April 28, 2015
Book the eleventh of A Series of Unfortunate Events. This one was better than the previous installment, though that's mainly due to the complexity of Captain Widdershins and his stepchildren. The V.F.D. situation is still very complicated, though Widdershins provides some examples of how the organization operates. They sound more like secret agents than anything else. But was this the case before the schism? Prior to that, what did these people have to be so secretive about, anyway?
So the story picks right up where it left off, with the Baudelaires floating helplessly down a river. They come upon a submarine, the Queequeg, which is affiliated with V.F.D. Captain Widdershins is scatterbrained and bombastic, shouting "aye!" constantly between sentences. He's also very secretive: he and his crew (stepdaughter Fiona and Phil, that optimistic guy from the lumber mill) are looking for the sugar bowl, but all Widdershins will say is that what's inside it is important. After a failed mission to find the bowl in a cave, the children find Phil and Widdershins gone from the submarine.
Olaf, who is extra obnoxious in this book, seems to have had nothing to do with the disappearance of these adults. He's too busy kidnapping and enslaving children to run his own submarine. Carmelita is now Esmé's spoiled child, and she tortures the captive children with her singing and dancing. I think that Olaf is going to eventually ditch Esmé and the brat, as he's already exasperated with the kid. The main villains had their own shit to deal with this time around.
But the man with hooks for hands had a major part. Fernald, as it turns out, is Fiona's brother, probably twice her age. I'm fascinated just by the family dynamics here. Widdershins is their stepfather, but he was already in the picture when Fiona was only a tiny baby. Fiona briefly mentions that her father left...who was he? And why such a huge age difference between Fernald and Fiona? Of course, they could be half-siblings. And who was their mother, and how did she die? There's just more layers being added to this mystery.
But Fiona and Fernald are both very interesting characters. Fernald stands up for Olaf and the side of V.F.D. that he chose to side with, saying that nobody is totally good, and nobody is totally evil...which is true, of course. Now, a student of mine hinted to me that Olaf becomes a bit sympathetic in the last couple of books. However, I don't see what could justify all the times he's terrorized and harmed children. I don't know if I could ever like this character, or even pity him much. But that remains to be seen.
Fiona starts out as a love interest for Klaus. But she has some personality traits that the Baudelaires find problematic. For example, when they find Widdershins gone, Fiona takes over the Queequeg and starts barking orders. And when Sunny is found to have a bit of very dangerous fungi in her diving helmet, Fiona (who studies mushrooms and fungus) seems unsympathetic towards the little girl's plight. Oh, and she joins Olaf's troop. I laughed hysterically the first time Esmé called her "triangle eyes."
At the end of the book, Poe shows up at Briny Beach, in an echo of the series' opening scene. The Baudelaires were summoned there by a message from Quigley. But Quigley himself does not meet them; they end up climbing into a cab driven by Lemony Snicket's sister Kit. And that's the end of the book.
Two more to go. I was doubtful that I could finish the series by the end of the year, but I think I'll manage just in the nick of time. One student of mine recently finished it, and was so into it that he's gone on to read some supplementary works. Apparently the numerous questions I have, and will have yet, won't necessarily be answered...
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