'll end just by quoting two of my favourite lines from the whole series:
"Tears are curious things, for like earthquakes or puppet shows they can occur at any time, without any warning and without any good reason."
"If you are allergic to something, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats."

[lorelai]

Given Jerome's mountain story in TEE, the woman is almost certainly Beatrice.
And now is the only word that fits Klaus's bluh, in my opinion.

[Dante]

Excellent reading, gliquey. I confess I don't really have the patience to reread a lot of the books again, but I'm always glad when somebody else brings some thoughts worthi responding to.

Dec 16, 2016 18:37:58 GMT -5 gliquey said:

Again on the subject of her fear, I think Josephine is one of the weirdest characters to be retconned into V.F.D. - what makes her so different in TWW to how she must have been? Is it possible that Snicket, or whoever his source of information was, vastly exaggerated her fear? Or was there some terrible event that traumatised her (and maybe Ike as well)?

I believe she claims that she and Ike have always been afraid of everything, but that seems unlikely in relation to her backstory, and in the light of ATWQ must be a flat-out lie. I think it's possible to picture her as someone who stuck to the more academic side of V.F.D. and didn't go out much, but now we have to presume that the intensity of her fears has increased greatly over the course of her life.

Klaus isn't always the emotional one isn't always the case: later, when Klaus thinks something about Josephine's suicide note is odd, Violet cries "Stop it!" and "Stop reading it out loud, Klaus!" (p.72). She even goes as to far as to say "You are being unbearable, with a U", to which he retorts, "And you are being stupid, with an S", which must be one of the very few times in the series the Baudelaires get seriously angry at each other.

This does seem a little out-of-character, but I would suggest that Klaus is able to suspend his emotions in this instance because he has a puzzle to focus on instead that raises significant questions about the source of the emotions he would otherwise be feeling. He's still quick to anger when Violet doesn't get it, I suppose.

Most of Klaus' "Bluh"s are either obvious (e.g. "Bluhcause" = "Because") or, I presume, not meant to mean anything ("Bluh bluh bluh bluh bluh"). But there's just one that I can't work out - "So that's what I've been doing bluh" (p.112) - I'm sure it's not an important word, but I can't think of anything that sounds right in place of that "bluh" ("now" is the closest I can come). Does anyone have any ideas?

"Now," "here," or "since" would work to me.

Olaf owns a rental sailboat company, so maybe he's fairly rich already, although I guess he could have killed (and then maybe stolen the identity of) the former owner.

Conceivably he just stole a bunch of sailboats and had a sign put up along with all the business cards he printed out. The movie, at least, implied that he'd stolen someone else's identity and business, but for a number of reasons that's not particularly satisfying to me.

Where does time go in this book? Presumably it can only take a couple of hours to sail across the lake, as Josephine eats a banana before the children arrive, and after having crossed about half of Lake Lachrymose ("... the approximate middle of the lake" - p.164), the leeches can still smell it on her (so it probably took them less than an hour). But it is afternoon when everyone is at the Anxious Clown, it can't take the children more than an hour or two to decode the message and steal the boat, and somehow it's "the middle of the night" when they're halfway across the lake and then dawn is breaking at the end of the book (again, I reckon an hour later at most). Fiction has a tendency to do this, and it annoys me.

Fair point; this is the first real temporal error I can think of in the series - though there's a different kind of temporal sloppiness in TBB, where to fill the time the plot has the Baudelaires just locked up in Olaf's tower for about a whole day, which they spend doing nothing of particular use. This might also be relevant to the amount of time spent climbing up and diown the elevator in TEE... Spatial and geographical conundrums are also a problem in the series.

"Next to Mr. Poe was the Brobdingnagian creature" (p.194) - and Mr. Poe doesn't recognise this person? What? They aren't wearing a disguise. I was sure Mr. Poe knew who each of Olaf's henchpeople were.

Thinking about TBB, which is the sole previous appearance of the henchperson of indeterminate gender, then I'm not sure when Mr. Poe would actually have encountered this person. Maybe he only knows about them from the Baudelaires' description?

"[...] about the time when the Baudelaire orphans were forced to attend a miserable boarding school" (p.211) - did Handler know at this point that he was going to write 13 books rather than 4? Or was this line not originally intended to foreshadow the plot of a future novel?

Although Handler's contract was initially just for the four books, he did always want to write thirteen and I suspect he had a list of settings he wanted to use. Assuming he was thinking forwards, he may well have anticipated that he'd be using a boarding school for the next book he'd write after the workhouse book he had following.

[Esmé's meme is meh]

Great post, Gliquey!

Dec 16, 2016 18:37:58 GMT -5 gliquey said:

Olaf owns a rental sailboat company, so maybe he's fairly rich already, although I guess he could have killed (and then maybe stolen the identity of) the former owner.

Now that made me think of the broom guy we saw on the trailer. I can totally see him killing the guy to steal his rental sailboat company.

[Timmixxa]

I think this might be in the TV show:

LARRY: I didn't realize this was a sad occasion.

COUNT OLAF: (stares at him menacingly)

LARRY: Um... Okay, so your order was a Very Fun Drink, right?

COUNT OLAF: (stares at him as if he's gonna kill him)

LARRY: Sorry, I must have misinterpreted. Anyway...