BOOK REVIEW: THE BAD BEGINNING OR, ORPHANS!

6:52 PM

Original title: A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning or, Orphans!

Author: Lemony Snicket

Year of Publication: 1999

Number of pages: 167 [trade paperback]

Available in: English, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Polish, French, Japanese, Turkish, Swedish and many more.

I read it in: English

"If you are interested in happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters."

Klaus, Sunny and Violet live peacefully in a big mansion with their parents where their only worry is to invent, bite and read, until an extremely unfortunate event, a huge fire that vanishes their house and their family, turns them into the Baudelaire orphans. As a result, they are sent to live with their third cousin four times removed (or the other way around), the Count Olaf, who is only interested in one thing: the Baudelaire fortune and to get rid of the orphans, no matter how he achieves it.

The author, Lemony Snicket, has dedicated his entire life to investigate the details of the tragedies that surrounded the Baudelaire orphans since the fire that ended their parent's house and life, and warns us from the beginning: this story does not have a happy ending. Not only that, throughout this, which is the first book of 13, he reminds us that we could be reading a less tragic and sad book.

However, the adventures of Violet, Klaus and Sunny are too intriguing and crazy to listen to the author so, as we continue with the story, we embark with them in a journey in which they have to discover how to get out of the situations that Count Olaf puts them in, make it out without the help from the adults around them, who just won't listen, and deal with their incredible parent's death. And even though you know by constant remarks from the author that nothing can end well and that the little victories are ephemeral, there is always a little bit of hope between the lines.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a book series written for children, but that doesn’t mean that the author will stop discussing delicate and obscure themes, but he will rather speak to the reader as the reasonable human being capable of finding a way out of a problem even if a bigger one comes next, capable of understanding the complexity of the situation, the fear and despair. Snicket's narrative is dark and witty, he doesn't miss any details and is capable of connecting with the reader who he speaks to throughout the whole length of the story. Reading him as an adult (or something like that) makes you remember how it was to be a child in the adult world, not being listened to, being thought of as unreasonable and made feel un-capable, so the fact that Lemony Snicket is so open with his readers is not only refreshing, but necessary.

I feel like it's my duty to mention, if it wasn't revealed to you already by a quick search on the Internet, that Lemony Snicket is actually the pen name of the writer Daniel Handler, who wrote several other books by Lemony Snicket talking about his beloved and deceased Beatrice (who he mentions constantly). The fact that the author of the book uses a character to write gives the story an aura of mysticism and realism, makes it even more unique, in case the multiple warnings in the cover telling you that you should read something else weren't enough.

It's also worth mentioning that a film was made from the books, with an excellent cast (Jim Carrey as a perfect Count Olaf, Meryl Streep, Jude Law and others), in which they tried to squeeze the more relevant parts of some of the books in just one movie and create a coherent story. Even if there wasn't a good reception from the critics (specially between the lovers of the books) I thought it was excellent, as I saw it before I read the books.

Regarding the book, despite its short length, I was completely captured by the story and the narrative, and I plan to read all of the books in the series. If you're ever walking down the library looking for something to read and you find one of those best-sellers of love triangles, happy people and happy endings, I will go against the advice from the author and ask you to not think about it twice: go to the kids section and look for one of Lemony Snicket's books, but proceed with caution.