The end is near
Dec. 3rd, 2005 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatI finished reading Lemony Snicket's most recent book, The Penultimate Peril, this evening. The books have been getting progressively longer as the series goes on, but they're still pretty quick reads. This one brings back a lot of characters from earlier books, which is a nice touch. I also like the idea of a hotel arranged by the Dewey Decimal System (maybe sometime I should look in the books I use for cataloging, and see how appropriate the numbers are), and the running joke about Count Olaf being a bad speller. Not surprisingly, there are mentions of Beatrice and the sugar bowl, but no more information as to why they're important. There's also somewhat of an additional mystery involving Olaf's and the Baudelaires' parents.
I have to wonder how much of the mystery aspect to the series was planned from the beginning, and how much was just made up as the author went along. Certainly, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Lemony Snicket introduces a lot of information that would come into play in later books, and adds an element of mystery to seemingly inoccuous events from earlier volumes. But I get the impression that these earlier events weren't originally intended to have hidden meanings. I think The Austere Academy was the first book in the series that gave the impression that there was something going on beyond a villain's outlandish plots to steal a fortune from three orphans. It included the first mention of V.F.D., and I think the first reference that connected the story of Lemony and Beatrice to that of the Baudelaires, as well. Maybe I should take a look back through some of those earlier books, especially The Unauthorized Autobiography, to see whether there are any clues or connections that I missed the first time through.
Hmm, this year saw the release of the next-to-last volumes in both the Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket series. I suppose it's an auspicious year for such things.
I have to wonder how much of the mystery aspect to the series was planned from the beginning, and how much was just made up as the author went along. Certainly, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Lemony Snicket introduces a lot of information that would come into play in later books, and adds an element of mystery to seemingly inoccuous events from earlier volumes. But I get the impression that these earlier events weren't originally intended to have hidden meanings. I think The Austere Academy was the first book in the series that gave the impression that there was something going on beyond a villain's outlandish plots to steal a fortune from three orphans. It included the first mention of V.F.D., and I think the first reference that connected the story of Lemony and Beatrice to that of the Baudelaires, as well. Maybe I should take a look back through some of those earlier books, especially The Unauthorized Autobiography, to see whether there are any clues or connections that I missed the first time through.
Hmm, this year saw the release of the next-to-last volumes in both the Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket series. I suppose it's an auspicious year for such things.
