you need a password for the chicago tribune
...Then how come I'm reading it freely?
I'll paste it here for you, though.
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All bad things come to an end -- including the really, really unlucky run of accidents, crises and tragedies that have been befalling the three Baudelaire siblings in the wittily arch Lemony Snicket children's books.
Next month, on Friday the 13th (of course) 2.5 million copies of "The End," the 13th and final "Series of Unfortunate Events" book, will go on sale at 12:01 a.m. More than 50 million copies of the initial dozen have been sold.
In a recent conversation with Tempo from his San Francisco home, Daniel Handler, Snicket's 36-year-old real-life alter ego, talked of the tendency of many of his young readers to tell him about unfortunate events in their own lives and ruminated on the role his books played in helping children cope with Sept. 11, 2001. He also commented, sort of, on reports that at least two characters die in the final book.
Here's an edited transcript:
Q. Is this the absolute final book in this series?
A. It is, indeed.
Q. No "Return of the Baudelaires" or "Baudelaires: Part 2"?
A. Not as far as I'm aware. And I think I would know.
Q. Seven years ago, when the series started, Violet Baudelaire was 14, her brother Klaus was 12, and Sunny was an infant. In "The End," they seem about the same age although Sunny is a little less of a baby. Has Count Olaf stolen their ability to grow up?
A. Some of the books only take place over a couple of days. I'm afraid it took longer to write them than it took the Baudelaires to live them. They've all had a birthday so it's been just over a year, I would guess. So it's been a pretty eventful time.
Q. Following Sept. 11, there was a lot of talk that books such as yours, dealing with scary stuff, were helping children cope with the fear that was generated by the terrorist attacks. Looking back, do you think there was much to that theory?
A. For some children, reading such books helped them overcome or think about their fears in a concrete and maybe easier-to-handle way.
Q. Did you have a sense that your books were helping with the healing?
A. I'm reluctant to take on that mantle of responsibility or pat myself on the back for being such a devout psychological aid. [He laughs.] But I was told by parents and educators and even by children themselves that, in those days, they found the books very comforting. As I wrote in an op-ed piece directly after 9/11, I found myself reading books that had scary things in them, but scary things that were packaged neatly. I read just about everything by Raymond Chandler in the weeks after 9/11. There are horrible things that happen in those books, and yet, because of their genre, it's containable.
Q. You've mentioned in interviews that kids, even before 9/11, tell you about the real-life "unfortunate events" they've suffered. That must be a heavy burden for you. What do you do?
A. Listen with interest. It's not that heavy a burden to hear about it. It strikes me as a very heavy burden for some of them to live through. I'm surprised that they would think to tell me these things.
Q. What sort of things do they tell you?
A. Absolutely anything that you can imagine. But I certainly hear from a lot of children who've lost one or more parent under literally anything you could dream up -- from disease to violent crime to all sorts of horrible accidents. Yeah, it's a tough world.
Q. When kids tell you things, what do you say to them?
A. I say I'm sorry to hear that. I say the same thing that I would say to an adult who has lost somebody. The children are usually not in the raw stage of grief. I'm often told that I'm good at talking with children. I think it's just because I don't talk to them any different than I do to adults.
Q. Do you have children yourself?
A. I have a son who's almost 3. His name is Otto. Handler was a difficult [last] name to match. Otto seemed pretty good. Of course, as soon as we announced it, one of my cousins said, `He's a car mechanic: Auto Handler.'"
Q. You've published three adult novels. Is there a different way you approach the planning or execution of a Lemony Snicket book and one of your adult novels?
A. Not really. I always tell people that I listen to gloomy Russian music while I'm writing the Snicket books -- which is true. But the sad truth is that I'm listening to that all day long.
Q. So, even when you write your adult novels, you're listening to that music?
A. Even when I'm making pancakes.
Q. Who dies in "The End"?
A. All of us die in the end. Surely, the Chicago Tribune knows that.
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Snicket snippet
As Lemony Snicket's fans have come to expect, the writing in "The End" is coy, playful and slyly humorous, even (or especially) when dealing with the latest fright, threat or danger facing the Baudelaire children:
In the dark: "The phrase `in the dark,' as I'm sure you know, can refer not only to one's shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one might be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. If you are sunbathing in a park, for instance, but you do not know that a locked cabinet is buried fifty feet beneath your blanket, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas if you are on a midnight hike, knowing full well that several ballerinas are following close behind you, then you are not in the dark even if you are in fact in the dark."
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