I wanted to kick this blog off with the book series that helped inspire me to start it - Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. But first, a little background information.
I love reading, but unfortunately, I've been making less and less time to do so in the past few years of my life. While there have been legitimate reasons, it's mostly been a simple issue of laziness. It's easier to fire up a video game and burn through mindless hours of grinding than it is to actually engage with a good book (not that I think video games are necessarily a waste of time, but that's a topic for another day). So I started this blog as motivation to not just read more, but read better. By writing about the books I read, I'll have to engage more in them, and actively think about the pros and cons. It will also help me to keep a catalogue of books I've read since starting the blog.
So where does Snicket's series come in - and what makes it great?
I first read the Series when I was a lot younger, and I remember loving it then. Reading it again more recently, I was happy to discover that it was as good as I remembered, but I also noticed some things I didn't before. First, the Series seems to be written with the goal to make young children read more (as they are its primary audience). The author and characters constantly promote reading and being well read as signs of a "noble person", in one half of a moral dichotomy that seems insufficiently black and white early on, but develops into much greater complexity around the end of the series. The title of this blog, "The world is quiet here", is the slogan of a mysterious organization that is the focal point of the series, and it is intended to call to mind the peacefulness of a library, where people are dedicated to learning. His attempts to inspire literacy also come through in his curious habit of defining almost every potentially complicated word or turn of phrase, either by having a character explain it, or by explaining it in text. The latter is always preceded with his classic line, "a word/phrase which here means" - although the characters themselves tend to provide better definitions than Snicket, which is part of the unique narrative style.
The message, though, is not the only good part of the series. My absolute favourite aspect is the writing. Snicket is brilliant in that he does everything wrong, and it comes out very right. An example of this is that "Lemony Snicket" is not just a pen name, but an actual character in the world who narrates the adventures from the perspective of one who is sworn to record the misadventures of the Baudelaire children (the protagonists of the series). As he writes, he reveals intriguing facts about the world they inhabit in-character, and even occasionally leaves secret messages for other members of his organization - and he provides spoilers for later events in the books. An example comes early on in the series, where he spends 3 paragraphs explaining what dramatic irony is, and informs the reader in no uncertain terms that the source of dramatic irony is the impending death of one of the characters in the book.
The use of the Snicket character as an alias while writing is present through every aspect of the book, from the blurb on the author at the end to the back cover, where he frequently advises any potential readers to "throw the book down and run away as fast as possible", for fear that the events within are simply too tragic to spend one's time reading. However, what may be my personal favourite manifestation of this is in the dedication for each book - all of them are dedicated to the mysterious, and very, very dead Beatrice, who constantly surfaces as the motivation for much of Snicket's actions, and is even mysteriously alluded to by other characters at various points in the plot.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the quirks and strokes of genius that litter the series - for that, you would need to read the books. They are absolutely packed with gems that come together to make something intriguing, thought-provoking, constantly amusing, and even educational. And ultimately, they push the boundaries of the medium of literature by turning it on its head with aplomb.
I would be hard-pressed to name anything that I personally disliked about the series, but that said, it may not be everyone's cup of tea (which, as is stated occasionally in the series, should be "as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a double-edged sword"). The writing style that is charming to some may be off-putting to others, and ultimately, you may just prefer a more traditional book or series. But if you're on the fence right now, then I would sincerely urge you to read A Series of Unfortunate Events.
