The Vile Village

“In this large and fierce world of ours, there are many, many unpleasant places to be. You can be in a river swarming with angry electric eels, or in a supermarket filled with vicious long-distance runners. You can be in a hotel that has no room service, or you can be lost in a forest that is slowly filling up with water. You can be in a hornet's nest or in an abandoned airport or in the office of a pediatric surgeon, but one of the most unpleasant things that can happen is to find yourself in a quandary. Which is where the Baudelaire orphans found themselves that night. Finding yourself in a quandary means that everything seems confusing and dangerous and you don't know what in the world to do about it, and it is one of the worst show more unpleasantries you can encounter.”

The Baudelaire orphans do indeed find themselves in a quandry in V.F.D. -- the village that they choose to raise them, as their final attempt at finding an appropriate guardian. As you can guess, it doesn't go well. There's a kind handyman with whom they live and work, but the rest of the village is full of idiots (and not the harmless, bumbling kind -- the kind that make up ridiculous rules and then ruthlessly punish those who don't follow them). And, of course, Count Olaf is lurking nearby along with his terrible girlfriend, Esme Squalor, who we met in the last book. Inevitably, things will not go well, but there's so much cleverness along the way.

“It is true, of course, that there is no way of knowing for sure whether or not you can trust someone, for the simple reason that circumstances change all of the time. You might know someone for several years, for instance, and trust him completely as your friend, but circumstances could change and he could become very hungry, and before you knew it you could be boiling in a soup pot, because there is no way of knowing for sure.”

“Although 'jumping to conclusions' is an expression, rather than an activity, it is as dangerous as jumping off a cliff, jumping in front of a moving train, and jumping for joy. If you jump off a cliff, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful landing unless there is something below you to cushion your fall, such as a body of water or an immense pile of tissue paper, If you jump in front of moving train, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful voyage unless you are wearing some sort of train-proof suit. And if you jump for joy, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful bump on the head, unless you make sure you are standing someplace with very high ceilings, which joyous people rarely do. Clearly, the solution to anything involving jumping is either to make sure you are jumping to a safe place, or not jumping at all.
But it is hard not to jump at all when you are jumping to conclusions, and it is impossible to make sure that you are jumping to a safe place, because all 'jumping to conclusions' means is that you are believing something is true even though you don't actually know whether it is or not.”

“A huge cloud of dust is not a beautiful thing to look at. Very few painters have done portraits of huge clouds of dust or included them in their landscapes or still lifes. Film directors rarely choose huge clouds of dust to play the lead roles in romantic comedies, and as far as my research has shown, a huge cloud of dust has never placed higher than twenty-fifth in a beauty pageant. Nevertheless, as the Baudelaire orphans stumbled around the cell, dropped each half of the battering ram and listening to the sound of crows flying in circles outside, they stared at the huge cloud of dust as if it were a thing of great beauty.” show less

Well, I'm more than halfway through now! And it's pretty crazy how little I actually know about the overarching mystery of the series.

I loved the absurdity of V.F.D., the Elders who wore crow hats, the thousands of pointless rules, burning people at the stake, the constant migration of the crows. Watch as mob mentality seizes the villagers and you find yourself reading bizarre chants like, "Burn the orphans! Burn the orphans!" Grab your torches and pitchforks, folks!

All in all, a fun instalment of the series with more and more hints as to the connection between the Baudelaires, the Quagmires, Count Olaf, and the true meaning of V.F.D.

Lemony Snicketi sarja seitsmes raamat “Kurjuse küla” ei üllata – ja seda heas mõttes. Kes on kas või ühegi neist lugudest läbi lugenud, see teab aimata, et üüratuid jubedusi, äraarvamata suurt kurjust ja ebaõiglust kogevad kolm õnnetut Baudelaire´i orbu ka selles raamatus.
Seekord usaldatakse Baudelaire´id kasuvanemata programmi “On vaja tervet küla, et üks laps üles kasvatada” hoolde, kuna ükski nende arvukatest sugulastest ei soovi krahv Olafi kartuses neid enda hoolde võtta. (Krahv Olaf nimelt üritab lastele järjekindlalt otsa peale teha, et saada kätte nende hiigelsuur pärandus.) Programm tähendab, et neid hakkab kasvatama terve küla nimega V.T.K (kes on eelmisi osi lugenud, võivad juba värisema show more hakata!). Pärapõrgusse kohale jõudes selgub, et küla (mille elanikud on pehmelt öeldes kummalised) on üleni kaetud varestega ja kõik elavad seal sadade väga rangete reeglite järgi. Õnneks antakse orvud heasüdamliku kojamehe Hectori hoole alla, kes külavanemaid küll nii paaniliselt kardab, et ei julge nende kuuldes suudki lahti teha, aga ometi oma kodus salja reegleid rikub. Violet, Klaus ja Sunny Baudelaire, kes on selleks ajaks juba üle elanud nii mõndagi – ja keda ootavad ees veel kohutavad üleelamised (näiteks mõrvasüüdistus, vangistus ja põletamine tuleriidal) – ei heida aga meelt ja hakkavad kohe lootusrikkalt ja rahulikult väljapääsu otsima.
Kes pole veel lugenud ühtegi sarja raamatutest, sellel ei tasu ära ehmatada: toimuv on tõesti jube ja ääretult ebaõiglane, kuid kirja pandud säherduse muheda huumori ja punapõskselt praktilise ellusuhtumisega, et ööune pärast pole vaja muretseda. show less

DON'T TELL ME HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE.

The VFD village with the VFD crows beckons the Baudelaire children. Does it hold the answers they seek? Will they find the Quagmire Triplets? Who is leaving cryptic clues under the Nevermore Tree? Has Count Olaf finally been captured? If that's not Count Olaf then who is it? You don't need me to go telling you at this stage that the chances of the answers to some or any or all of these questions leading to good times and happiness all round are a bit slim. Some of them do get answered, though, and some of the answers lead to more questions. We only have ourselves to blame, you know. It isn't as if he doesn't keep telling us how it's going to work out. Badly.

I've been reading this series as bedtime stories with Milly, although I did have to go back and read a few myself that she had raced through, unable to wait for me to read them to her at the pace of one chapter a night. They are genuinely brilliant books, funny and dark, mysterious and absurd.

Now the orphans have to go and live in a village where the whole village will look after them. It does not go well. Also Jaques Snicket pops up as a character, suggesting the authors world is colliding further with that of the books.

Once again, right off the bat, Snicket asks you to go read someone else's book. He says, "And if you insist on reading this book instead of something more cheerful, you will most certainly find yourself moaning in despair instead of wriggling in delight, so if you have any sense at all you will put this book down and pick up another one" (p 6). With an introduction like that, how could you not keep reading Snicket's book? Very clever. By now you know the format: Snicket is still offering meanings for words and phrases. The three orphaned Bauldelaire children are looking for a place to call home. Violet is a teenager and still very much interested in inventions. Klaus is on the cusp of turning thirteen and still loves reading. Sunny is show more still an infant with four teeth who still can’t speak in full sentences, but she loves to bite things. They have escaped (again) from Count Olaf and his band of wicked accomplices. Banker and Bauldelaire family friend, Mr. Poe, is still in charge of sending the Baudelaire orphans to their next town of tragedy. This time it's V.F.D. ("Village of Fowl Devotees"), a mysterious town covered in crows. The problem is, no one in the town wants to be responsible for the children. As the name suggests, the community is devoted to their murder of crows. At a Council of the Elders, a timid and loner handyman who is too skittish to speak up at Council meetings, is order to become the children's guardian. All day long they must do chores for the community and always be respectful of the crows, crows, and more crows. By day, thousands of them hang around in town but by night they roost in the Nevermore tree on the outskirts of town, conveniently right by the handyman's house.
As an aside, I skipped from Book 3 to 7. By not reading books 4-6 I missed out on Violet working at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, Klaus being enrolled at Prufrock Preparatory School, and all three children living with a couple named Jerome and Esme Squalor. At the end of book 6 Duncan and Isadora, two of three triplets are kidnapped. In Vile Village it is up to Klaus, Violet, and Sunny to rescue them.
Additionally, what is pretty amazing about the series of unfortunate events the Baudelaire orphans experienced thus far is that they all happened in less than a year’s time. The fire that killed their parents, the escape from Count Olaf’s house, the escape from Uncle Monty’s house, the escape from Aunt Josephine’s cliff side mansion, the time in the Finite Forest, or at 667 Dark Avenue. Books 1-7 take place in less than 365 days. show less

I read a complaint when these books first came out that they were too horribly violent to be appropriate for children. This was before "The Hunger Games," which I'm sure threw that particular complainer into a state of permanent shock. This was also missing the point, which is that while the Baudelaire orphans are in constant peril, the dangers are as ridiculously over the top as the ingenious escapes the children manage to contrive. You can't really believe any of it, so you can sit back and enjoy the show.

The genius of these books is that they maintain a certain level of absurdity, while managing at the same time to make the reader care. The Baudelaires are likable and developed characters who are fighting to survive in a strange show more universe. Those of us with any memory left of early childhood can relate.

"The Vile Village" makes some terrific points about the kind of people who care more about paperwork and rules than humanity. Those of us who have attended school and/or worked for large corporations can *definitely* relate.

The book also gets in a dig at people (you know who you are) who are indifferent to human suffering, but who'll drop everything and weep for an injured bird. show less