The second great Hiatus

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

The first Great Hiatus betweenthe publication of ASOUE's books in Lemony's universe took place between the publication of the TWW and TMM books. This hiatus was caused due to Lemony's arrest and escape abroad, as indicated in LSTUA. I have already written some theories that indicate important events during this hiatus, the most notable being the shutdown of Prufrock Prep and the Masked Ball. Even so, the full period covering events recorded in TBB until the publication of TPP was 10 to 12 years. We know this because when Lemony published TGG he was not yet aware of Kit's death, and according to the secret letter in TSS, Lemony went to the Hotel D region the same year he was writing TSS. He planned to arrive at Hotel D (which had been rebuilt or that Hotel D mentioned is the underwater library) on Beatrice's birthday. As Dante indicated, when Lemony wrote TSS he did not know that Olaf was dead. So he didn't know that Olaf was dead, he didn't know that Kit was dead, and he didn't know about Beatrice Jr. Everything leads me to believe that Lemony did not know any of the main events recorded in TE. The Baudelaires must not have written anything about their stay on the island. They only wrote until the events that happened in TPP. As Beatrice Jr was about 10 years old when she met Lemony, between 10 and 12 years had passed from the main events recorded in TBB to TPP.

So what we saw on the Netflix show is very consistent with what is indicated by the books. On the show, Lemony did not know what had happened to the Baudelaires on the island until he met Beatrice Jr. This actually makes a lot of sense. But how long did it take before Lemony decided to finish the book? The answer is: many, many years. There is another large gap in publications between TPP and TE. I can prove it.

Chapter 12:

Most people do not choose their final circumstances, of course, and if the Baudelaires had been given the choice they would have liked to live to a very old age, which for all I know they may be doing.

Chapter 6:
Certainly the Baudelaires themselves, who as far as I know have not read their own sad history, but of course are its primary participants...


Lemony knows that the Baudelaires may have survived the departure from the island. (His words indicate that he even thinks this is likely). But what I want to highlight is that Lemony knows that the Baudelaires, at the time of writing TE, can already be considered as very old people. If Violet had been alive at the time of the publication of the TPP, she would have been between 26 and 28 years old. In order for her to be considered someone "old" I deduce that she should be at least 55 years old. This would represent about 27 years of gap between TPP and TE. If Lemony himself was about 35 when he published TBB, he should have been about 74 when he published TE.

And we here complaining about a small delay in publishing Poison At Breakfast.

[Dante]

I believe there's an error in your interpretation of the following line:

Oct 31, 2020 22:37:35 GMT -5 Optimism is my Phil-osophy said:

Chapter 12:

Most people do not choose their final circumstances, of course, and if the Baudelaires had been given the choice they would have liked to live to a very old age, which for all I know they may be doing.

If Snicket had written "they may have done", you would have a strong argument; their living to a very old age would be a past event. But instead he wrote "they may be doing", which indicates that living to a very old age is something that they are in the process of doing, in the present; so as written, all the line implies is that Lemony is considering the possibility that the Baudelaires are alive and safe.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Ah, thanks for clarifying this detail. The Portuguese translation did not convey this idea that they were just in the aging process. But notice that my theories are arriving at the subtleties of language, which in general are difficult to be faithfully translated.

So, the second big hiatus shouldn't have been that big. But there was still a hiatus, as shown on the Netflix show. Lemony did not know about the events recorded at TE until he met Beatrice Jr. But, if that is the case, Beatrice Jr read the books to TPP before meeting Lemony. The books were published as it grew. As I already said, I believe that when she was in Lemony's office for the first time, the TWW book had not yet been published, as she did not recognize the leech-shaped paperweight. Then there was the big hiatus. (The only big hiatus). So I can add Beatrice Jr VFD as one of the events of the great hiatus. She started contacting Lemony again when he had already published other books like TAA (which was published many years after Prufrock Prep closed). After Lemony published TPP, and after he was cleared of the charge of being an arsonist (something that happened only after he managed to find the evidence cited in the TSS letter in the region of the rebuilt Hotel D or the underwater library), he was cleared. And so he was able to have a fixed address again. And it was at this time that Beatrice Jr met with Lemony and passed on information about what happened on the island. It is interesting that in TE Lemony says that people can be considered libraries. Beatrice Jr was a walking library. The moment she met Lemony she had information (either in her memory or in writing) about details of what had happened to the Baudelaires. She herself could compare the information she had with the information she was reading in ASOUE's books and express opinions about the differences. Regardless of the quality of that information, it was still useful and detailed enough for Lemony to write TE. Beatrice Jr believes that her adoptive parents are still alive, that is a fact. Lemony doubts this, but knows it can be true. This information, together with the low quality of the information itself, must have led Lemony to write about the possibility that the Baudelaires were still alive and that they had not read their own history. Thus, the gap that occurred between the publication of TPP and TE only lasted as long as necessary for Lemony to meet Beatrice Jr and then catalog TBL's letters. Although not as many years have passed as I imagined, still this second hiatus (which is not that big) still took place. In the letter to the editor at TBL, Lemony wrote that it was years since he had read the poem My Silence Knot behind a glass until he found the poem again. Beatrice Jr wrote that she saw the moment when Lemony having read the poem My Silence Knot, was when she learned the meaning of Baticeer. At that time Lemony already had a fixed address, so this happened after the publication of TPP. Thus, years passed from the moment that Beatrice Jr saw Lemony reading the poem until the moment that Lemony rediscovered the poem. And it was only after that that Lemony published TE.