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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jun 3, 2019 7:26:54 GMT -5
I was hoping to re-read Chapter 14 to highlight some interesting points, involving all ASOUE ... and some of my theories. I'll just try to highlight the points, not to make the Sardonic Series here.
Ô Mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps! levons l'ancre!
Ce pays nous ennuie, ô Mort! Appareillous!
Si le ciel et la mer sont noirs comme de l'encre. Nos coeurs que tu
connais sont remplis de rayons!!
For Beatrice
We are like boats passing in the night
particularly you.
TE: Chapter 14 in verses.
1. The last entry in the Baudelaire parents' handwriting in A Series of Unfortunate Events reads as follows: "As we suspected, we are to be castaways once more.
2. The others believe that the island should stay far from the treachery of the world, and so this safe place is too dangerous for us.
3. We will leave by a boat B has built and named after me.
4. I am heartbroken, but I have been heartbroken before, and this might be the best for which I can hope.
5. We cannot truly shelter our children, here or anywhere else, and so it might be best for us and for the baby to immerse ourselves in the world.
6. By the way, if it is a girl we will name her Violet, and if it is a boy we will name him Lemony."
7. The Baudelaire orphans read this entry one evening after a supper of seaweed salad, crab cakes, and roast lamb, and when Violet finished reading all three children laughed.
8. Even Kit's baby, sitting on Sunny's knee, uttered a happy shriek.
9. "Lemony?”
10. Violet repeated.
11. "They would have named me Lemony? Where did they get that idea?”
12. "From someone who died, presumably," Klaus said.
13. "Remember the family custom?”
14. "Lemony Baudelaire," Sunny tried, and the baby laughed again.
15. She was nearly a year old, and looked very much like her mother.
16. "They never told us about a Lemony," Violet said, and ran her hair through her hands.
17. She had been repairing the water filtration system all day and was quite tired.
18. Klaus poured his sisters more coconut milk, which the children preferred to drink fresh.
19. "They didn't tell us a lot of things," he said.
20. "What do you think it means, 'I've been heartbroken before'?”
21. "You know what 'heartbroken' means," Sunny said, and then nodded as the baby murmured "Abelard.”
22. The youngest Baudelaire was best at deciphering the infant's somewhat unusual way of speaking.
23. "I think it means we should leave," Violet said.
24. "Leave the island?”
25. Klaus said.
26. "And go where?”
27. "Anywhere," Violet said.
28. "We can't stay here forever.
29. There's everything we might need, but it's not right to be so far from the world.”
30. "And its treachery?”
31. Sunny asked.
32. "You'd think we would have had enough treachery for a lifetime," Klaus said, "but there's more to life than safety.”
33. "Our parents left," Violet said.
34. "Maybe we should honor their wishes.”
35. "Chekrio?”
36. the baby said, and the Baude-laires considered her for a moment.
37. Kit's daughter was growing up very quickly, and she eagerly explored the island at every opportunity.
38. All three siblings had to keep a close eye on her, particularly in the arboretum, which was still heaping with detritus even after a year of cataloging.
39. Many of the items in the enormous library were dangerous for babies, of course, but the infant had never had a serious injury.
40. The baby had heard about danger, too, mostly from the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind from which the Baudelaires read out loud each evening, although they had not told the infant the whole story.
41. She did not know all of the Baudelaires' secrets, and indeed there were some she would never know.
42. "We can't shelter her forever," Klaus said.
43. "In any case, treachery will wash up on these shores.”
44. "I'm surprised it hasn't already," Violet said.
45. "Plenty of things have been shipwrecked here, but we haven't seen a single castaway.”
46. "If we leave," Sunny asked, "what will we find?”
47. The Baudelaires fell silent.
48. Because no castaways had arrived in the year, they had little news of the world, aside from a few scraps of newspaper that had survived a terrible storm.
49. Judging from the articles, there were still villains loose in the world, although a few volunteers also appeared to have survived all of the troubles that had brought the children to the island.
50. The articles, however, were from The Daily Punctilio, and so the children could not be sure they were accurate.
51. For all they knew, the islanders had spread the Medusoid Mycelium, and the entire world might be poisoned.
52. This, however, seemed unlikely, as the world, no matter how monstrously it may be threatened, has never been known to succumb entirely.
53. The Baudelaires also thought of all the people they hoped to see again, although, sadly, this also seemed unlikely, though not impossible.
54. "We won't know until we get there," Violet said.
55. "Well, if we're leaving, we'd better hurry," Klaus said.
56. He stood up and walked to the bench, where the middle Baudelaire had fashioned a calendar he believed to be fairly accurate.
57. "The coastal shelf will flood soon.”
58. "We won't need much," Sunny said.
59. "We have quite a bit of nonperishable food.”
60. "I've cataloged quite a bit of naval equipment," Violet said.
61. "I have some good maps," Klaus said, "but we should also make room for some of our favorite detritus.
62. I have some novels by P. G. Wodehouse I've been meaning to get to.”
63. "Blueprints," Violet said thoughtfully.
64. "My whisk," Sunny said, looking at the item that Friday had smuggled her long ago, which had turned out to be a very handy utensil even after the baby had outgrown whisked foods.
65. "Cake!” shrieked the baby, and her guardians laughed.
66. "Do we take this?”
67. Violet asked, holding up the book from which she had read out loud.
68. "I don't think so," Klaus said.
69. "Perhaps another castaway will arrive, and continue the history.”
70. "In any case," Sunny said, "they'll have something to read.”
71. "So we're really leaving," Violet said, and they really were.
72. After a good night's sleep, the Baudelaires began to prepare for their voyage, and it was true they didn't need much.
73. Sunny was able to pack a great deal of food that would be perfect for the journey, and even managed to sneak in a few luxuries, such as some roe she had harvested from local fishes, and a somewhat bitter but still tasty apple pie.
74. Klaus rolled several maps into a neat cylinder, and added a number of useful and entertaining items from the vast library.
75. Violet added some blueprints and equipment to the pile, and then selected a boat from all the shipwrecks that lay in the arboretum.
76. The eldest Baudelaire had been surprised to find that the boat that looked best for the task was the one on which they had arrived, although by the time she was done repairing and readying it for the voyage she was not surprised after all.
77. She repaired the hull of the boat, and fastened new sails to the masts, and finally she looked at the nameplate reading COUNT OLAF, and with a small frown, she tore through the tape and removed it.
78. As the children had noticed on their voyage to the island, there was another nameplate underneath, and when Violet read what it said, and called her siblings and adopted daughter over to see, yet another question about their lives was answered, and yet another mystery had begun.
79. Finally, the day for departure arrived, and as the coastal shelf began to flood the Baudelaires carried the boat–or, as Uncle Monty might have put it, "vaporetto"–down to the beach and began to load all of their supplies.
80. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny gazed at the white sands of the beach, where new apple trees were beginning to grow.
81. The children spent nearly all of their time in the arboretum, and so the side of the island where the colony had been now felt like the far side of the island, rather than where their parents had lived.
82. "Are we ready to immerse ourselves in the world?” Violet asked.
83. "I just hope we don't immerse ourselves in the sea," Klaus said, with a small smile.
84. "Me too," Sunny said, and smiled back at her brother.
85. "Where's the baby?” Violet said.
86. "I want to make sure these life jackets I've designed will fit properly.”
87. "She wanted to say good-bye to her mother," Sunny said.
88. "She'll be along soon.”
89. Sure enough, the tiny figure of Kit's daughter could be seen crawling over the brae, toward the children and their boat.
90. The Baudelaires watched her approach, wondering what the next chapter in this infant's life would be, and indeed that is difficult to say.
91. There are some who say that the Baudelaires rejoined V.F.D. and are engaged in brave errands to this day, perhaps under different names to avoid being captured.
92. There are others who say that they perished at sea, although rumors of one's death crop up so often, and are so often revealed to be untrue.
93. But in any case, as my investigation is over, we have indeed reached the last chapter of the Baudelaires' story, even if the Baudelaires had not.
94. The three children climbed into the boat, and waited for the baby to crawl to the water's edge, where she could pull herself into a standing position by clinging to the back of the boat.
95. Soon the coastal shelf would flood, and the Baudelaire orphans would be on their way, immersing themselves in the world and leaving this story forever.
96. Even the baby clutching the boat, whose story had just begun, would soon vanish from this chronicle, after uttering just a few words.
97. "Vi!” she cried, which was her way of greeting Violet.
98. "Kla! Sun!”
99. "We wouldn't leave without you," Violet said, smiling down at the baby.
100. "Come aboard," Klaus said, talking to her as if she were an adult.
101. "You little thing," Sunny said, using a term of endearment she had made up herself.
102. The baby paused, and looked at the back of the boat, where the nameplate had been affixed.
103. She had no way of knowing this, of course, but the nameplate had been nailed to the back of the boat by a person standing on the very spot she was standing–at least, as far as my research has shown.
104. The infant was standing on a spot in someone else's story, during a moment of her own, but she was thinking neither of the story far in the past nor of her own, which stretched into the future like the open sea.
105. She was gazing at the nameplate, and her forehead was wrinkled in concentration.
106. Finally, she uttered a word.
107. The Baudelaire orphans gasped when they heard it, but they could not say for sure whether she was reading the word out loud or merely stating her own name, and indeed they never learned this.
108. Perhaps this last word was the baby's first secret, joining the secrets the Baudelaires were keeping from the baby, and all the other secrets immersed in the world.
109. Perhaps it is better not to know precisely what was meant by this word, as some things are better left in the great unknown.
110. There are some words, of course, that are better left unsaid but not, I believe, the word uttered by my niece, a word which here means that the story is over.
111. Beatrice.
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Post by Foxy on Jun 4, 2019 9:35:13 GMT -5
Personal Notes:
What are the chances of no other castaways washing up for an entire year?
There are some secrets about the Baudelaires Beatrice would never know, which explains some things mentioned in TBL.
This chapter takes away the magic of Sunny for me.
------------------------------------
Chapter 14
Characters:
The Baudelaire parents
Violet Baudelaire
Klaus Baudelaire
Sunny Baudelaire
Beatrice Baudelaire II
Violet's Invention:
Fixing the water filtration system, fixing the boat
Klaus's Research:
A calendar
Sunny's Cooking:
Seaweed Salad, Crab Cakes, Roast Lamb, food for the journey
Baudelaire Family History:
The parents were going to name Violet "Lemony" if she was a boy.
Beatrice Speech:
Abelard
Cake
Chekrio
Geography:
The Island
The Ocean
Foodology:
Seaweed salad
Crabcakes
Roasted Lamb
Coconut milk
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Jun 4, 2019 11:24:20 GMT -5
What are the chances of no other castaways washing up for an entire year? Perhaps there was some other castaway who was so set on remaining secret that they did not record themselves in the island log nor allow the Baudelaires to record it for them — such that Lemony never found out. Optimism is my Phil-osophy , if your theory of the Two Beatrices really does implicate that Beatrice I also ended up on the island, and then left the children there, you may be interested in this point. |
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Post by Hermes on Jun 4, 2019 12:08:50 GMT -5
There are twenty-five islanders when the Baudelaires arrive, all of whom must have arrived in the last fifteen years. Some were born on the island, but only three (Friday, Finn and Omeros) seem to be young enough. On the other hand some people have left. In any case this seems to give us an average of something like 1.66 per year, which I think would allow a year without any arrivals to be well within the range of possibility. (And of course the year began with no fewer than five arrivals - six if you count Beatrice. This doesn't actually make more arrivals less likely, but it shows how much things fluctuate. Perhaps people regulrly arrive in groups of five or so, and then a few years go by before the next one.)
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jun 4, 2019 16:18:28 GMT -5
Optimism is my Phil-osophy , if your theory of the Two Beatrices really does implicate that Beatrice I also ended up on the island, and then left the children there, you may be interested in this point. Thanks for quoting my theory ... Well, actually, I do not currently believe that Beatrice I was on the island at the time the Baudelaire siblings were there. I believe that, especially in the 14th chapter of TE, Lemony did not hide any important truth about Beatrice I. She was already dead by this time, so he did not need to protect her. (And taking my bitterest hypothesis into account, he was greatly disappointed by what he discovered about Beatrice I.) During the writing of the other books, Lemony evidently wanted to conceal even the fact that Beatrice I was the mother of Baudelaire siblings. For example, in TGG chapter 13, Lemony wrote: "Captain Widdershins was wrong to trust his stepson for so many years, and wrong to participate in the destruction of Anwhistle Aquatics, and he was wrong to insist, as he did so many years ago, that a story in The Daily Punctilio was completely true, and to show this article to so many volunteers, including the Baudelaire parents, the Snicket siblings, and the woman I happened to love." Lemony made an apparent distinction between the Baudelaire's parents (which included the Baudelaire's mother) and the woman he loved. Although this phrasal construction is not exactly a lie, she intends to hide a truth: Baudelaire's mother was the woman Lemony loved. This attempt to hide the facts about Beatrice ceased to exist to Lemony writes chapter 14 of TE. (I'm talking about the motivations of the character Lemony, not the motivations of Daniel Handler.) Daniel Handler evidently wanted to leave readers curious to the end.This was the motivation of Daniel Handler.But Daniel Handler had to create a motivation for the character he created. And Daniel Handler thought of everything, and I admire him a lot for it.) In addition, Lemony revealed that Kit was dead, showing that the letter in TSS was not for Kit. Now, an interesting point: The ship called Beatrice really sank. We know this for the poster on TBL. And that was soon after leaving the island. Someone found the place where the wreck happened and took photos. These photos were found in a cave, which is probably the cave that served as a hiding place for Lemony. The right question is: 1 - Who took these photos? This question must always be asked, according to LSTUA. The angle of the photo indicates that this person who took these pictures was on another boat. The whole scenario seems to have been intensionally created to simulate the death of each of the Baudelaire siblings. And as the letters in TBL show, they did not really die on their return to the mainland. What can this mean? Between the island's departure and the arrival in the city, the Baudelaire siblings found someone who had a camera to take pictures, experience to simulate death and a vessel from which the photos could have been taken. Of course, the vessel in question could also serve as a life raft. This vessel may be the same as Violet made repairs on return to the City, according to the letter from BB to LS # 5. This may have happened soon after, or some time later. Beatrice II said she's never been to the City before. Either she was too small to remember, or the group was somewhere else for a while before heading into town. Either way, Beatrice apparently knows of the other Beatrice's existence, because Beatrice said there was at least one other person with the same initials as her in BB to LS # 1. So we can deduce that at some point Beatrice I, Beatrice II, Klaus, Sunny and Violet have already been together. However, when Beatrice II went to look for Lemony it is likely that Beatrice II believed that Beatrice I was already dead. She said that Violet, Klaus and Sunny were the only family she had. Beatrice II completely disregarded Beatrice I. If this is the case, the pursuit of Beatrice II happened after Beatrice I's death, or after she faked death again ... I do not know. Lemony says very correctly that rumors about people's deaths are very frequent. |
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Post by Foxy on Jun 5, 2019 11:46:28 GMT -5
Is it possible Snicket took the pictures of the wreckage himself when he was on the scene investigating, and then he took the pictures back with him while finishing his investigation in his cave?
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Post by Dante on Jun 5, 2019 16:35:44 GMT -5
Of course it's possible, just as the only connection between Violet's emergency repairwork and Beatrice's arrival in the city is the fact of her being alive at all, rather than an indication that the Baudelaires ever intended to go near that place again.
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Post by Carrie E. Abelabudite on Jun 19, 2019 16:13:58 GMT -5
General Notes
I remember finding this so funny the first time I read TE - and being so glad that the story wasn't quite over. I love how it is treated like a separate book, with the title page and everything.
Chapter Fourteen
'Even Kit's baby, sitting on Sunny's knee,' (p2) Sunny should probably only be about two and a half here, so it's pretty impressive she's able to hold Beatrice like that.
'the world, no matter how monstrously it may be threatened, has never been known to succumb entirely.' (p5-6) This isn't, on the face of it, particularly reassuring. Yet it does still seem a comforting thought.
Sunny being able to say '"We have quite a bit of non-perishable food."' (p6) always makes me laugh.
When would Lemony have written this? It seems like he would have intended for Chapter Thirteen of TE to be the end of the series, so something must have happened to make him want to return to it: my theory is that it was meeting Beatrice.
'rumors of one's death crop up so often, and are so often revealed t be untrue.' (p10) This isn't, of course, proof that the Baudelaires didn't die before Beatrice met up with Lemony, but it seems to me to be a point in favour of their survival. Personally, I think that Lemony stopped researching them not because they were untraceable but because he wanted to given them more privacy.
Considering Sunny's abilities, I wouldn't be too surprised to find out Beatrice could read at age one.
The 'Beatrice' reveal shouldn't be surprising anyone paying attention - although I didn't guess it the first time I read the book. Not that I hadn't spotted any of the clues pointing toward the solution, bt I think I just assumed that, since Mrs Baudelaire seemed to be happily married to Bertrand, she couldn't possibly be the same woman with woman Lemony had been in love.
Timeline notes: It seems like TE lasts for about eight or nine days, and then Chapter Fourteen takes place a year later. This means, according to my timeline, that the whole series has taken roughly twenty months.
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Post by Foxy on Jun 21, 2019 18:08:52 GMT -5
When would Lemony have written this? It seems like he would have intended for Chapter Thirteen of TE to be the end of the series, so something must have happened to make him want to return to it: my theory is that it was meeting Beatrice. So did he not start researching the Baudelaire orphans until after the island? Like when Beatrice II was 8ish? I think I figured out out from the rare edition notes. I always imagined Sunny was about 4 years old in this scene ... I thought somewhere I read Handler said she was about 3 in chapter 14. |
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