TheAsh
Formidable Foreman
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Post by TheAsh on Sept 1, 2021 5:11:51 GMT -5
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR POISON FOR BREAKFAST Poison for Breakfast is a standalone book. But when does it take place? I believe it takes place before the events of ASOUE and (obviously) after ATWQ and the picture books. I have a few proofs for this: 1) The Baudelaires are never mentioned by name. 2) The only books mentioned by name are ATWQ books. 3) No one knows what the third proof is. 4) Lemony wonders what his funeral will be like. However, as per TUA, Lemony has attended his own funeral and thus knows exactly what it feels like. Thus, the passage from PFB must take place before the event of TUA. 5) The writing style is very similar to ATWQ. In ATWQ, Lemony is at his most coherent. in PFB, Lemony is normal, sensible and his thoughts are relatively organized. Lemony in ASOUE however, feels like he is on the run, and his thoughts are disjointed like someone who has had a mental breakdown. This follows the normal pattern of VFD members suffering breakdowns and changing at the end of their lives (See EXHIBIT A: Aunt Josephine who is extremely brave, or Hal, who isn't scared of everyone in ATWQ.) Thus, I feel that PFB was written in universe before the events of ASOUE. (I know that there is a passage in PFB that seems to talk about the Baudelaires, but if you read it closely it is clearly talking about the Jews, or VFD, not the Baudelaires per se. I think it is intentionally written that way so it is referring to ATWQ and VFD members who were taken pre-schism without houses burning down.)
When precisely does PFB take place? We have one strong clue: Lemony drinks sweet tea! (sweetened with honey). We know by the time ASOUE comes around, volunteers are trained to only drink tea as bitter as wormwood, as a result of the sugar bowl incident. This strongly suggests that PFB takes place before the sweet-tea taboo took hold, and thus, well before the events of the sugar bowl incident.
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jackson
Catastrophic Captain
We will attend masked balls at her castle, and you can get scared then.
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Post by jackson on Sept 2, 2021 20:31:38 GMT -5
In my headcanon this book follows ATWQ and ASoUE because I'm a sucker for closure, but your evidence is in strong support of the contrary. I'm a bit baffled... ...that Mister Snicket couldn't place a scrap of paper written in his own handwriting, so maybe these are his musings as a young adult with a runaway imagination. But the Snicket of ATWQ is much more perceptive than that, and a lot of the musings felt much more aged than young adult musings, and Snicket seemed very much settled down in this book, and part of me is so frustrated at this throwaway plot that I'd like to believe that Snicket made the whole thing up as a crude coat stand to drape his philosophy over.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Sept 3, 2021 3:46:44 GMT -5
I'm still reading, but to me it sounds like an old Lemony talking about his childhood in the beginning.
His reasons for not mentioning the Baudelaires must be the same as those that led him to complete his research in book 13 of asoue.
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Post by Hermes on Sept 3, 2021 6:30:23 GMT -5
Moved to Weary Writer, since PFB is not actually part of ASOUE.
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Post by Hermes on Sept 3, 2021 7:01:58 GMT -5
I am uncertain about the honey evidence. What we are told in TPP is that volunteers, quite generally, don't put sugar in their tea, and that Kit's brother, in particular (she doesn't say which brother) says that tea should be as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a two-edged sword. Lemony seems to be following the general rule of VFD by putting honey, not sugar, in his tea, but to have overcome his conviction (if it was his) that tea should aways be bitter.
How this relates to the sugar bowl is in any case a puzzle. I don't think it depends on the incident, i.e. the theft of the sugar bowl; Ishmael talks about tea as bitter as wormwood in relation to a much earlier time, apparently when Ike's mother was a child, which must have been before Lemony was born. (And it's quite likely he was going to mention a sugar bowl as well, but Sunny interrupts and cuts him off.) I think the most likely explanation is that VFD has historically concealed antidotes in sugar bowls, which makes them unavalaible for sweetening; then one especially important sugar bowl was stolen, provoking a crisis.
More generally it seems to me that Lemony's attitude relects the resignation of old age rather than the confidence of youth. We get a hint of a similar attitude at the end of ASOUE. His attitude through most of ASOUE reflects the 'put your fear on one side' strategy from ATWQ - also manifested in a more extreme form by Josephine and Hector - plus of course the fact that he is on the run: I take the effects of this strategy aren't meant to last for ever, and if L's life has in any case improved (which it shows signs of doing at the end of ASOUE) he can recover the balance of his mind.
EDIT: Oh, and old people definitely forget things.
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Post by the panopticountolaf on Sept 3, 2021 10:31:42 GMT -5
I did say I would talk about my thoughts on the timeline and how PFB relates to it, so here I am! I definitely feel that this is an post-ASOUE Lemony, mainly because he's not running around on VFD business, which I am sure he would be doing were the book set during, say, TBL. But another reason that I think this is a post-ASOUE story stems from the fact that Lemony's writing style changes dramatically over the course of his life. He starts out as the rambling, bizarre sort of stream-of-consciousness of teen Lemony in ATWQ, to the sharper, more focused young adult Lemony seen in TBL and TUA, to the much sadder, resigned Lemony seen in ASOUE, to this book now, where he seems far more mellow and not too far removed from his writing style in ATWQ. Speaking solely from a storytelling perspective, many of the best storytellers will have the end of a story mirror the beginning, and I think that's exactly what DH was going for here.
There are also some logistical factors to this theory as well; Lemony is able to go everywhere he goes in this story without fear of being followed or captured, a worry which seems to plague him during ASOUE. As some other very esteemed members of this forum have theorized, Lemony is able to use whatever is in the sugar bowl (or another piece of evidence, what he uses doesn't really matter in the context of this theory) to clear his name of all wrongdoing and live a somewhat peaceful life, as seen in the BB to LS letters in TBL. Now, let's move methodically through all the others "phases" of Lemony's life to show why they don't match up with the Lemony we see in PFB:
-Lemony is, well, a child in Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Lemony is clearly not a child in PFB, and besides, the town he lives in seems too full of life to be Stain'd-by-the Sea. -Lemony's entire life seems to revolve around VFD during the LS to BB letters, and there is no mention of VFD by name nor anything that could easily be identified as VFD activity in PFB, suggesting that there is a degree of detachment there. Lemony seems to think of himself as a volunteer, but he certainly isn't heavily involved with VFD during PFB like he is in TBL. -As discussed before, Lemony's on the run during ASOUE. PFB certainly doesn't take place during this phase. -After the events of ASOUE come the BB to LS letters. Lemony's able to talk to friends in public in these letters, and rent out an office that has his own name on the door, so the chances of the "clearing-his-name" theory seem good to me. Letter the Thirteenth, from LS to the Editor, details how he is working on a "file" about Beatrice Baudelaire. This is little more than head-canon on my part, but I think this file serves as closure for Lemony. Beatrice is never directly referenced in PFB, and there's only one other time when Snicket could be referring to her.
All of this evidence (which I must admit I have pulled from my memories of ATWQ, ASOUE, and TBL — please let me know if I've got something wrong) points to only one possibility for me. PFB takes place after everything that Lemony has published as of yet. Lemony's reached closure with his memories of Beatrice and seems to have seperated himself from VFD for the time being, all while being able to walk around in public without fear of being apprehended. He seems happy — or at the very least content.
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Post by Hermes on Sept 4, 2021 14:48:43 GMT -5
I agree with urbanletteropener's analysis, but I'd note two things: a. In the 'future' part of TBL, it's possible Lemony is still partly in concealment, since Beatrice refers to 'a person with your initials', suggesting he is living as Lawrence Smith or the like. His life is clearly more peaceful than during the writing of ASOUE, suggesting he isn't being actively pursued, but he may not be completely cleared yet. Here, he seems to have moved a step beyond that. b. The town he is living in might be Stain'd, if it has been given new life by Cleo's invention (which would also allow it to be by the sea once again). By the way, there's a question when ATWQ was written. Clearly L prepared reports during the time the events were happening, as shown by the dedications/routing slips to various librarians. But there are signs it was revised for publication later, notably the sentence in WCTBATH ch. 4, I think, beginning 'I was once that young man...' (which goes on to say that one day he will just be a pile of books, implying he is already a writer). I think it likely that ATWQ in the form we know it was written (in story) after ASOUE.
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TheAsh
Formidable Foreman
Posts: 175
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Post by TheAsh on Sept 4, 2021 15:05:31 GMT -5
I did say I would talk about my thoughts on the timeline and how PFB relates to it, so here I am! I definitely feel that this is an post-ASOUE Lemony, mainly because he's not running around on VFD business, which I am sure he would be doing were the book set during, say, TBL. But another reason that I think this is a post-ASOUE story stems from the fact that Lemony's writing style changes dramatically over the course of his life. He starts out as the rambling, bizarre sort of stream-of-consciousness of teen Lemony in ATWQ, to the sharper, more focused young adult Lemony seen in TBL and TUA, to the much sadder, resigned Lemony seen in ASOUE, to this book now, where he seems far more mellow and not too far removed from his writing style in ATWQ. Speaking solely from a storytelling perspective, many of the best storytellers will have the end of a story mirror the beginning, and I think that's exactly what DH was going for here.
There are also some logistical factors to this theory as well; Lemony is able to go everywhere he goes in this story without fear of being followed or captured, a worry which seems to plague him during ASOUE. As some other very esteemed members of this forum have theorized, Lemony is able to use whatever is in the sugar bowl (or another piece of evidence, what he uses doesn't really matter in the context of this theory) to clear his name of all wrongdoing and live a somewhat peaceful life, as seen in the BB to LS letters in TBL. Now, let's move methodically through all the others "phases" of Lemony's life to show why they don't match up with the Lemony we see in PFB:
-Lemony is, well, a child in Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Lemony is clearly not a child in PFB, and besides, the town he lives in seems too full of life to be Stain'd-by-the Sea. -Lemony's entire life seems to revolve around VFD during the LS to BB letters, and there is no mention of VFD by name nor anything that could easily be identified as VFD activity in PFB, suggesting that there is a degree of detachment there. Lemony seems to think of himself as a volunteer, but he certainly isn't heavily involved with VFD during PFB like he is in TBL. -As discussed before, Lemony's on the run during ASOUE. PFB certainly doesn't take place during this phase. -After the events of ASOUE come the BB to LS letters. Lemony's able to talk to friends in public in these letters, and rent out an office that has his own name on the door, so the chances of the "clearing-his-name" theory seem good to me. Letter the Thirteenth, from LS to the Editor, details how he is working on a "file" about Beatrice Baudelaire. This is little more than head-canon on my part, but I think this file serves as closure for Lemony. Beatrice is never directly referenced in PFB, and there's only one other time when Snicket could be referring to her.
All of this evidence (which I must admit I have pulled from my memories of ATWQ, ASOUE, and TBL — please let me know if I've got something wrong) points to only one possibility for me. PFB takes place after everything that Lemony has published as of yet. Lemony's reached closure with his memories of Beatrice and seems to have seperated himself from VFD for the time being, all while being able to walk around in public without fear of being apprehended. He seems happy — or at the very least content.
This is a great analysis. I really like it, and it is what I initially thought before I reread it and found my evidence that started the thread. I now think Lemony wrote before the events of VFD schism, before he stole the sugar bowl with Beatrice,mainly based on the evidence above. What do you do with my evidence?
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Sept 4, 2021 15:11:36 GMT -5
Yes, I fully support the idea that ATWQ is a childhood memoir. Only File Under 13 was written at the time of the main events described in ATWQ.
If PFB was actually written by the same Lemony Snicket and not someone pretending to be him, it was written after the writing of ATWQ, so the phraseology is preserved. The fact that ATWQ was written at a time when Lemony had already started to forget things a bit is also underscored by the differences between the descriptions of ATWQ and File Under 13. In ATWQ SBS is described as emptier and more melancholy than in FU13.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Sept 4, 2021 15:19:01 GMT -5
I did say I would talk about my thoughts on the timeline and how PFB relates to it, so here I am! I definitely feel that this is an post-ASOUE Lemony, mainly because he's not running around on VFD business, which I am sure he would be doing were the book set during, say, TBL. But another reason that I think this is a post-ASOUE story stems from the fact that Lemony's writing style changes dramatically over the course of his life. He starts out as the rambling, bizarre sort of stream-of-consciousness of teen Lemony in ATWQ, to the sharper, more focused young adult Lemony seen in TBL and TUA, to the much sadder, resigned Lemony seen in ASOUE, to this book now, where he seems far more mellow and not too far removed from his writing style in ATWQ. Speaking solely from a storytelling perspective, many of the best storytellers will have the end of a story mirror the beginning, and I think that's exactly what DH was going for here.
There are also some logistical factors to this theory as well; Lemony is able to go everywhere he goes in this story without fear of being followed or captured, a worry which seems to plague him during ASOUE. As some other very esteemed members of this forum have theorized, Lemony is able to use whatever is in the sugar bowl (or another piece of evidence, what he uses doesn't really matter in the context of this theory) to clear his name of all wrongdoing and live a somewhat peaceful life, as seen in the BB to LS letters in TBL. Now, let's move methodically through all the others "phases" of Lemony's life to show why they don't match up with the Lemony we see in PFB:
-Lemony is, well, a child in Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Lemony is clearly not a child in PFB, and besides, the town he lives in seems too full of life to be Stain'd-by-the Sea. -Lemony's entire life seems to revolve around VFD during the LS to BB letters, and there is no mention of VFD by name nor anything that could easily be identified as VFD activity in PFB, suggesting that there is a degree of detachment there. Lemony seems to think of himself as a volunteer, but he certainly isn't heavily involved with VFD during PFB like he is in TBL. -As discussed before, Lemony's on the run during ASOUE. PFB certainly doesn't take place during this phase. -After the events of ASOUE come the BB to LS letters. Lemony's able to talk to friends in public in these letters, and rent out an office that has his own name on the door, so the chances of the "clearing-his-name" theory seem good to me. Letter the Thirteenth, from LS to the Editor, details how he is working on a "file" about Beatrice Baudelaire. This is little more than head-canon on my part, but I think this file serves as closure for Lemony. Beatrice is never directly referenced in PFB, and there's only one other time when Snicket could be referring to her.
All of this evidence (which I must admit I have pulled from my memories of ATWQ, ASOUE, and TBL — please let me know if I've got something wrong) points to only one possibility for me. PFB takes place after everything that Lemony has published as of yet. Lemony's reached closure with his memories of Beatrice and seems to have seperated himself from VFD for the time being, all while being able to walk around in public without fear of being apprehended. He seems happy — or at the very least content.
This is a great analysis. I really like it, and it is what I initially thought before I reread it and found my evidence that started the thread. I now think Lemony wrote before the events of VFD schism, before he stole the sugar bowl with Beatrice,mainly based on the evidence above. What do you do with my evidence? As much as I don't like it, Lemony seems to have developed some kind of chronic apathy against VFD, to the point where he tries to block it out of his life, as if it never existed. Also in chapter 1 of PFB, Lemony talks about a child abduction. Any of us could relate this to VFD, but Lemony doesn't. Daniel Handler (the author) looks like he's playing in the fans' faces: "I'm not going to talk about VFD here because I don't want to, not because I didn't have the opportunity." That's a very different attitude from Lemony on ATWQ. In fact, it's an attitude only demonstrated in Lemony Snicket's books for toddlers.
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Post by the panopticountolaf on Sept 4, 2021 15:29:07 GMT -5
What do you do with my evidence? Let's see now... 1) The Baudelaires are never mentioned by name. Yes, but neither is Beatrice, and she's certainly implied at one point in the story. I might add that Lemony's interest in the children is pretty much solely because they're Beatrice's. If we were to entertain my "closure for Beatrice" headcanon, it's highly possible that Lemony would no longer, well, care about the Baudelaires. 2) The only books mentioned by name are ATWQ books. The only rebuke I have for this at the moment is that the publication timeline for ASOUE is all over the place, as Optimism is my Phil-osophy has pointed out before... Maybe Lemony originally published ASOUE in small batches specifically for VFD members, and then they got a wider publication later (?) 3) No one knows what the third proof is. Har har har. 4) Lemony wonders what his funeral will be like. However, as per TUA, Lemony has attended his own funeral and thus knows exactly what it feels like. Thus, the passage from PFB must take place before the event of TUA. Rereading the newspaper article at the beginning of TUA chapter one, it's clear that the funeral is not actually for Lemony, but this idea of Lemony as a horrible criminal that the general public seems to have of him due to the Daily Punctilio. It's a funeral for a distortion of Lemony, and so is not at all like Lemony's actual funeral would be. 5) The writing style is very similar to ATWQ. In ATWQ, Lemony is at his most coherent. in PFB, Lemony is normal, sensible and his thoughts are relatively organized. Lemony in ASOUE however, feels like he is on the run, and his thoughts are disjointed like someone who has had a mental breakdown. This follows the normal pattern of VFD members suffering breakdowns and changing at the end of their lives (See EXHIBIT A: Aunt Josephine who is extremely brave, or Hal, who isn't scared of everyone in ATWQ.) I've already covered this in my original post. The ending reflects the beginning. When precisely does PFB take place? We have one strong clue: Lemony drinks sweet tea! (sweetened with honey). We know by the time ASOUE comes around, volunteers are trained to only drink tea as bitter as wormwood, as a result of the sugar bowl incident. This strongly suggests that PFB takes place before the sweet-tea taboo took hold, and thus, well before the events of the sugar bowl incident. Hermes has already discussed this, and I'm inclined to agree with him. "Tea should be as bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword" feels more like the kind of thing that the slightly melodramatic Jacques would say rather than the hopelessly poetic Lemony. Phew. I think I need a moment. That was a lot of quoting.
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Post by counto on Sept 22, 2021 5:25:17 GMT -5
Well in Poison For Breakfast, it mentions that Lemony looks at a photo of someone special (presumably Beatrice I). Also Lemony after that falls down on the round, but doesn't get up right away. Now there could be a good reason for that. You see when you get it older it gets harder to move around without some assistance. Now if this does take place in the general future post ASOUE, Lemony would likely be an old man.
Another thing that alludes to this is that throughout the book Lemony thinks about life and death. Older people tend to focus more on what's ahead then younger people do. Considering that Lemony spent most of his life in hiding it'd make sense. There's also reference of a movie he watched as a child, Midnight (1939). This could just be a random thing, but it could mean that he either watched this when it first came out or sometime after.
A headcanon I have is that PFB takes place in the year 2021 (about 40 years after ASOUE). Lemony being born in 1941, making him 80 years old.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Sept 22, 2021 6:09:32 GMT -5
I think that trying to put PFB in the same literal chronology as asoue is at the moment against the author's intentions. On the other hand, I agree that the publication of PFB happened after the publication of asoue. Even though asoue is just a fiction book in the PFB universe.
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TheAsh
Formidable Foreman
Posts: 175
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Post by TheAsh on Sept 22, 2021 7:01:35 GMT -5
I think that trying to put PFB in the same literal chronology as asoue is at the moment against the author's intentions. Of course it is! It's against Daniel Handler's explicit wishes! That's why it feels so deliciously transgressive to do so... And my timeline, which is certainly against Daniel Handler's intentions, is even more delicious and transgressive.
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Post by counto on Sept 22, 2021 18:18:39 GMT -5
I'd like to hear about your timeline TheAsh
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