What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Lemony Snicket

A winter storm is hitting the U.S. East Coast particularly hard right now, and I think the same one decided to stop by Utah today.  I was looking out the window of my Fiction class today and it looked like the scene outside was graced by static.  I walked home from work a little bit ago and hopped in the shower when I got here just to warm up.  Whoever invented the mechanism(s) that allow us to have hot running water is an unsung hero.  On a side note, the Weather Channel has named the winter storm "Nemo."  I saw this while I was at work and mentioned it to the person next to me.  She thought of the movie Finding Nemo, but I said the storm was more likely named Nemo because of Captain Nemo, which is where I'm pretty sure that clownfish got its name.  Then we looked it up and saw they chose the name because it means "nobody" in Latin.  Really, weather people?  (It also means "from the valley" in Greek, which makes even less sense.)

For the second time in my life, I have read Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning.  I remember when I first read this in ...middle school? I read this first one and then the next one, possibly the third, before I put it down.  I just wasn't entertained by it enough to keep going.  The movie, by the way, was abysmal (a word which here means not good at all).

I was going to do my usual one post to introduce and give my first impressions, then a second post to give my overall thoughts, but I accidentally read the book too fast.  As of yesterday, I had read 20 pages or so.  This morning, I sat down for an hour and read 100 pages.  I had the book finished before noon, all 162 pages of it plus the oh-so-interesting About the Author.  This is a good sign.

There are three reasons why books might take a little longer to read than is normal for me.  The first is that the subject is dense, like with Plato's Republic, which I've been reading for my philosophy class.  The second reason for slow reading is that the writing is absolutely beautiful and I take my time to soak it in and read passages over and over again for the sheer joy of reading the words.  Yeah, I'm a nerd like that.  The last reason is that the writing is so terrible I have to wade through it, if I decide it's worth finishing at all.

This book was a fast read not only because the language was easy to read, but because the narrator had so much voice, and an amusing voice at that.  The most obvious example of this is that Snicket gives definitions throughout the book.  While this would normally be annoying, Snicket gets away with it because his definitions are humorous and the characters get annoyed by the definitions.  It's the kind of self-awareness in characters that made the latest Muppet movie funny.  Let me give you an example of what I mean:

"It's called Nuptial Law," Klaus said, "and I learned many interesting things while reading it." Count Olaf had taken out a bottle of wine to pour himself some breakfast, but when he saw the book he stopped, and sat down. "The word 'nuptial,'" Klaus said, "means 'relating to marriage.'" "I know what the word means," Count Olaf growled. "Where did you get that book?" (pg. 96).

Not only does the author define words now and then, he also has the narrator interpret Sunny's baby talk.

For instance, this morning she was saying, "Gack!" over and over, which probably meant, "Look at that mysterious figure emerging from the fog!" (pg. 4)

While the story actually is a sad one, it is told in a way which had me mentally smiling the entire way through.  I say "mentally smiling" because I was reading in public and only something absolutely hilarious can make me break my public poker face.  I think.

I liked the characters and the story, but I do think it was the narrator who stole the show.  Maybe that's what the movie was missing.  The characters were supposed to act all sad and the narrator was supposed to be the silly, sassy one, not Jim Carrey.  The aura was ruined!  (I add an exclamation point here because the sentence reminded me of the line in Shrek II about the Fairy Godmother's diet.)

P.S. - I just noticed this is my 13th post.  How fitting.