A Series of Unfortunate Events #13: The End - Lemony Snicket
Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the crimes, follies, and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women.
This book is, as is evident from the title, the last of A Series of Unfortunate Events. When I started the series, it seemed like a clever idea: 13 books of 13 chapters each following the Baudelaire orphans from one disaster to another. However, around Book 10 things were starting to get a little stale: it's like the TV series "Lost" or, to use an older example, "The X-Files." At some point you have to quit stringing people along and give them some answers, or you're never going to wrap things up (and they'll lose interest). Of course, with A Series of Unfortunate Events, we knew it was going to be over at book 13, and we did start getting a few straight answers towards the end. But still, I think it ended up being just a few books too long.
That said, The End is not bad. For one, because it's the last book, we finally get some variations on the old plot: things actually change. There are people who stand up to Count Olaf and don't fall for his disguises. There are answers to be found. But (and this is Lemony Snicket's particular talent, I suppose) the things that the Baudelaire's have been wishing don't necessarily make for a happy ending, either.
The Baudelaires, along with Count Olaf, wash up on a strange island, where they meet a small band of people led by a man named Ishmael. Of course, everyone has their secrets.
While it's not entirely satisfying, it does seem to be a fitting end to the story. And, of course, it has plenty of the silly asides that we've come to expect from Snicket.
Fed to jonathan's brain | February 26, 2007
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