Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography

A notorious spin-off to a notorious series, LS:AA is a collection of notes, drawings photographs, lists, music sheets, movie scripts, newspapers, tickets, letters, files, and other mysterious –a word which here means, "abstruse"–a word which here means, "cryptic"–a word which here means, "mysterious"–sources of information. A notorious spin-off to a notorious series, LS:AA leaves more questions in the reclusive world of V.F.D. than ever before. Composed of 13 chapters, readers of this book, a phrase which here means, –"something that should not exist under ANY circumstances"–will uncover more secrets about Lemony Snicket, discover unimaginable rumours, and various other pieces of information that should never be read.

But then again, when have we ever followed Lemony's orders?

We start off with a introduction by Daniel Handler, who is Lemony's legal representative. We soon develop into a rather unusual story which ends with the 13 chapters of the novel. It seems as if Lemony has already gone through the book as corrected all the chapter titles. Whether this was done out of concern for his readers or for his life, I do not know. That is a phrase I will be using rather frequently.

There are many things I want to talk about, but the first is the ballad entitled The Little Snicket Lad. It is a ballad about how Lemony was taken by V.F.D. when he was still a baby. While Lemony does tip us off about just how the three Snicket siblings of V.F.D. came to be, we still get very little information, a technique I suppose V.F.D. taught him themselves. One question I've always had is why the ballad was made in the first place. Why would there be a song about Lemony? Is there one for the other Snickers too? Maybe there are coded messages in the other ballads like there are in Sebald's movie scripts? Speaking of movie scripts, let's talk about that.

One code that is used throughout the books is the Sebald code. This code has been used in a lot of letters in the book, and begins when a letter from a volunteer mentions the word 'ring'. The coded words have 10 words between, which was used by the Duchess of Winnipeg to her advantage, according to a person I will address later.

We also get more information on Mr. Poe, the moronic banker that proves his uselessness to the degree in which I was literally screaming at him to JUST. FREAKING. LISTEN. He has a sister, Eleanora Poe, who is in editor-in-chief of The Daily Punctilio, and fires Lemony for his review of One Last Warning to Those Who Stand in My Way and its lead actress Esme Squalor. She is later kidnapped by Geraldine Julienne, the foolish reporter who printed all the lies about the Baudelaire children. Eleanor sends a telegram to his brother but he ignores it due to another letter sent by an imposter. This explains why Mr. Poe ignored the Baudelaire's telegram in The Hostile Hospital. Speaking of Geraldine Julienne, as much I would like to punch her greedy little face, I do admit I feel sympathy for her. She is utterly blinded by her fangirl-ness that she's practically lost sense of all suspicion, and honestly, made herself Esme's slave. But that still doesn't mean I'd like she punch her in the face, because if I could, I would.

As  I've said, practically everything that reveals new information also brings confusion. And yet the Snicket family tree seems to brings me so many questions and yet gives so little. I wouldn't go into the details here, about who I think H or someone is, because I know a person who knows so much better. That person also has many theories that seem intriguing. I'll leave the address below.

One of the things I liked best was the letter from Jacques to Lemony. We never see the three Snicket siblings interacting in a sibling-like way. In d ASOUE everyone thinks Lemony is dead and Jacques is, so there is that. We nearly got one in ATWQ, but Lemony only really meets Kit for a seconds, and then they act as if they are strangers. Ever since I've learned  Jacques's last name in The Vile Village, I've wanted to see Lemony and him interact. Now that we know about all three Snicket siblings, I want to see them go on a mission or something together. Just see their chemistry. And we finally get a tip of that in Jacques's letter. He addresses Lemony as 'Brother' most of the time in the letter, and actually only calls him by his name once. The letter itself seems to imply that Jacques is a sort of advisor and encourager to Lemony, and that Jacques is indeed older than Lemony is, which explains why L is branched away from J and K in the family tree.

I would say more, but everything is so unorganized and so vaguely connected I didn't really have much thought while reading it except a) WHAT??!! b) Ooohhhhh c)Wow. . .

Yep, that was pretty much my review listed.

Here is the link to the person who knows, or at least thinks he or she knows.
http://snicketsleuth.tumblr.com/summary

With all due respect,

Sooyoung Jo