I definitely want to participate in this re-read, as it’s been a while since I’ve reread ATWQ and I think it has more to give. But I’m away next week, and I don’t have much time this week either. So I may have to rush ?1 a little…
There are a couple of points I could make myself, but which I’ll field in response to existing comments:
The cover art for ?1 was not met with much enthusiasm, as many recall. Thankfully, Seth’s interior illustrations and the subsequent cover art were much more detailed and wonderfully suited to the series. The two-color technique gives the art a nostalgic feel, true to the text, and the blue in particular is eerie and a little lonely, like Stain'd. I’m still not sure why the ?1 cover differs so much from the rest of Seth’s work. Was Little Brown eager to release a preview?
Stylistically, the cover arts are all cut from the same cloth, and are genuinely different in presentation to the interior illustrations; throughout, they use much simpler shapes, are frequently more abstract - the giant ?1 shadowman, that infamous diagonal line, Ellington's ?3 bunny-ear silhouette (which Egmont actually edited for their cover) - and make heavier use of light and shadow to obscure elements; there's also the fact that the covers actually incorporate additional shades, for while the interior art is only white, black, and one colour, the covers use two shades of the book's key colour and grey as well. It's strange that the covers manage to be four-tone to the interior two-tone and yet are less detailed... Egmont somehow managed to do an even worse job, sampling only one of the already simplistic comic book panels and blowing it up to full size - even while keeping the collage element for the back cover; their colour schemes for the books were rather on the gaudy side, too.
But in any case, the fact that the covers are consistent with each other but not with the interior illustrations leads me to believe that the difference is deliberate and not simply a matter of Seth being rushed to the cover. The question is: Why is it this way? I've always believed that the covers for ATWQ were a mistake and played a role in the series's relative lack of success. Compared to the painterly single-image covers and classy packaging of ASoUE, which talked up to readers, I felt from the start that the comic-book panel and bubble-writing approach to ATWQ were talking down to readers instead.
Lemony & Seth, perhaps; a symbol of their collaboration?
Moxie got a telegram six months ago for her father, and Ellington’s father was taken sixth months ago. (7)
An early giveaway. (So too, perhaps, was the lower-right panel in each entry's back cover.) Hangfire, like the V.F.D. observer, is over-clued - and there aren't enough red herrings, either.
I will have words to say about this.
Per page 99, Bouvard is Pip and Pecuchet is Squeak. Paratextual materials have gotten this wrong before, and I'll be watching out for whether the books ever do, too.
“I wondered where all the water had gone when they’d drained this part of the sea, and I should have wondered.” Is this in reference to the well at the end?
The fire pond from ?3? That seems unlikely. The draining of the sea causing the Killdeer Fields floods I think would fit with this line in that it's another link with the Feint family.
I suspect, though I don't have sufficient evidence to prove it, that such masks were something of a trope in mid-century gangster films.
This is the second instance I believe that a bathroom in mentioned in the Snicket universe, the first one being in MM when Charles describes the dorm. This is the first instance of a character going in one.
How I knew at once that ATWQ would be just that little bit grittier than ASoUE.
‘What does the S. stand for?’ My bane with this series. I want to know what it truly is. Handler even answered my question by saying it is right there in the text, don’t I want to find it. By saying FIND I feel implies that Solitude is not the answer. He could have said, don’t you want to read the book. But I digress, I will get onto later.
No one at 667 has figured it out? I'll admit I'm skeptical about Handler's "it's in the text" comments after his assertion that the sugar bowl mystery could be resolved.
Solitude: I think there may be some overthinking here. 'Find' might suggest you have to search for it, and you might think that is inappropriate for Solitude, which is out there in the open, right next to the last place where the question is raised. But we should remember that most readers are paying far less attention than we are, and are not reading in a clue-seeking spirit, as we do at 667. Many people still think we have never been told what VFD stands for. Some people apparently found Dewey/Kit a surprise when it came up in the show. For people like that, it makes sense to call Solitude something you have to find.
My issue with "Solitude" is a little different, in that if it’s intended to be a true mystery then it's under-clued; but also, frankly, I don't think it's a very good solution. It doesn't feel any more true than any other random word beginning with S. I’ve decided to keep a list of Theodora's replies to this question, all of which begin with the letter S.; I’ll post it when I’m done with the book.
#o#
Chapter OneThe first page sets up the pattern of the title being a wrong question Lemony asked, while providing a right question which is both foreshadowing and usually something Lemony couldn’t possibly have known for much longer. I want to flag this up because it’s not always clear how important the title question actually is to Lemony; my recollection is that, in ?3, he
never actually asks it. So that’s something I’ll be watching out for.
Pages 2 and 3 do an excellent job of presenting the characters we later identify as Gifford and Ghede as being Snicket’s parents, while never actually saying so: “it is an acceptable place to sit with one’s parents before boarding a train for a new life”; “It is curious to look at one’s family and try to imagine how they look to strangers.” They’re doing their best to put up this front, too.
Theodora’s note (p. 5) presents the instruction to climb out the bathroom window as being new information to Lemony, but as we later learn (p. 9), he’d already hidden the ladder there long in advance. So this element of the meeting seems pre-arranged; and yet, as we later learn, Gifford and Ghede are also volunteers. Are there already two factions of V.F.D. working at cross-purposes at this point in the chronology?
I also think that Lemony is a bit hard on Theodora for signing her secret note, given that she only used her first initial – and given that you can surely find examples in ASoUE; Lemony’s letter to Kit in TSS, for instance.
I wonder if there is intended to be some significance to the coin still being in the cashier’s hand (p. 7).
“Probably nobody would look for it” (p. 7) implies that the existence of Snicket’s secret note could be inferred, which doesn’t necessarily work with the idea that Lemony and Theodora’s interaction was pre-arranged. Then again, neither necessarily does the note.
The fact that Lemony has a letter of introduction to give to his chaperone (p. 10) again indicates that what Gifford and Ghede are doing is not part of the official plan. Then again, we learn on the same page that there has been a change of plans. Is it conceivable that Gifford and Ghede’s disruption is part of V.F.D.’s change of plans, and Theodora is obstructing those plans because she disagrees? I don’t remember ATWQ well enough to be sure, so I want to make sure these details are on paper.
“Your predecessor, the young man who worked under me before you, he never spoke to me this way.” (p. 11) We don’t get much characterisation in the series for Bertrand, and what we do get here is ambiguous. Was Bertrand a flatterer? Did he know when to keep quiet? Was he happier putting his head down and obeying orders? Or is Theodora exaggerating his qualities?
Chapter One of ?1 is interesting in that a lot of us took it as presenting Theodora as competent, the majority of which is that Snicket’s narration doesn’t spend much time criticising her, and that she stole a cup of tea from right under Snicket’s nose and he didn’t notice (p. 13). In retrospect, her dialogue, and perhaps the action of signing her secret note, paints her as less competent than we might otherwise assume; but it’s still, I think, far more competent than she’ll ever be in the rest of the series. At the very least, she has been able to anticipate what Gifford and Ghede were up to, to an extent Snicket didn’t; but this makes it strange that she didn’t know that they weren’t actually Snicket’s parents. It seems like there has to have been a serious lack of communication somewhere in this process.
Is it really true that Gifford and Ghede would have taken Snicket “someplace I assure you that you do not want to be”? It’s not like he wanted to be in Stain’d-by-the-Sea, either; so in retrospect I wonder if this is another of Theodora’s errors, or failures to understand her apprentice’s character. What Snicket wanted to do was to stay in the city to help Kit; as we later learn, Gifford and Ghede were meant in some way to be involved in this process, too. We’re later told that they’re not particularly competent, but are they perhaps involved with a higher-level plan that low-ranking apprentices and chaperones simply aren’t privy to? I feel in some respects that tying this together might be easier if one were to review all the first and thirteenth chapters in the series together, putting the whole subplot in one place. Perhaps I’ll do that when we get to ?4.
“I never would have ended up falling into the wrong tree, or walking into the wrong basement, or destroying the wrong library” (pp. 14-15) The destruction of the library is a pretty long-range piece of foreshadowing compared to the other two items. Note that, in all these cases, there was no “right” tree or basement or library; the wrongness is Snicket’s presence at all. Ironically, he actually ends up destroying the right library, though from his antagonists’ perspective I suppose it was the wrong one.
Chapter TwoI notice, now, that Snicket purchased the bat-themed measuring tape for himself. Had it been for his companion, I would have felt that red herring was a little unfair. (pp. 18-19)
“This entire valley used to be underwater. It was drained some years back.” (p. 22) The chronology of ATWQ’s backstory is rather vague, so I thought I’d set down points like this.
Wade Academy, at least, must always have been an island – “an island that was now just a mountain of stones rising out of the drained valley” (p. 23) – but it’s not quite clear that Stain’d-by-the-Sea is; and if it’s not, why the best way to drive or build a railway to it is nonetheless through and over the drained sea.
“The pressure at this depth will make it difficult to breath otherwise.” (p. 24) A number of false explanations for the necessity of masks have been issued, as we will see.
“It was less like a forest and more like an endless mass of shrubbery, with the shiny leaves of the seaweed twisting this way and that, as if the plants were still under churning water.” (p. 29) Not how Seth draws it.
Lemony self-sabotaged his own apprenticeship, choosing the worst-ranked chaperone, because his task in the city was more important. He will never return for that task. (p. 32)
Chapter ThreeEverything in this chapter is screaming the truth at us.
“I had been told that my client was a man.” (p. 38) Hangfire did not contact Theodora directly; V.F.D. must have some sort of broader system for receiving such outside contacts and requests. It is interesting that Hangfire must have used the butler persona to contact V.F.D.; he could easily have impersonated “Mrs. Murphy Sallis” if he wanted. It’s interesting that V.F.D. can have “clients” at all.
What is in the letter Theodora hands to Mrs. Sallis, marked with, presumably, the V.F.D. insignia (p. 39)? We don’t know, but it must have been something like Snicket’s own letter of introduction, confirming the legitimacy of the people assigned this job.
“It’s a small statue, about the size of a bottle of milk. It’s made of an extremely rare species of wood that is very shiny and black in colour.” (p. 40) The size scotches any idea that the Bombinating Beast is in the sugar bowl, incidentally. We’ll learn more about the wood.
“Two days ago I came in here looking for something and saw that it was missing.” (p. 41) Maximum time since Theodora’s “change of plans”.
Is the “black cane” (p. 38) carved with the image of the Bombinating Beast (p. 45) also made with the same wood as the tree? Whose was it originally?
“The butler was standing on the lawn, facing away from us with a bowl of seeds he was throwing to some noisy birds. They whistled to him, and he whistled back, mimicking their calls exactly.” (pp. 45-46) Another clue, though I wonder if it’s consistent with Hangfire’s apparent motivation as of ?4.
“A man stood there wearing a bathrobe and a pair of slippers and a large, yawning mouth. He looked like he was planning on staying in that bathrobe for quite some time.” (p. 48) I might be overreading it, but I think there are a couple of indications that Mr. Mallahan is suffering from depression.
For all that Moxie regards the Bombinating Beast statue as “That old gimcrack” (p. 53), it’s still clear that it’s unique and old, and recognised simply as “the Bombinating Beast” without always needing to specify that one is referring to the statue and not the animal.
“The train passes through about once a month.” (p. 55) Just in case anyone was thinking of putting together a chronology of ATWQ.
“Legend has it that hundreds of years ago Lady Mallahan slew the Bombinating Beast on one of her voyages.” (p. 56) Hundreds of years ago is a pretty long timeframe. Considering what we later learn, I’d say that this legend is almost certainly the truth.
“So my family has quite the collection of Bombinating merchandise, although no one’s ever cared about it except—” (p. 56) We will find out the “except”. Again, it’s interesting that Moxie treats the statue as mere merchandise, whilst it’s also the case that the statue is unique.
Chapter FourChapter Four establishes the Ink Inc. tower (p. 62) and Hungry’s (pp. 65-66), a book ahead of them being visited. Of course, we’ve already seen Wade Academy and the Clusterous Forest. One of the things I appreciate most about Stain’d-by-the-Sea as a setting is that it’s really well-executed as a continuous setting; we visit many of the same locations in each book, and locations which appear later are established early on. It helps to create a cohesive sense of place in the series that can be uncommon in fiction of this sort.
The “tall metal statue” (p. 72) in front of the library will also, of course, be revisited. Handler planned out a great deal in advance for this series, though there are still things which won’t quite fit by the end.
Qwerty exists to dole out spoilers (p. 75). One wonders how he gleans all of this advance knowledge. I’ll discuss this further when we get to the matter of the V.F.D. observer.
Stain’d Myths is a book that’s important to my work. (pp. 76-78), and also my signature) It’s another volume that’s full of absolutely stacks of foreshadowing, and more or less tells us how the series is going to end.
One wonders how the Bombinating Beast masks could possibly resemble the gas masks (p. 78); the best I could do was to give them a broadly similar square structure.
“Supposedly sailors still saw the Bombinating Beast, swimming with its body curled up like an underwater question mark” (p. 78) – the smoking gun for the Bombinating Beast and Great Unknown being separate entities?
Qwerty also does his best to help Snicket (pp. 81-82), but he’d probably be better off just getting the job done himself. One wonders what his personal philosophy is.
“…Qwerty looked at me just for a second before slowly writing it down.” (p. 83) I’m not sure how obvious Qwerty is meant to be, but conceivably he’d be much less obvious to a reader unfamiliar with ASoUE.
Chapter FiveI think there’s a bit in one of the books where which respondent is Harvey and which is Mimi falls out of sync during the course of the argument, so I’ll be watching these closely (pp. 87-88)
“Some years ago I had a case where two brothers were arguing over a seashell collection. The younger brother poured dust on the shells to try to prove they were his, but I saw through his ridiculous ruse.” (p. 94) “It struck me that it was probably not dust but sand on the shells, so that it was likely that the younger brother was the true owner of the seashell collection.” (p. 95) I believe discussions have raised before that this whole sequence doesn’t appear to make a great deal of sense. I don’t see how the shells being covered in either dust or sand would help to prove ownership based on only this information.
““People are watching us.” “You mean the Officers Mitchum?” Theodora shook her head. “I mean someone from our organization. Wherever a chaperone goes, there is someone keeping an eye on things.”” (p. 95) There are a couple of interesting points here. For the first, it’s not clear how long Qwerty has been the sub-librarian in Stain’d-by-the-Sea, but it’s clear that he must have preceded Theodora and seems well-established, so the obvious sense of “Wherever a chaperone goes” does not appear to be the case; it might be more accurate to say that V.F.D. has observers everywhere whose job is not to interfere. It has always struck me as something of a shame that Qwerty is so obviously the observer, in much the same way that Hangfire is so obviously Armstrong Feint. Qwerty, as I suggested, might be less obvious to a reader unfamiliar with ASoUE, but there would have been no harm in developing a few red herrings, like the underused Mr. Mallahan. Granted, it took me until ?3 to realise that Prosper Lost
was a red herring observer, or was meant to be.
“We’re substituting for our father tonight” (p. 99) I wonder how Snicket comes to the exact conclusion about this that he does, in ?4.
The “grocery store, empty but open” is surely an early cameo from Partial Foods, while the “department store with mannequins in the window” (p. 100) must be Diceys, which appears in ?4 but which I think is named earlier.