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What, the marriage thing? Honestly, it's way weirder in the movie than it is in the book. The first three books are pretty good, although by the third one you're thinking it's kind of formulaic, and then in the fourth one, they... get sent to work in a mill. So it kind of diverges from the formula at that point, even though the fourth book isn't all that great--the fifth book is where it starts to cook. If you wanted to, I guess you could read summaries on Wikipedia of the other early books and start with #5, because they get completely awesome after that.
It is kind of a dark series, though. I mean, usually at least one character dies per book, child endangerment, what have you. But I don't think anyone pulls anything as shady as the marriage thing after the first book.
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I've already lent the book away so I couldn't tell you, but it isn't any more specific than that, if that is the word he uses. That entire subplot? That's all we ever find out about that. He leaves a ton of things open-ended like that, which is part of what makes it so sad. It kind of allows Handler to have terrible things happen with the out for younger readers that maybe they didn't really happen--maybe the Bs ran into those characters years later and they were okay. But the surviving characters have to grapple with the idea that, at that point in time, they don't know if they're okay, and they're very likely not.
We never find out what [that thing] is, either, which... well, now that I think about it, what's the shape of it, right? It really is kind of the great unknown.
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From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kelcea |
Date: October 14th, 2006 04:26 am (UTC) |
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Dammit, I cried too.
It was absolutely beautiful. And bittersweet. A lot of people are complaining that there are still a lot of questions unanswered, but the theme I got from the book was: um, hello? That's the point. The Baudelaires sail away from their past in Chapter Fourteen, finally accepting that every mystery solved only provokes another question, and that it was time to leave these questions behind and start over. Dammit, I can't believe that I cried.
And all of the symbology? The serpent offering VKS the apple? The "?" beast? Amazing. In TGG, I remember being completely intrigued by what ? could be, but now, I understand that it's supposed to symbolize that some of the world's greatest mysteries will never be solved - that the great unknown will always be floating beneath us. *sobs* I love it.
The final moments of Olaf's life made me cry too. The fact that he did one last noble thing before he died...afskflaksg. It gives me an entirely different outlook on Olaf's position in ASOUE. Even with him gone, the Baudelaires realized that his death didn't make up for all of the treachery in the world. And then they visit his grave. OMG. *sobs again*
There are so many seperate storylines from that of The Bauds, and I guess it's too late to learn more about Olaf, but the impression I got was that he was only a "force of destiny" in all of their unfortunate events. He kept pursuing them because he had a personal vendetta against the Baudelaire family - a vendetta that had been hinted at subtly, but we may not ever know the whole story. When he was first presented as someone who was simply after the Baudelaire fortune in TBB feels so, so long ago. The fortune doesn't play that big of a role, when you think about it. It's spoken of, but never seen, or felt. And in the end, it wasn't Olaf's entire motivation for making the Baudelaire's lives miserable after all. Hum.
I'm sad that the Baudelaire story is over, even it ended on such a profound note. But I have a feeling that there will be a sidebook released in the future, or maybe even another series of events. The last word of ASOUE is Beatrice. Maybe it's time to learn the story of Lemony's niece.
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