Why did Lemony publish ASOUE?

[Marmoset]

Lemony Snicket said:

Remember, you are my last hope that the tales of the Baudelaire orphans can finally be told to the general public.

So, why does Lemony consider it urgent that the Baudelaires' story should be published to the public, rather than just his associates? Part of the reason must surely be to clear the names of the Baudelaires, but is it possible that ASOUE is VFD recruitment material?

It's implied that the Averse counterparts of several popular children's authors of the past were members of VFD, and their writings contain varying degrees of reference to VFD's recruitment process. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods features a supposed volunteer imitating a wolf call; Roald Dahl's Matilda takes an allegorical route, involving a small girl who attains incredible power through her intelligence and nobility. Both books appear on Prufrock Prep's banned book list alongside ASOUE itself, to be given to students by an alleged Ms. K.

But these titles contain only oblique reference to VFD. Lemony does with ASOUE what these previous authors do not: he makes its connections to the organisation explicit, revealing much more about its workings, not least its name. ATWQ takes this a step further and follows young Lemony's exploits during his training. The warnings on the books serve to drive off the Mr. Poes and Jerome Squalors of the world; individuals who might shy away from doing the noble thing if it is difficult or frightening, leaving only people with the constitution to fight back against the the world's injustices.

If VFD is on the decline after the schism, doesn't it make sense that Lemony might feel the situation is urgent enough to publish more blatant - dare I say it - propaganda? We do know that Sunny, at least, has a comfortable enough life to host a radio cooking show after the Baudelaires return to society, so perhaps Lemony succeeded in boosting recruitment and making the world a less treacherous place through his books.

(Note that this post is of course discussing the in-universe publication of ASOUE only - IRL the answer is probably something more along the lines of 'because it's profitable and entertaining'!)

[Dante]

Excellent reading, Marmoset, and a persuasive argument. From the thread title, I had assumed this was to be more of a discussion of the tension between Snicket's insistence on publishing the books and his equally assertive insistence that people shouldn't read them, but you've even accounted for that.

[Marmoset]

Thank you, Dante ! I'm sure TUA's banned book list has been analysed to death by this point but it's always fun to throw something on the pile.

Speaking of TUA - and I can't believe I hadn't thought of it before - it's an odd thing to publish, isn't it? Had it been presented as though we were rifling through Lemony's personal collection of notes it would have been somewhat less interesting, but the introduction suggests that this is something he actively wanted to release to the public (if the line "one of the easiest ways to avoid the attention of one's enemies is to concoct a long, false tale about how something was passed to you by a mysterious stranger" is any indication).

TUA goes above and beyond what we can learn about VFD from ASOUE. Lemony violates 'the code of V.F.D' by publishing minutes from a Building Committee meeting and even includes an Infrequently Asked Questions about V.F.D. pamphlet (I love the clip art and bubble font - the volunteers are clearly at the top of their graphic design game!)

It almost reads like an exposé!

I propose two things. Either:

1. Lemony is pushing for some kind of reform within the organisation. One thing that struck me on reading ATWQ was how VFD membership does not always correlate with noble behaviour - characters like Moxie Mallahan, Cleo Knight and Jake Hix are deliberately kept out of 'traditional' VFD despite being resilient, well read and possessing a desire to do good while S. Theodora Markson, a full fledged member of the organisation, is sometimes questionably competent (or ethical?). Lemony recognises that knowledge of secret codes and signals does not mean that one is less predisposed to treachery, especially post-schism, and by publishing so much information about the inner workings of the organisation it loses some of its mystique.

TL;DR: Lemony wants to move away from the old trappings of VFD (tattoos, early abduction etc.) and towards VFD as a truly 'volunteer' phenomenon in the vein of his 'ad hoc VFD' of associates in ATWQ.

2. It really is an Unauthorised autobiography - somebody has made his private notes public and Lemony is in big trouble. Could help explain why he has so many enemies.

[Dante]

The U.A. is a rather strange volume, and I would suggest a couple of other points to bear in mind when discussing its in-universe publication (the legitimacy of which is itself open to dispute):

1. There are elements of the U.A. which would, strictly speaking, exist in the hands of the general public anyway - like articles from The Daily Punctilio, or even documents like the I.A.Q. which are aimed specifically at potential members of V.F.D. Lemony's notes on the latter imply perhaps a kind of negotiational publication process in which what elements to permit to be published were subject to debate between Lemony and his editor, publishers, compiler, or someone else; the revised chapter titles suggest something similar. It looks a little like we caught it halfway through the editing process, or perhaps Lemony had five minutes alone with the manuscript while it was on the way to the printers...

2. The contents of almost the entirety of the U.A. are of dubious reliability, as the page immediately preceding Chapter Thirteen implies that the first twelve chapters are all part of one of the confusing nested stories contained in the Introduction, and only Chapter Thirteen is part of the "real" U.A. as opposed to a complicated background explanation of questionable authenticity.

I think the "Unauthorized" reading is the most likely to be correct here. Lemony Snicket's private notes were never meant to be published; here they are, published.

[gliquey]

Feb 1, 2017 9:42:31 GMT -5 Marmoset said:

2. It really is an Unauthorised autobiography - somebody has made his private notes public and Lemony is in big trouble. Could help explain why he has so many enemies.

I think this is the explanation I prefer. Its reliability or lack thereof, which the book itself points out, makes me think there are two explanations for any possible inaccuracy or confusion in the book: the first being ignorance (the person collecting these documents has little knowledge of V.F.D.) or forgery and malice. TUA could have been published by someone with malicious intent, someone just trying to collect information about V.F.D. / Snicket and make it known to the public or even a volunteer, but I think the fact that it seems so confusing and unreliable (as well as the word "unauthorised" in the title) makes me think that it's probably not Snicket, who we see in the main 13 books as an almost omniscient narrator.

[lorelai]

While I love reason one, and think Lemony publishing the series is absolutely part of reform, reason two for TUA makes more sense, for the reasons Gliquey mentioned.
This was a very fun argument; thank you for sharing, Marmoset!!!

[doetwin]

I think the main reason ASOUE was published was to make the us realize how terrible our lives could be, or could have been, and to be grateful for what we have. In the netflix series, there's a scene in TRRP1 that illustrates this quite well. When Uncle Monty takes them to the movie theater, we see an old woman complaining to the ticker-seller and the white-faced women that her life is boring and that she wishes it were more exciting. After she says this, Violet and Klaus exchange of frustration, as if to say, "It's better to have a boring life than an exciting, scary, miserable one." It also shows how a lot of us have a tendency to take what we have, and what the Baudelaires want, for granted.

[Dante]

I think that argument on the emotional side is a strong one, too. Lemony (and I dare say Mr. Handler too) is an empathetic and somewhat sentimental figure who is very attuned to human suffering and very aware that the world has a very slim grasp of both factual and emotional truth, so in that sense, ASoUE is an education with (gasp!) a moral lesson.