A Series of Unfortunate Events
March 20th, 2007 by Ravenhurst
Although it is probably a little much to try and review all 13 novels which make up A Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket, I am going to try and do just that.
The 13 novels are written from the perspective of Lemony Snicket, who is a writer and an investigator who seems to be researching and writing a biography on three orphaned children: Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire. The orphans are placed into a series of “homes” and find themselves in more and more trouble (usually at the hands of the evil Count Olaf). While they find ways of extricating themselves from a series of unfortunate events, they also discover more and more information about their parents who were not at all who they thought they were.
The best part about A Series of Unfortunate Events is the writing style. My favorite part is when he defines words for his young audience, though it seems like these definitions become increasingly less like real definitions, much to my enjoyment. I also thoroughly enjoy the ways that he tries to persuade you to stop reading these books.
The first several books are more about the several sets of relatives (or non-relatives) with whom the orphans are placed: The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, The Miserable Mill, The Austere Academy, The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village. They seem to stand fairly well on their own, although there are allusions within them to some of the previous circumstances in which they had found themselves. The Vile Village seems to be kind of the turning point, probably because it is the seventh book in a 13 book series. It is certainly the last one that really seems like it has some sort of closure (until you reach the last book in the series).
If you are going to continue past those seven books to the Hostile Hospital, you better be prepared to read all of the rest of the series because, although they are broken up into separate books, they are all one big story. From that point on, Lemony Snicket’s series changes from a bunch of little, seemingly unrelated events to a big story where you find that the little Baudelaire’s are actually part of something huge.
Some of these later stories tend to get a little tedious and you may find yourself wondering if you really should have simply stopped with the Vile Village. Well, it’s too late now. I warned you beforehand. You’re going to want to know how it all ends. Luckily for us, we know that Lemony Snicket has limited himself to 170 chapters (13 books of 13 chapters each, and the Fourteenth Chapter). If he was going to go on indefinitely (as some authors choose to do)… Well, let me just say, I’m glad he didn’t.
It helped for me to take a little bit of time away from the series and then start where I left off a few months later. I read the last two books in the series after several months break and enjoyed them immensely. After that, I kind of wondered if maybe I should have taken some other breaks as well.
I do have to say that I found the conclusion immensely satisfying. I didn’t want to read any more books in the series. There weren’t really any loose ends that you wished he had tied up. It ended well. In fact, I’m not sure why he wrote the Fourteenth Chapter, because I was very satisfied with the ending of The End.
I would definitely recommend the books to any readers who are old enough for the content of these books. The series, as a whole, is excellent, and Lemony Snicket’s writing style is one of the most enjoyable styles that I have ever read.