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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Apr 26, 2020 13:49:53 GMT -5
I think I was not the first to notice this anagram, but I need to ask ... When did you discover this anagram? I'm still surprised that I never noticed the two images on the cover until Dante talked about it recently. (It's my fault for not having read about it before).
Who was the first one here to unravel the anagram "FEAR"? (other options would be the anagrams DEER, DREE, REDE, REED, FARE, FRAE, but I am very sure that if this was intentional, FEAR is the word that seems to make the most sense, although I cannot see which one)
If you do not know what I am talking about, it is the anagram formed by typing errors throughout the TBL.
LS to BB # 3: "Duchness of Winnipeg is Deaf". (Letter F is wrong)
BB to LS # 5: "Destruction of Hotel Denoument" (Letter E, missing from Denouement. I wrote the name of the hotel several times incorrectly because of this letter, since TBL is my favorite book in the ASOUE universe and I am always with it, I used it as a reference.)
LS to BB # 6: INDEPENDANT (Letter A, misspelled. It should be Independent.)
LS to BB # 5: typewrite9 - (Letter R, which is missing and has been replaced by a 9).
Has anyone written about this before? Did anyone suggest what the word FEAR (or the other anagrams) could mean in the ASOUE universe?
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Apr 26, 2020 14:55:38 GMT -5
You're arbitrarily choosing between the added letters ("deaf"--you choose F instead of D) and the missing letters ("typewrite9"--you choose R instead of 9, similarly with "denoument") from the words that have been mistyped, which makes your theory pretty shaky. I think the mistypes are just meant to add to the 'authenticity' of these being actual mail letters, and not a book text checked by editors.
I don't know how you came upon the anagram "REED", but it might interest you to know that Handler based the character of Kit Snicket on his real-life mentor Kit Reed (who btw passed away recently, R.i.p.).
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Post by Hermes on Apr 26, 2020 16:43:40 GMT -5
Oh Jean Lucio, what a can of worms you have opened.
First, I believe that all these misprints are intentional, though some distinguished Snicketologists disagree with me on this. This is obviously the case with 'deaf' and 'typewrite9', but I think it is equally true of 'Denoument' and 'Independant'. The mention of the Hotel Denouement is not entirely to the point, and it seems likely it was introduced precisely to give an opportunity for a misprint. As for 'Independant', Night Lettergram is a real company, and the heading here is copied from its real logo, so the alteration must surely be deliberate.
But as for what we are to make of it; Terry is right that you are arbitrarily picking between the lost letter and the substituted one. If we followed Josephine's code, it would have to spell out DREE, REED or DEER. If we tried a reverse version, I suppose we would get FA9 - just three letters, since the e in Denouement is replaced by nothing.
The idea that it might be a tribute to Kit Reed is interesting. My own view, though, is that this is meant to suggest that L and B are sending secret mesaages, but ones we can't decipher. There is a secret message in the book (BEATRICE SANK) which is visible to us, the readers, but not to the characters; so there might also be secret messages which are visible to the characters, but not to us.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Apr 26, 2020 20:44:52 GMT -5
People, I'm not being arbitrary ... And that's not a theory ... I'm asking ... FEAR was just the first option that popped into my eyes, and then I went looking for other options ... And I'm asking what has already been written about it, so I can form an opinion. As Germes said, this seems to be very intensive.
REED is formed with the D for "dead" instead of F. E for Indepent instead of A, R for Typewriter, and E in the name of the hotel. I tried all the possibilities that form English words in my little vocabulary with the help of a digital dictionary. I haven't found any words that contain the numeral 9 in a dictionary, but I can believe that there are acronyms that I don't know with that numeral, but that is beyond my capabilities.
If it follows the logic of only missing letters, the letters would be D, E, E, R.
There are other possible logics. As the first letter of each word that contains an error. In this case it would be I, D, D, T But I was unable to form a word with it.
About Kit Reed, this seems to make a lot more sense to me. It seems to be a tribute from Daniel Handler to her. RIP. Thanks Terry!
Terry, has anyone noticed this before (about Kit Reed), or did we just discover something new in TBL?
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Post by Dante on Apr 27, 2020 3:36:37 GMT -5
First, I believe that all these misprints are intentional, though some distinguished Snicketologists disagree with me on this. This is obviously the case with 'deaf' and 'typewrite9', but I think it is equally true of 'Denoument' and 'Independant'. The mention of the Hotel Denouement is not entirely to the point, and it seems likely it was introduced precisely to give an opportunity for a misprint. As for 'Independant', Night Lettergram is a real company, and the heading here is copied from its real logo, so the alteration must surely be deliberate. I disagree that the mention of the Hotel Denouement in BB to LS #5 is a non sequitur; it is included to help establish the timeline as specifically and narrowly post-TPP (as well as adding variance to the nature of the hints in the passage in question). As to how the error was introduced, it is evident that TBL posed unique typesetting challenges and it is recorded as having been constructed with considerable input from production assistants; given that "Denouement" is one of the most consistently misspelled words in fandom, I find it entirely plausible (if disappointing) that a real such typo should have slipped in, if it was a case of the text having to be retranscribed. Additionally, while the Night Lettergram header is certainly based on a real image, I would challenge you to find an exact copy. Notably, for instance, the text atop the header has also been modified - perhaps unsurprisingly, I can find no real version which reads "NOCTURNAL PHONOGRAPHIC TELEGRAMMATIC CORPs." (The real version appears to be the entirely different "POSTAL TELEGRAPH-CABLE COMPANY".) The image quality is also surprisingly good for the age of all real pieces. As such, I put it to you that the telegram is in fact an original reproduction created to clean up the image quality and refit the components to the page format, during which process the text was retyped - resulting in the introduction of another regrettably common typing error. TBL is a fantastic work of art, but it can be sloppy and careless at times. Consider the subheading to My Silence Knot, in which the text alignment plainly leaves no room whatsoever for the supposedly burnt-out words. The book is not perfect. Edit: Though I will put the cat among the pigeons and point out that Aunt Josephine's grammar code uses a heady mix of substituted letters and extra letters (i.e., both right and wrong letters), along with the entirely inconsistent "led" for "leaded". So there is precedent for just going with whatever gets you a coherent answer.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Apr 27, 2020 6:00:39 GMT -5
Thank you Dante. Up to these TBL aspects has an impressive mixed of meanings. But you know, Dante, if anyone had already suggested what Terry said, about the possibility that these mistakes are a honor to Kit Reed?
I just came up with a very "conspiracy theory" idea. The letters LS are somehow also missing from the final letter, as Lemony did not put the initials in the letter to the editor and wrote that he would not do that. So the missing additional letters are LS. We can form additional anagrams with this. REEDLS forms "Elders". FEARLS forms "Falser". And FALSER is a very appropriate anagram for my theory involving Beatrice ... But I am not taking it seriously ... (at least not yet).
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Post by Dante on Apr 28, 2020 2:10:06 GMT -5
The Kit Reed connection is an interesting one, but I'm inclined to discount it. It's about as indirect and veiled a way as possible to make any kind of allusion, especially to a person important to you; the one other allusion to a real associate of Handler's which I'm aware of in the series is very overt - Sunny's exclamation of "Greenhut" on TGG page 290, meaning "You could be of enormous help", referring to Josh Greenhut, who's worked on a great deal of ASoUE peripheral material and is the husband of Handler's long-time editor Sue Rich; and for a further point, the series already has a very overt homage to Kit Reed in the name of Kit Snicket.
I also don't think, Jean Lucio, that you can have a typo-based code and then include two more letters which aren't mistyped, they're just missing. The significance of the missing LS is different and relates to the unsigned nature of Snicket's final letter to the editor.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Apr 28, 2020 3:51:20 GMT -5
The Kit Reed connection is an interesting one, but I'm inclined to discount it. It's about as indirect and veiled a way as possible to make any kind of allusion, especially to a person important to you; the one other allusion to a real associate of Handler's which I'm aware of in the series is very overt - Sunny's exclamation of "Greenhut" on TGG page 290, meaning "You could be of enormous help", referring to Josh Greenhut, who's worked on a great deal of ASoUE peripheral material and is the husband of Handler's long-time editor Sue Rich I didn't know about this little allusion; pretty cool. However, it is not the only other allusion in ASoUE to a real associate of Handler's. There's also Alison Donalty (ASoUE's book cover designer), Lisa Brown (aka Mrs. Handler), and of course, Brett Helquist, all referenced via anagrams in THH. Besides Kit Reed, Handler has also referenced her husband, Joe Reed, whom he was also fond of (and who also sadly passed away last year), in TAA (as "Professor Reed").
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Apr 28, 2020 9:32:06 GMT -5
I think Germes' argument is the most valid, involving the evidence that there were intentional typos. Beatrice Letters is a book about letters, and a letter can change everything, and anagrams are a recurring theme. Furthermore, it is quite possible that Daniel Handler wanted to put a little secret code involving an anagram while the publisher made a point of exposing the letters that make Beatrice Sunk so obviously, when it is evident that Daniel Handler wanted to keep those letters a little more hidden.
As for the Anagram Falser Dante is right. But it was still fun to think about it. Anyway, what is the Deriel Handler's goal omit the signature in last letter? I never understood.
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Post by Dante on May 1, 2020 6:16:01 GMT -5
As for the Anagram Falser Dante is right. But it was still fun to think about it. Anyway, what is the Deriel Handler's goal omit the signature in last letter? I never understood. At the conclusion of his final letter, Snicket states that he does not know when he will next write, and, somewhat superstitiously, refuses to write even his initial in his signature for fear of adding to the long sequence of lost letters. (A part of me would like to believe that he wrote his signature regardless, and the whole thing somehow went missing.) I take it that TBL is the point at which Lemony's investigation, and ASoUE, is effectively finished; and in a way, so is Snicket, therefore. Since he is no longer under any obligation to write again, and we do not know what he will do or what has happened to him, his status is effectively "missing". The omitted "L" and "S" at the beginning of this section reinforce this idea. You might think of it as a direction to the readers to regard ASoUE as truly complete and to live with the possibility that there might never be any future work from Snicket. Had he indeed never written another book, you might have said that he too had vanished into the Great Unknown. (Certainly for several years after this book's publication, that was in effect the case; and so it is again. What is Poison for Breakfast but "missing"?)
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on May 1, 2020 7:49:42 GMT -5
Ah, I finally understood that. Thank you. In a way this reinforces my idea that ATWQ was not originally written for the general public, but rather as a report, and that someone other than Lemony Snicket provided the publication for the general public and even made unauthorized illustrations. That idea matches that explanation you gave, don't you agree? And I think Daniel Handler hinted at this at times in ATWQ that he knew it was possible for someone to try to publish ATWQ as a book someday, but that was not his original intention. Probably Poison at Breakfast will have an equal premise.
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vfds321s
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 76
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Post by vfds321s on Aug 24, 2020 14:11:31 GMT -5
The fear anagram (if there is one ) would likely refer to the Sinister Duo. They do terrify both sides of the conflict.
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