Monday, October 16, 2006

An unfortunate series ends

If you have had the unfortunate fortune to read Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, then you have experienced a story which is bittersweet, a word here which means that the story is neither completely bitter nor completely sweet. It tells the tale of three young orphans who have continuous run ins with a terrible foe named Count Olaf. Throughout their unfortunate experiences, they find out many things about themselves, their unfortunate dead parents, and the mysteries which surround the terrible things in the world. However, in the telling of this tale, these three young orphans, the Baudelaires, are some of the wittiest, a word here which means extremely funny at some of the most inappropriate times, children in such a story. Every book made me laugh out loud at their remarks. That along with Olaf's blatant naiveté and utter evilness makes for one heck of a yarn (see chapter 8 of The End for the two definitions of this word). The end of this series comes slowly and not altogether complete as the end of the end is supposed to be a beginning though not a bad a beginning as the series begins, namely The Bad Beginning. But as a lot of people say, it is the journey that is important. In The End, the children discover themselves and close their grief. I have since acquired the entire unfortunate series in a lovely box set. This is also something attractive about the series in that the books are hardbound with lovely illustrations of each of the 170 unfortunate chapters, as stated by Mr. Snicket, himself. Mr. Snicket also states that no one should read this unfortunate series but despite those words, I think I will read them all over again.

No comments:

Post a Comment