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Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

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V

vladdamad

Member
27126.jpg


These books were/are amazing. The writing was great, with fun references to classic literature, the illustrations were gorgeous, and while the early books were a bit repetitive, once the overarching mystery started to come into play things got really intriguing. The whole fourth-wall breaking stuff was really clever, and the supplementary material (the autobiography, letters from Beatrice, etc.) expanded on the mythology without revealing everything until the very last book. The whole series was definitely underrated. Anyone else enjoy this series?
 
R

Randdalf

Member
I only ever read The End and The Penultimate Peril, my sister got the audio books of the rest - all read by Tim Curry - from the library and they were absolutely fantastic. Seriously, if you've never read these, consider getting the audiobook because it's so well done.
 
L

Lijik

Member
I remember loving the series and being way into the lore (I bought the lemony snicket biography and letters to Beatrice sidebooks), but being heavily disappointed by the last book. I cant remember what I didnt like about it anymore though.

I also remember being nitpicky and not liking that Olaf's tattoo design was changed when it became a key part of the backstory.
 
M

Memento Mori

Member
Loved these books as a kid. This username I've been using for years on various different places came from the school's motto in the fifth book.


Rubixcuba said:
I read the series and still don't remember what VFD stood for.
Click to expand...
Volunteer Fire Department amongst other things.
 
K

kris.

Banned
i got up to The Penultimate Peril but by then i was so lost as to what was going on because i had this awful habit of skip-reading when i was little so i never finished the series. amazing books, though.
 
K

kai3345

Banned
I got to book 9 and just sort of stopped after that. Can someone infodump some of the big revelations revealed in the last book?
 
V

vladdamad

Member
Lijik said:
I remember loving the series and being way into the lore (I bought the lemony snicket biography and letters to Beatrice sidebooks), but being heavily disappointed by the last book. I cant remember what I didnt like about it anymore though.
Click to expand...

I can understand why, from what I can remember they didn't really fully spell out the answer to all the mysteries. The book ends with a vital piece of information that puts the entire series into a different context, but a lot is left unexplained (although it was possible to put a lot of it together using the other information).

EDIT: HUGE ENDING SPOILERS
it was revealed that Beatrice, the woman to whom all the books in the series were dedicated to by the fictional author, was the mother of the three children. This meant that Lemony Snicket, who turns out to be a character in the books, was probably writing the account of the lives of the children in a way to atone for his not being able to take care of them. The ending also implies that the kids may have died at sea trying to escape the island, making the whole thing even more tragic.
 
D

DominoKid

Member
Loved this series but I don't remember much about it. It's been so long since I thought about it. I think I gave all the books away.
 
S

SteveWinwood

Member
I loved these. I felt I was too old for them really, but they were still plenty clever and you could get through one in a few hours.

I would love to know what actually happened at the end though as I never finished it :(

Wait after the op fixed the picture, I definitely had and read that last book. I just don't remember what happened I guess.

They were adorable and had fun little bits of darker humor. I'd rather read this with my kid than Harry Potter.
 
P

Professor Lich

Member
I loved these books as a kid. Hardly remember them though as some people have said. I should pick them up again for some light reading.

Also I liked how not everything was properly or fully explained. It's like real life, you can't know everything.
 
L

L1NETT

Member
Remember loving them, but can't remember the foggiest about them now lol

Just reading the wiki about them shows how many references/allusions that passed me by when I was younger.
 
V

vladdamad

Member
Also, fun fact: every installment had an illustration at the end. Each of these illustrations had a reference to the next book in the series. So for example, Slippery Slope had mushrooms growing in the background - mushrooms were a key plot point in the next book, Grim Grotto.

Rough_Waters.jpg
 
L

Lemon Crest

Member
The ending to the series was pretty sad, especially the implication
that the baudelaires might have died at sea trying to leave the island
.


The boxed collection on Amazon looks amazing, I'd grab it in a heartbeat if i wasn't broke.

Edit:found a good image of it
9780061119064.jpg
Click to expand...
 
T

Toth

Member
vladdamad said:
I can understand why, from what I can remember they didn't really fully spell out the answer to all the mysteries. The book ends with a vital piece of information that puts the entire series into a different context, but a lot is left unexplained (although it was possible to put a lot of it together using the other information).

EDIT: HUGE ENDING SPOILERS
it was revealed that Beatrice, the woman to whom all the books in the series were dedicated to by the fictional author, was the mother of the three children. This meant that Lemony Snicket, who turns out to be a character in the books, was probably writing the account of the lives of the children in a way to atone for his not being able to take care of them. The ending also implies that the kids may have died at sea trying to escape the island, making the whole thing even more tragic.
Click to expand...

I remember being so disappointed by the last book because it really has no 'end'.
There is no resolution for the children, Beatrice, and their friends. It was such an odd but exciting world that ended before it should have :(

The movie was awesome though and Jim Carrey was really good at Olaf. I was always disappointed they did not continue with the series,
 
J

joeyjoejoeshabadoo

Member
These books came out when I was in college and I remember picking up the first three books after reading an article about it in some magazine. I devoured the first three books (It's not hard) and just forgot to grab the rest of the series. I liked what I read, just sort of forgot to get the rest of them. Maybe I'll pick up the series again and read them to my kids.
 
AHA-Lambda

AHA-Lambda

Member
I second being disappointed in the last book for lack of revelations but I should probably have another look at it now that I'm older. I hadn't even realised that potential ending outcome
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
Kind of sensing it here and have noticed how the series kind of wavered after a while.

I loved the first three books I read, wasn't that into the film at all. But I saw a ton of potential for something great - was it really a disappointment? My excuse for not having read more is that there were just so many of them.
 
M

mantidor

Member
Toth said:
The movie was awesome though and Jim Carrey was really good at Olaf. I was always disappointed they did not continue with the series,
Click to expand...

I read that the problem was that the kids grew up too fast. You can even see it through the movie.
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
Fucking loved the art and the style of the books. I should really pick the rest up cheap somewhere.

vladdamad said:
I can understand why, from what I can remember they didn't really fully spell out the answer to all the mysteries. The book ends with a vital piece of information that puts the entire series into a different context, but a lot is left unexplained (although it was possible to put a lot of it together using the other information).

EDIT: HUGE ENDING SPOILERS
it was revealed that Beatrice, the woman to whom all the books in the series were dedicated to by the fictional author, was the mother of the three children. This meant that Lemony Snicket, who turns out to be a character in the books, was probably writing the account of the lives of the children in a way to atone for his not being able to take care of them. The ending also implies that the kids may have died at sea trying to escape the island, making the whole thing even more tragic.
Click to expand...

But I think I read somewhere that an earlier book in the series references
one or more of the children as adults, basically disproving the ending long before it was even published?
 
G

Gorillaz

Member
mantidor said:
I read that the problem was that the kids grew up too fast. You can even see it through the movie.
Click to expand...
Nick waited too long from what I heard to do a sequel and they pretty much started to outgrow the series. Like they were going to do a sequel 2-3 years later but it was too late
 
C

Cerity

Member
I remember really liking them as a kid but never finished the saga, I probably should get around to it sooner or later.
 
AHA-Lambda

AHA-Lambda

Member
bengraven said:
Fucking loved the art and the style of the books. I should really pick the rest up cheap somewhere.



But I think I read somewhere that an earlier book in the series references
one or more of the children as adults, basically disproving the ending long before it was even published?
Click to expand...

Yep, that'll be why I didn't twig the ending people are talking about.
 
S

SteveWinwood

Member
bengraven said:
Kind of sensing it here and have noticed how the series kind of wavered after a while.

I loved the first three books I read, wasn't that into the film at all. But I saw a ton of potential for something great - was it really a disappointment? My excuse for not having read more is that there were just so many of them.
Click to expand...

I feel that the fact that they hit a new place every book (except for the last few? I forget) really hit it hard. You're stuck treading a lot of the same old ground and it starts being like a phineas and ferb episode and it tries to play off that but doesn't quite get there. It was just repetitive after a while and it kept stringing you along for so long (VFD is THIS, no it's THAT, no it's actually THIS) that it just got exhausting.
 
J

jwk94

Member
I remember loving this series up until I think the Slippery Slope. By that time I was fed up with the whole "don't read these books!" That "Snicket" put in each installment.
 
N

Neko Godot

Member
The real turning point of the series is The Vile Village (and I doubt it's a coincidence that it happens to be right in the middle of the series), and I like that in the second half of the series, it doesn't shy away from dealing with morality. The Baudelaires do some pretty bad stuff later on, and it doesn't just get swept under the rug like in the final Harry Potter book.
 
V

vladdamad

Member
cajunator said:
Theres a movie about these books. Is it any good?
Click to expand...

I remember being a little annoyed that they messed up the order of the plot (it's based on the first three books), and a lot of the appeal of the series comes from the fourth-wall breaking stuff, so a lot of that is lost in the film, but visually it looks absolutely fantastic, and Jim Carrey is great in it. It's a shame we never got a sequel, and you can tell they were planning one due to the overarching lore elements that were included (
the VFD spyglass
).
 
T

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
I too have only seen the movie. I loved it a lot and was sad that along with Hitchhikers Guide didn't get to be series' of movies unlike the Narnia series which I've only ever seen the first film of.

I'd much rather have HHGG and LSASOUE.
 
Z

zeemumu

Member
Rubixcuba said:
I read the series and still don't remember what VFD stood for.
Click to expand...

Volunteer Fire Department was the main one I think. Whatever it was, VFD was just the abbreviation for the secret organization. What was the significance of the sugar bowl again? Did it have coordinates on it or something?

Does anyone remember the Unauthorized Autobiography? It was a collection of papers and censored files.
 
V

Valhelm

contribute something
The absolute best thing about these books are the layers upon layers of secrets and subtext. Every single time a bell is rung, somebody says a coded message. Daniel Handler is phenomenal.

These books are so wonderfully quirky and cohesive. They're probably among the top ten best kids' series, not too far below Harry Potter.
 
H

hamchan

Member
Love these books. Always thought that they were pretty brutal for young kids to read but then I realized kids will have to eventually be introduced to homicidal maniacs that commit arson, might as well make it a funny one.

Didn't the kids get swallowed up by a big question mark or something in the end?
 
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