I soon will be taking a break from A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Certainly this isn’t because I dislike the series, and I actually don’t
mind an excuse to stretch it out longer, since I only have four books
left and when they run out, that will be more depressing than the
stories themselves. No, this halt in my reading stems from the fact that
tomorrow – Saturday, to be exact, though midnight feels like the same
day to me – heralds the arrival of a book for which I have waited for
two years. A tome considerably longer than any of Lemony Snicket’s
volumes, one that could last a week if I restrain myself to a few
chapters a day. The book? Why, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,
of course. Maddeningly, J. K. Rowling picked an inopportune weekend
from my standpoint. I will be in central Pennsylvania, at the reunion
and in the location about which I wrote my book The Land That Gives and Takes Away: Reflections on Little Pine Valley.
There may actually be an opportunity for me to attend a Harry Potter
release party, as my aunt works at a bookstore in Williamsport, but even
if I go I don’t intend to crack open the first page until I arrive back
home. I look forward to this trip all year, and if I start reading
Harry I won’t have any time to appreciate the fact that I’m camping.
I’ll be too immersed. So in anticipation of camping and Harry, I write
my last Lemony Snicket review for a while. Suffice it to say, at least
as of this book, he hadn’t lost his touch.
The Vile Village
is the seventh installment of the lamentable saga of the Baudelaire
orphans. The first four books were fairly self-contained, featuring the
loyal and resourceful Violet, Klaus and Sunny, with side appearances by
ineffective executor Mr. Poe and the loathsome Count Olaf in some
ludicrous new disguise. With the fifth book, The Austere Academy,
Snicket changed the game a bit. Now not only do the Baudelaires have to
worry about themselves, they are determined to rescue their friends,
the Quagmires, who have fallen into Olaf’s clutches. They have little to
go on aside from the mysterious letters “V. F. D.,” the mystery of
which they erroneously thought they solved in the sixth book, The Ersatz Elevator.
When they encounter the initials here, they dare to hope that they’ve
hit upon something more substantial this time. So it is that they find
themselves under the care of a new guardian: the entire town of V. F.
D., taking the axiom “It takes a village to raise a child” perhaps a
little further than originally intended.
As it happens,
however, the Baudelaires have only one man directly responsible for
their care once they reach V. F. D., an unsightly village in the middle
of a dusty expanse that seems to waver from a distance due to its
immersion in crows. While the Council of Elders, a severe group whose
youngest members are octogenarians, is only interested in the orphans as
a means to get out of doing their own chores, Hector, the town
handyman, takes the children into his home and proves their best
guardian since the late, great Uncle Monty. The problem? Timidity, which
seems to be a rampant shortcoming amongst Baudelaire guardians.
Gullibility is another, but at least Hector never is taken in by the
lies of which the Baudelaires continue to be the victims. In fact, were
it not for his unshakable fear of elderly council members in crow hats,
he would be most effective. As it is, his willingness to harbor a
library full of illegal books and a workshop full of tools for making
illegal mechanical devices helps the Baudelaires a great deal.
The suspicion that moving to V. F. D. would bring them closer to their
friends seems to be confirmed when the Hector finds a couplet bearing
Isadora’s handwriting and distinct literary style. The couplets continue
to arrive, leaving Violet, Klaus and Sunny increasingly puzzled. More
complications arise when they hear the triumphant announcement of Count
Olaf’s arrest. Could it be that their insidious foe has finally been
bested? Or could something far more sinister be afoot? Questions pile up
in this book as the narratorial backstory becomes more enmeshed in the
orphans’ travails. At one point in the story, the orphans even hear the
name Snicket – and seem to recognize it. The cleverness of the author
continues to impress me, though I surprised myself by figuring out the
whereabouts of the Quagmire triplets about a hundred pages before the
Baudelaires did. Maybe I’m catching on!
Snicket’s literary
prowess hasn’t diminished, and he amusingly pokes fun at shoddy
newspapers by pointing out repeated mistakes in The Daily Punctilio,
the newspaper published in the Baudelaires’ hometown. It seems he has a
particular grudge against this paper, as he mentions it as a key player
in the demise of his relationship with the fabled Beatrice. One thing I
found very amusing was his reference throughout the book to the phrase
“small potatoes.” He tends to have one phrase that pops up in a similar
fashion in most of his books; in The Austere Academy, for
instance, it was “making a mountain out of a molehill,” and “small
potatoes” is used to similar purpose, most entertainingly – and
perilously – just before the book’s climax.
The Vile Village
is Snicket’s most complex tome yet, with by far the most nebulous
ending, and I can’t wait to see what awaits the Baudelaires next. I also
can’t wait to find out more about how the narrator got swept up in this
orphans’ ordeal. Actually, I can, because I must. But oh, how sweet
will my return to A Series of Unfortunate Events be.
No comments:
Post a Comment