Rashmi bookmarks “The Bad Beginning” (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

The Bad Beginning is the first book of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” by ‘Lemony Snicket’ (Daniel Handler). It is the story of three Baudelaire children, Violet - who loves inventing, Klaus - who loves reading, and baby Sunny - who loves to bite! and their experiences living with a distant relative, the evil Count Olaf.

I have to say, going into the book - even after reading the introductory ‘warning note’ by the author - I had imagined this a much lighter book than it turned out to be! Yes, we are cautioned, “In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.” but I figured, it’s a book for and about children, how grave could incidents be? Very, as it turned out! Sure, it’s still a children’s book, and issues do get worse because some people just happen to be that blind to reality, and some solutions are in fact quite simplistic … however, I was really not expecting such a downpour of ill luck from a fatal fire, to homelessness, to life with a very evil caretaker whose actions ranged from making children do excessively hard household chores to hanging infants from tower tops just as ransom. The book’s very dedication sets up this dark tone, addressed as it is to Beatrice: “darling, dearest, dead”.

My favourite part of this story was its story telling! Lemony Snicket has not written a tale for us to read; he is sitting there with you and telling you a story that comes alive as you listen to him. He describes houses, he talks about habits, he asks you questions and he makes you think about things. It was a lovely experience!

I also really liked the two children, Violet and Klaus, a lot. Children in books or movies can so easily become so annoying, but these children never did. Good but not pious, smart but not wiseacres, they went through a lot, learning and growing as they did.

Oh, and I must mention a small but really interesting part - at one point in the story, Klaus was reading a book on law through the night and was getting sleepy - “The book was long, and difficult to read, and Klaus became more and more tired as the night wore on. Occasionally his eyes would close. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over.” Did that get you too?!

Overall, this was quite an enjoyable read! A good story, very well told! I am on the library’s waiting list for the remainder of the books and will, over the next few weeks, review this series of (very) unfortunate events!