[bksvol-discuss] Re: lemony Snicket releases 13 and final book
- From: "Shelley L. Rhodes" <juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 10:27:13 -0400
yes and it is extremely popular.
actually they really aren't that morbid, smile, and are bits of happiness
and sadness, which is probably why they are so popular. most kids don't
want books that end "happily ever after" smile.
Actually I am one of the ones who have really enjoyed the series.
Shelley L. Rhodes B.S. Ed, CTVI
and Judson, guiding golden
juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Guide Dogs For the Blind Inc.
Graduate Alumni Association Board
www.guidedogs.com
Dog ownership is like a rainbow.
Puppies are the joy at one end.
Old dogs are the treasure at the other.
Carolyn Alexander
----- Original Message -----
From: "Monica Willyard" <plumlipstick@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2006 4:05 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: lemony Snicket releases 13 and final book
Shelley, did you say this is for children? It
sounds depressingly morbid to me. Am I missing
some sort of hidden humor here? If not, I'm
thinking maybe the end of this series is a great
idea. I've left the part intact that's got me
wondering if this is a mistake.
Monica Willyard
At Saturday 10/14/2006 12:22 AM, you wrote:
>The first Baudelaire book.
>
>The Baudelaire orphans draw their name from another Baudelaire who had it
>really, really bad -- the French poet who wrote The Flowers of Evil.
>HarperCollins
>
>NPR.org,
>October 12, 2006 · A Series of Unfortunate Events is chock full of evil
>henchmen, evil henchwomen, and harpooned victims. It also contains a series
>of literary
>allusions, which here means references to "authors, poets and famous people
>who are now corpses." Even if you have an ocular tattoo stamped on your
>ankle,
>these references may have escaped your eyes the first time around.
>
>The Good Guys:
>
>The Baudelaire Orphans: They are named after the 19th-century French poet
>Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire is most famous for his morbid poetry
>collection,
>"Les Fleurs du mal" (The Flowers of Evil).
>
>Baudelaire's own life was a series of financial and personal disasters. He
>was prosecuted on obscenity and blasphemy charges, suffered a stroke, was
>placed
>in a sanatorium, contracted syphilis, and became an opium addict. Plus, he
>was in love with his own mother.
>
>Klaus and Sunny: The two younger Baudelaire siblings bear the names of an
>unfortunate couple in Rhode Island. Wealthy businessman Claus von Bulow was
>found
>guilty of injecting his wife, Sunny, with a deadly insulin cocktail. His
>verdict was later overturned. The story later became a film: Reversal of
>Forture.
>
>Violet: Famous nonshrinking violets include the murderer Nozière, the
>Lindbergh-baby-kidnapping suspect Sharpe and the wretched blueberry in
>Roald
>Dahl's
>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A violet ray was a popular medical
>device
>in the early 20th century, based on the coil technology developed by
>Nikolas
>Tesla, Violet Baudelaire's favorite inventor.
>
>Isadora and Duncan Quagmire: The first names of two of the three Quagmire
>triplets are a reminder of the hazards of being fashionable. Dancer Isadora
>Duncan
>died when her fashionable scarf caught in a car wheel and the car kept
>moving. Also, her children drowned, her love life was disastrous, her
>husband committed
>suicide and she repeatedly went into debt.
>
>Beatrice: She is the dedicatee of the Snicket books. Baudelaire actually
>wrote a poem entitled "La Beatrice." The first four lines:
>
>In charred and ashen fields without a leaf,
>
>While I alone to Nature told my grief,
>
>I sharpened, as I went, like any dart,
>
>My thought upon the grindstone of my heart...
>
>The dedications in each novel also pay homage to Dante's Divine Comedy, in
>which a woman named Beatrice appears as Dante's guide through heaven.
>Dante's
>fictional Beatrice was based on Dante's muse -- also named Beatrice -- who
>died in 1290 at the age of 24. Tragic.
>
>In addition, 15th-century Italian aristocrat Beatrice Cenci was beheaded
>after successfully plotting to kill her husband with a nail, Shakespearean
>Beatrice
>was an orphan in Much Ado About Nothing and 20th-century Beatrice Straight
>was the paranormal investigator in Poltergeist.
>
>Mr. Poe: The coughing banker, who has two sons named Edgar and Allan, is
>most definitely named after the always-hacking-because-he-had-consumption
>poet,
>who had a penchant for morbid tales.
>
>The Bad Guys:
>
>Count Olaf: The arch villain of the books could be named after either Olaf
>Tryggvason, an ancient pillager and murderer in 11th-century Norway, or a
>character
>in Theophile Gautier's gothic fantastique Avatar. Of course, the most
>famous
>Count in literature is none other than Dracula, based on Vlad the Impaler.
>Count Olaf does not have fangs but his weapon of choice is an
>impaling-friendly harpoon.
>
>Stephano: The first of Count Olaf's many disguises takes his name from a
>drunken character who plots to kill Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
>
>Dr. Georgina Orwell: The woman who hypnotizes Klaus most certainly
>resembles
>her namesake, the author of 1984 and Animal Farm. Her hypnosis methods are
>examples of a totalitarian Orwellian regime trying to make everyone think
>the same way.
>
>Vice Principal Nero: He is a violinist who makes the children sit through
>six-hour concerts. Roman Emperor Nero supposedly "fiddled while Rome
>burned."
>
>Esme Squalor: Count Olaf's girlfriend and the 6th most important financial
>adviser in the city draws her name from J.D. Salinger's short story, "For
>Esme
>-- With Love and Squalor."
>
>Coach Genghis: The terrible gym teacher who makes students run laps is
>clearly connected to Khan, the ferocious Mongol military leader who
>conquered most
>of Asia.
>
>Other Astounding Allusions:
>
>Beverly and Elliot: Violet and Klaus pick these pseudonyms when they visit
>Madam Lulu's carnival. Jeremy Irons plays Elliot and Beverly Mantle in the
>1988
>horror film Dead Ringers a movie with lots and lots of blood and gore.
>
>Caligari Carnival: Madam Lulu's carnival is named after The Cabinet of Dr.
>Caligari, a silent movie about a string of murders committed in Germany.
>
>Hugo and Colette: The hunchback and the contortionist in the carnival are
>named after authors Victor Hugo and Colette.
>
>Nevermore Tree: "A poem drops beneath its leaves / Sent there by a flying
>crow / Not a raven as in Poe"
>
>Plath Pass: The orphans have a hard time getting through this pass, named
>after the poet who committed suicide by sticking her head in an oven.
>
>Prufrock Prepatory School: The boarding school where the Baudelaires are
>sent pays homage to T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred
>Prufrock,"
>which
>opens with a verse from Dante's Inferno.
>
>The Ophelia Bank: Ophelia drowns by the riverbanks in Hamlet.
>
>Sontag Shore: The shore pays tribute to Susan, noted critic and activist.
>
>Queequeg: This tattooed South Sea Islander has a penchant for harpoons in
>Melville's Moby Dick.
>
>Virginia Woolfsnake: Montgomery Montgomery's slithery creature "should
>never
>be allowed near a typewriter." Which is exactly what Count Olaf would say
>about
>Lemony Snicket.
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