May 29, 2015
Book the Thirteenth (the final installment) of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I made my goal of finishing it by the end of the school year, with a week to spare. I imagine that, at the time that it was published, many readers were not entirely pleased with the end of The End. But since readers would be aware by now that the stories of Snicket's world, the bizarre but maybe "noble" practices of VFD and the mysteries of its associates and enemies was not over, as Daniel Handler has published more titles as the witty, absurd, and elusive Lemony Snicket. As complicated as things get in this final work alone, the more of those questions (like what's up with the sugar bowl, and the tunnels) are not yet answers in the series that I've just finished.
To be honest, I'm still personally not as interested in VFD as I was in the welfare of the Baudelaires. These poor kids, after sailing away from the burning of the Hotel Denoument with their crazy nemesis Count Olaf, end up in a storm and wash up on a coastal shelf. I don't know if the idea of an island on a coastal shelf being so far from land that to leave it is impossible but once a year is scientifically possible, nor do I know anything about the turning of tides (I'm pretty sure it's merely meant to be symbolic here), but the whole situation that the Baudelaires come across is really sketchy. They're only hoping for a safe place, at last, but that obviously isn't possible for them. Is it possible for anyone, really?
Kind of depressing, but in the end, as the tides turn in favor for leaving the strange island, the tides seem to be turning in favor of the unfortunate Baudelaires. They've been through some shit, but with their biggest (though perhaps not most dangerous) enemy dead, and a lot more knowledge about their parents and their strange world, they seem like they'll be able to survive.
Yep, Olaf does die. But not before he kisses a dying and in-labor Kit Snicket. Uh, things get rather complicated. To keep it short: the leader of the strange island is Ishmal, a former VFD member; Olaf has the poisonous fungus that nearly killed Sunny, and it gets released on the island when Ishmal shoots him with that harpoon gun; the Baudelaires, cured of the poison, are left to care for Kit's orphaned baby. Definitely opens things up for more adventures as they sail away with baby Beatrice (yes, the name of the Baudelaires' mother and Snicket's lost beloved; I had looked it up in advance so it didn't hit me like it might have).
Here's my issue: how is Olaf slamming so much ass when he's so gross? He blows his nose on curtains. He doesn't wear socks with shoes that really need socks; he maybe showers once every two weeks. He's basically like Charlie Kelly without the love for rat-bashing. Seriously! He's functionally illiterate, has some artist talent, he drinks, and his hygiene is horrendous. The big difference is that Charlie is lovable, while Olaf is just despicable. You learn a little more about his past, and he's just a bitter, vengeful, greedy man when it comes down to it. His having loved Kit doesn't give him much in the way of redemption. But the kids, who really are holding on to their morals, can forgive him to an extent. They've held on to themselves under impossible odds.
I have most enjoyed Snicket's narration through the series, especially when it is more humorous and a bit detached. He's rather intimately involved in the story, when it comes down to it. I think young Beatrice somehow ends up with her uncle, as he makes a couple of comments in the last couple of books about a niece and her uncle: going on for ice cream, and him planting her a tree in the night as a surprise. Snicket never comes out and says that he meets Beatrice, but that's my theory.
I do think that these books offer up a commentary about life's truths: that death is the Great Unknown, that people are complex, and that treachery exists everywhere. Not happy messages, but very real for a kid's book series. I think I would eventually read some more into Snicket's world, but I'll hold off for a while. I'll be trying to finish off The Dark Tower series over the summer, amongst other things. I think that this Unfortunate series has reawakened an appreciation for series books that I haven't felt since I first got into Harry Potter years ago.
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