Book Review: A Series of Unfortunate Events The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

Why yes, I am the book blogger equivalent of the White RabbitIm running rather embarrassingly late in getting to the Lemony Snicket party. Having recently reviewed the first in the Sisters Eight series and A Tale Dark and Grimm, both of which are examples of gloomy, gothic style fiction where the narrator looms large and the writing delights in affectation, I thought it was probably time that I turned my attention to Mr Snickets particularly well-known exemplar of the same.

Unless youve been living under the same rock that I have, youre probably acquainted with the Baudelaire children. However, just in case you are a subterranean rock dweller like myself, heres a brief conspectus, a word which here means brief survey or summary. The Baudelaire children are three: engineering whiz Violet, bookish Klaus, and snappy (of teeth) Sunny. Their parents, unfortunatelythe first in a series of unfortunate eventsare dead. And the standoffish Count Olaf (their closest living relative, where living refers to geographical proximity) is their new guardian.

Of course, standoffish might be a slightly inaccurate description. In our narrators own words, the term standoffish might describe someone who, during a party, would stand in a corner and not talk to anyone. It would not describe somebody who provides one bed for three people to sleep in, forces them to do horrible chores, and strikes them about the face.

Indeed, Count Olaf is not the type of person youd want to invite over for dinner. More importantly, hes not the type of person for whom youd want to make dinner. As the poor children soon find out, when it comes to the meal being served up to his theatre troupe, Olaf is quite exacting, a word here which is a euphemism for a word that means has ridiculous expectations of others and shows no compassion when these are expectations are not met.

Its not only at the dinner table that Count Olaf demonstrates the kind of expectation of instant gratification that until these books was considered the preserve of Gen Y. Count Olaf, you see, would quite like (a phrase that here means would do anything up to and including murder to achieve) to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune. Oh, those poor well-mannered and pleasant-faced children. No matter how clever Violet might be at inventing, how quickly Klaus might be able to summarise legal handbooks, and how terrier-like Sunnys toothy grip might be, Olaf prevails with evil, Terminator-like intent. But then, what else would you expect from a series titled so?

If I were basing my review entirely on the narrative voice of this book, then you wouldnt need to read any further, because the instances where this isnt pitch-perfect are few. Rather, the books per-Snickety narrator is deliciously indulgent, muddling about with words in delightfully tangential manner, including a two-page rumination on the difference between literally and figuratively, and burbling on with such self-interested manner that he becomes a character in his own right. Take, for example, the following:

I am certain that over the course of your own life, you have noticed that peoples rooms reflect their personalities. In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice.

This quote marks the first point where the narrator truly breaks down the wall between text and audience, positioning himself as an individual with agency rather than an omniscient yet powerless and disinterested storyteller, and I love the extraordinary potential that this opens up. It also prevents the definitions (which here means meaning of a word) regularly interspersed throughout the text from coming across as overly patronising. Although there are a few occasions where these dont quite work, the fact that its our narrator character, and not the author, providing the definitions keeps the book from feeling as though its talking down to the reader, and instead presents us with information about the narrator as distinct from the book.

However, though I revelled in the voice and the concept of The Bad Beginning, I wasnt quite sold in terms of the plot. The narrative feels rather slight, and and I was surprised when what felt like a fairly early complicating event turned out to be the books climax. Though I understand the difficulty in ensuring a balance between set-up and narrative in the first book in a series, I felt that this one erred far too strongly towards orientation rather than plot.

Moreover, the loophole that was exploited in order to solve the final confounding event seemed nonsensical to me, even allowing for the fact that the legal world it takes its cue from is often arcane in its approach. I felt that more care should have been taken in defining the key terms surrounding this act (why yes, perhaps a curious request given that this book is filled with definitions) so that it might not seem so arbitrary. Finally, though I am not at all doubtful that all sorts of unfortunate things will befall the Baudelaire children in the following books, I was a little disappointed that although not ending on a high note, The Bad Beginning didnt quite end with the sense of despair our narrator so crowingly leads us to believe it will, leaving the reader feeling oddly unfulfilled.

And yet, I am taken enough with the narrative voice to see just whether the children will make their figurative escape into a literal one. 

Rating: (good)

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See also our review of Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

Other books by Lemony Snicket