Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography

So it turns out it is perfectly legal to sit out right in the open where everyone, even children, can see you, reading this. I have started a campaign to prohibit all Snicket reading and Snicket production for the sake of the morale and morals of our children and our grown-ups and to corner the market with lucrative underground Snicketing.

The Unauthorised Autobiography is a postmodern portmanteau palimpsest collage of fragmentary fragments and decontextualised correspondence. Fortunately if you have read A Series Of Unfortunate Events you will be able to make the right kind of nonsense out of all this sense and immerse yourself in the world of secret organisations falling apart in arson and betrayal and, indeed, fill in a few blanks and show more make a few connections here and there. In keeping with the overall theme of the main series, every secret revealed and mystery solved generates more secrets and mysteries, and if you haven't worked that out by now maybe you should go back to the beginning and read it all over again until it finally sinks in. show less

While the title of the book purports to be an autobiography of Lemony Snicket, the fictional author of the Series of Unfortunate Events who ends up being a character in his own right in the story, the book is anything but a biography. In true Snicket style, the chapters are filled with misdirection and cryptic messages. The original chapter headings, which seem more traditionally biography-like, are crossed out, and are replaced with hand-written questions which seem to be penned by Lemony Snicket. Instead of learning about where Snicket was born, his early childhood, why he writes about the Baudelaires, and so on, the reader is asked to ponder questions like where was this photograph taken, why an actress was pulled after only one show more performance, and why a certain ship left dock three hours early. Instead of a linearly presented narrative of a life, readers are presented with excerpts of books and newspapers, sections of meeting notes, photographs, advertisements, and other supposedly original documents that have been collected together. Essentially, we're supposed to be reading s file of collected artifacts that have hidden meaning, which we assume we would understand if we were part of the mysterious VFD organization, but as we're not, we only get glimpses of the truth.

Okay, this is all hilarious. The tone perfectly maintains the mystery that is built up over the course of the thirteen-book series about the unfortunate lives of the Baudelaire children. Given how secretive Snicket is as the "author" of that series, it's unsurprising the his biography would stubbornly be absent of any actual information about him. Adding to these layers of confusion is the knowledge that Snicket is a fictional character, made up by Daniel Handler, the real author of these books, who camouflages himself as a representative for Snicket, and therefore himself becomes a character in these stories. Conspiracy theories exist as a collage of half truths and events that are built out with bizarre secret meanings, and this book is a masterful written portrayal of a fictional conspiracy theory (referring back to the days when conspiracy theories were strange and fun adventures that most people only took semi-seriously, before people started taking them in dark directions full of hate and violence, as they've become now). By reading between the lines and connecting this book to the series that inspired it, astute readers can piece together some new information about the lore of this fictional world. It appears that the VFD recruited children at young ages, and got their parents' permission but nonetheless took them in a way that resembled a child abduction. It appears that Olaf's parents were accidentally murdered, providing a motive for his insane, murderous ways in the Unfortunate Events series. It appears that the ridiculous costumes Olaf wears are actually a result of the costume training and standard costume kit that VFD members received. If readers are hoping for more concrete answers to the mysteries introduced in A Series of Unfortunate Events, they will be disappointed. Instead, this book offers some half answers and a lot more questions. If, on the other hand, readers are hoping to enjoy more of the secrecy-laden Snicket world, and Handler's narrative style full of anagrams, wordplay, dark humor, and irony, then this book will be an enjoyable extension of the fun. I fall in the latter camp. This novel was quirky and amusing. It's a bit gimmicky, but I like the gimmicks. This is definitely a good read for people who are fans of the unique style of A Series of Unfortunate Events, but likely would confuse anyone else. show less

A Warning from the Publisher:
Many readers have questions about Lemony Snicket, author of the distressing serial concerning the trials of the charming but unlucky Baudelaire orphans, published under the collective title A Series of Unfortunate Events. Before purchasing, borrowing, or stealing this book, you should be aware that it contains the answers to some of those questions, such as the following:
1. Who is Lemony?
2. Is there a secret organization I should know about?3. Why does Lemony Snicket spend his time researching and writing distressing books concerning the Baudelaire orphans?
4. Why do all of Lemony Snicket's books contain a sad dedication to a woman named Beatrice?
5. If there's nothing out there, what was that noise?
Our advice show more to you is that you find a book that answers less upsetting questions than this one. Perhaps your librarian, bookseller, or parole officer can recommend a book that answers the question, "Aren't ponies adorable?" show less

Lemony Snicket, while not a true person, is a true character. His life is wrought with disappointment, as all the lives of his subjects. For some reason, this makes his books all the more appealing to people whose biggest problem is they got the smaller slice of pizza or stubbed their toe when walking into the next room. At least they don’t have vicious arsonists dogging their every step, murdering and burning all that stands between the villain and the unwarranted fortune of his pursuit. It’s a matter of perspective.

Nevertheless, Lemony Snicket, in his Unauthorized Autobiography, presents several clues, possibly misleading, as to the more unanswered questions presented in his works (though, not to the ultimate unasked question). He show more gives more insight into who he is, who the villains are, and more information about his secret organization, such that, presented alongside the Series of Unfortunate Events and the Beatrice Letters, begins to unravel at least the first bit of tangles.

The book may not be for all, especially for those who have not read the Series of Unfortunate Events, or have little interest in delving deeper into the story. This book and the Beatrice Letters are to the Series of Unfortunate Events as Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantasical World Around You is to the Spiderwick Chronicles, purely supplementary, and only worth the time of fans of the series.

While this and other supplements to the Series of Unfortunate Events do provide some answers to questions, they provide even more questions in among themselves. My hope, though, is that when we finally see All the Wrong Questions, Snicket’s upcoming book, we also see a few right answers in the process. show less

Clever, funny, and full of more tanatalizing hints (although few - if any - answers) about Mr. Snicket, the Baudelaire orphans, V.F.D. and the beginning of the schism. Definitely laugh-out-loud funny from the wordplay, and intriguing enough that half of you wants to tear through to the end, while the other half wants to take each new clue slowly and roll it around in your mind until an answer falls out. I doubt this book would be interesting to those who haven't read at least the first half of A Series of Unfortunate Events, but those that have will find themselves wanting to re-read the whole series to find the clues they missed the first time.

Daniel Handler has written a book that’s so funny, I almost dropped it in the bathtub.

Of course, Daniel Handler didn’t really write it, his alter ego, Lemony Snicket, did; furthermore, there wasn’t any water in the tub at the time….but that’s beside the point. I’m here to tell you that Daniel Handler or Lemony Snicket or Seminary Lickit or whatever he chooses to call himself this week is one tickle-rib funny writer. Perhaps the funniest guy in print we’ve got these days (with apologies to Mr. Barry, Mr. Keillor and Mr. Buckley the Younger). Only trouble is, Harper Collins seems to think that kids are the only ones who’ll chortle, snort and guffaw at Lemony Snicket’s clever, pun-filled adventures of the ill-fated show more Baudelaire orphans. Why else would they shield A Series of Unfortunate Events from adult view by tucking it away in that back corner of bookstores—the one filled with soft fluffy beanbag chairs and plastic slides and overly-kind clerks? It’s a travesty, I tell you! We adult readers who find ourselves in desperate need of a guffaw or chortle should immediately take up our pitchforks and torches and storm the nearest Barnes and Nobel, demanding Equal Humor Rights.

But I digress.

For the uninitiated, Lemony Snicket is not a type of French dessert, but the creator of gleefully-glum books about three terribly unlucky children who suffer fates worse than your average Dickens street urchin. If you find yourself in this category—trying to order a lemony snicket off the dessert cart at Chez Maison, for instance—you should immediately get yourself initiated. Stop what you’re doing (unless you are a doctor performing open-heart surgery), travel as fast as you can to your nearest bookstore, find the section with brightly-colored beanbags and scoop A Series of Unfortunate Events, Vols. 1 through 8, into your arms and pay the suspiciously-nice clerk. You’ll thank me later.

The books chart the misadventures of Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire—orphaned after their parents were killed in a tragic fire—as they are sent to live with a succession of dim-witted relatives who, by book’s end, always prove incapable of taking care of even so much as a hamster. All the while, the poor children are pursued by the dastardly Count Olaf (he of the shiny-dime eyes and unibrow) who wants to get his grubby, claw-like hands on the Baudelaire fortune. The books—part Roald Dahl, part Saturday-matinee cliffhanger—follow a predictable formula, but the fun is in the telling. Snicket, as the passionate transcriber of the Baudelaires’ unfortunate events, writes as if he were overdosing on nitrous oxide. He delights in turning sentences inside out and upside down. He plays with words as if they were red rubber balls used in a spirited game of “Red Rover, Red Rover.â€?

Now, Mr. Handler as Mr. Snicket has capitalized on his snowballing success as the Hip Kid Lit Scribe of the Moment by scribing Lemony Snicket: the Unauthorized Autobiography. With eight volumes so far—from The Bad Beginning to The Hostile Hospital—and another one (The Carnivorous Carnival) anticipated by a growing legion of saliva-dripping fans (count me among the drool-impaired), Mr. Han—er, Snicket could well afford to sit back, take stock of his life, then write it all down for the world to read.

Unfortunately, this is not that book.

The Unauthorized Autobiography does not begin with the sentence “I was born,â€? nor does it end with the phrase “I died and was buried in a pre-purchased cemetery plot overlooking my favorite view of downtown Chicagoâ€? (though, come to think of it, I know of few autobiographies which contain the phrase “I diedâ€?). No, my saliva-stringed reader, there really isn’t much in the way of a Snicketian life here…at least, not in any coherent form.

The book is a jumble of letters, scraps of half-burned manuscripts, songs, newspaper clippings, ship blueprints, wedding invitations and blurry photographs which add up to little more than a fragmentary sliver of Mr. Snicket’s as-yet-unfinished time on this earth. We don’t learn the secret of his beloved Beatrice (the doomed lover he so often refers to in the books), nor do we decipher the enigmatic-but-significant initials V.F.D. (though they could stand for Valorous Farms Dairy or the Veritable French Diner). No, none of that.

But what we do get is a mostly-funny knee-slapper of a book (I say “mostly-funnyâ€? because, as with all humor, you need some dull, dry spots to even things out; take Robin Williams’ film career, for instance). The knee-slapping begins with the plain-brown-wrapper dustjacket which contains the following warning:
The book you are holding in your hands is extremely dangerous. If the wrong people see you with this objectionable autobiography, the results could be disastrous. Please make use of this book’s reversible jacket immediately.
Turn it over and you get a brightly-colored cover for a book about “The Luckiest Kids in the Worldâ€? called The Pony Party!, written by one Loney M. Setnick.

I think you get the idea.

Will Snicket-impaired readers get full enjoyment from The Unauthorized Autobiography? Probably not. But then, who cares? We don’t like impaired people anyway. I would suggest those readers get themselves repaired immediately by taking up pitchfork, etc.

For the rest of us, however, the book is the best kind of ha-ha literature out there—no matter if you’re eight, eighty or one of those silly, modest women who refuse to give their proper age (even to the clerk behind the counter at the DMV). This is authorized, required reading.

Just don’t drop it in the bathtub. show less

I loved A Series of Unfortunate Events, and so this book was a delight to read. It has been a while since I read them, but I felt like I still remembered a fair amount. I just love this style of writing, and the way this book was put together as like a case file make it even better. Makes me want to go back and reread A Series of Unfortunate Events.