Reader Series: 'The Grim Grotto,' Lemony Snicket
This is the eleventh post in a series leading up to the premiere of Netflix's 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' on January 13, 2017. The series will cover each of the 13 books and 'Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography.' Be warned: there are spoilers ahead.
The submarine "Queequeg" saves the Baudelaires from the river, and they meet eccentric Captain Widdershins, his aspiring mycologist stepdaughter Fiona, and the ship's cook, Phil, whose optimism you may recall from The Miserable Mill. Sailing under the motto "He (or she) who hesitates is lost," the Queequeg crew are searching for the mysterious sugar bowl. Thanks to Klaus' interpretive work with some tidal charts, he determines it to be in the Gorgonian Grotto. Count Olaf is still in pursuit, with his own octopus-shaped submarine, but there is also a suspicious question-mark-shaped sub that continually drives the villain off.
Fiona discovers, in her mycological textbooks (that's mushroom studies), that the Gorgonian Grotto houses a rare and deadly species of mushroom, Medusoid Mycelium, which is only deadly during one of its frequent waxing periods. Widdershins mentions the Snickets over dinner, referring to Jacques (from The Vile Village) as the researcher, Kit as the mechanical mind who helped build the Queequeg, and, just before he tells us about our dear author, Fiona interrupts. This, though, leads an assumption that Lemony was, perhaps, the 'Sunny' of his siblings, as Kit is similar to Violet and Jacques is similar to Klaus. While this gives us some bare-bones information about our author, the real and original Sunny Baudelaire almost doesn't survive the adventure.
A Voluntary Factual Dispatch comes through on the telegram machine, signaling Quigley Quagmire's survival and summoning the Baudelaires to a coded location. The first poem, by Lewis Carroll, is translated by Klaus and points the siblings to Briny Beach. Olaf interferes before the second code, based on T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, can be decoded. It is revealed that Fiona has joined Olaf's troupe, because the hook-handed man is, in fact, her brother, Fernald. She knows, despite her loyalty to family, that she's made the wrong choice, and helps the Baudelaires escape, also revealing the feelings between herself and Klaus.
At Briny Beach, the children are presented with an opportunity to go, once again, with Mr. Poe, but choose to take the taxi Quigley told them would be waiting. They meet Kit Snicket and, for the first time in a long time, the Baudelaires end a book exactly where they want to be. Aside from a few inept adults still populating the world, the Baudelaires are discovering more helpful people and slowly entering the world their parents never had the chance to tell them about. We still don't know about a surviving Baudelaire parent, Carmelita Spats is still somehow involved, and the Baudelaires are adapting faster and faster to each Very Familiarly Deceptive situation.
The submarine "Queequeg" saves the Baudelaires from the river, and they meet eccentric Captain Widdershins, his aspiring mycologist stepdaughter Fiona, and the ship's cook, Phil, whose optimism you may recall from The Miserable Mill. Sailing under the motto "He (or she) who hesitates is lost," the Queequeg crew are searching for the mysterious sugar bowl. Thanks to Klaus' interpretive work with some tidal charts, he determines it to be in the Gorgonian Grotto. Count Olaf is still in pursuit, with his own octopus-shaped submarine, but there is also a suspicious question-mark-shaped sub that continually drives the villain off.
Fiona discovers, in her mycological textbooks (that's mushroom studies), that the Gorgonian Grotto houses a rare and deadly species of mushroom, Medusoid Mycelium, which is only deadly during one of its frequent waxing periods. Widdershins mentions the Snickets over dinner, referring to Jacques (from The Vile Village) as the researcher, Kit as the mechanical mind who helped build the Queequeg, and, just before he tells us about our dear author, Fiona interrupts. This, though, leads an assumption that Lemony was, perhaps, the 'Sunny' of his siblings, as Kit is similar to Violet and Jacques is similar to Klaus. While this gives us some bare-bones information about our author, the real and original Sunny Baudelaire almost doesn't survive the adventure.
A Voluntary Factual Dispatch comes through on the telegram machine, signaling Quigley Quagmire's survival and summoning the Baudelaires to a coded location. The first poem, by Lewis Carroll, is translated by Klaus and points the siblings to Briny Beach. Olaf interferes before the second code, based on T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, can be decoded. It is revealed that Fiona has joined Olaf's troupe, because the hook-handed man is, in fact, her brother, Fernald. She knows, despite her loyalty to family, that she's made the wrong choice, and helps the Baudelaires escape, also revealing the feelings between herself and Klaus.
People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.
There is nothing wicked about having a dreadful singing voice, any more than there is something wicked about having dreadful posture, dreadful cousins, or a dreadful pair of pants. Many noble and pleasant people have any number of these things, and there are even one or two kind individuals who have them all. But if you have something dreadful, and you force it upon someone else, then you have done something quite wicked indeed.
Even the most ridiculous of stories can contain a grain of truth.
At Briny Beach, the children are presented with an opportunity to go, once again, with Mr. Poe, but choose to take the taxi Quigley told them would be waiting. They meet Kit Snicket and, for the first time in a long time, the Baudelaires end a book exactly where they want to be. Aside from a few inept adults still populating the world, the Baudelaires are discovering more helpful people and slowly entering the world their parents never had the chance to tell them about. We still don't know about a surviving Baudelaire parent, Carmelita Spats is still somehow involved, and the Baudelaires are adapting faster and faster to each Very Familiarly Deceptive situation.
Comments
Post a Comment