No. 83 - A Series of Unfortunate Events

Unfortunate could not be more fitting, in fact it could even be thought an understatement, considering what happens to the children in these books! Many of you will be familiar with Lemony Snicket's series through the recent adaptation of the stories for Netflix, and you may even have seen the 2004 film starring Jim Carey as creepy Count Olaf. I'll be honest though, the popularity of A Series of Unfortunate Events bemuses me rather.... 

As you will know from reading my previous posts I'm not really a fan of anything that's a bit dark. I like my books jovial and heartwarming, although I also like a bit of intrigue and mystery, but we'll save that for another day! I chose the start right at the beginning with the Lemony Snicket books and read the aptly named The Bad Beginning for this post. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't feel instantly enamoured with a book that warns me off on the first page! The Bad Beginning starts "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book."*. Great, I thought! This book is not for me.... I read on..... "In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle."**. This was going to be a jolly read then! But against my better judgement I read on! And frankly, I shouldn't have done! The book was depressing from page one, until the very last, just as it said! 

I'll give you brief outline of the misfortunes that befall the Baudelaire children.....

SPOILER ALERT, if you plan to read the books or haven't watched the Netflix version yet!

• Firstly, the children's parent die in a housefire! They loose their home, their parents and all their possessions. Not the best start to the story I can tell you. 
• Then they get taken in by the executor of their parents' Will, a Mr Poe (who coincidently shares his name with the great gothic poet....!? I think not!) His wife makes them wear horrible itchy clothes, frankly adding insult to injury! 
• The Will states that they must be raised by a relative... enter the despicable Count Olaf.... Da Da Daaa! 
• The Count is EVIL!
• His cronies are EVIL too! And really rather odd.... There is a man with hooks for hands, and bald man with a very long nose, an androgynous giant, and two very pale ladies. Along with the strange Count Olaf, they wouldn't have looked out of place in a old travelling circus...
• The only upside to living with Olaf is the nice lady who lives next door, who is a judge and has a library! I was willing the children to tell her about their mistreatment, but of course they don't! If they did the story might have actually perked up!
• Olaf hatches a plan to get the children's fortune (they are very rich, see). This involves getting Violet, the eldest, to marry him so he is entitled to the fortune! 
• She must go ahead with it, or her baby sister Sunny will be dropped from a thirty foot tower to her death..... Cheery! 
• Violet manages to trick the Count, and the marriage is never declared legal! Mr Poe orders Olaf's arrest and it all ends happily ever after with the children going to live with the nice judge. Well thats good news, surely, I hear you cry... oh no... sorry, no can do..... 

At this point the book offered me a way out of this cycle of doom... "If you like, you may shut the book this instant and not read the unhappy ending that is to follow. You may spend the rest of your life believing that the Baudelaires triumphed over Count Olaf and lived the rest of their lives in the house and library of Justice Strauss..."***. Oh, was I tempted!!

But alas, I wouldn't be fulfilling my challenge if I didn't read to the end of book, so unfortunately I had to.... and the declaration on the first page was not a lie! There was no happy ending! Count Olaf escaped capture, to terrorise again! And the children had to go back to the Poe's house to go into the care of another relative, but who.....?

It's safe to say that I didn't enjoy The Bad Beginning, this book was not for me! But maybe i'm missing something, because these books, the film and the subsequent TV series seem to be very popular!

Thanks for reading, L x

(*Lemony Snicket, *p.1, **p. 1, ***p.156)