Roll over, Harry Potter

>> Lemony Snicket is poised for a coup

by JULIET WATERS

The world stumbles along, still half in shock from the news. No Harry Potter until, possibly, 2003. Can J.K. Rowling, the single mum who wrote the first blockbuster while raising an infant, actually have writer’s block? Has wealth, Hollywood, new love, and dizzying fame crippled her? Or is there a darker explanation? Surely I’m not the only person to notice that Rowling’s greatest rival is starting to creep up the best seller lists with Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography.

Desperate Potter fans and their parents, who may remember hearing something positive about Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, may find themselves reaching for the autobiography. They may ignore the following disclaimer: “The book you are holding in your hands is extremely dangerous. If the wrong people see you with this objectionable autobiography, the results could be disastrous.”

I have taken the risk and I agree. But only if you haven’t read the first eight installments in the 13-part series. My advice: buy the first one, The Bad Beginning, and ignore this disclaimer instead: “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.” Then read all eight books about the miserable misadventures of the three Baudelaire orphans. Then read the autobiography, so you’ll be entirely ready for the ninth installment, Carnivorous Carnival, expected out in the fall.

But first: who is this Lemony Snicket? He remains a shadowy figure, his face half-hidden in all photographs. A recent obituary in The Daily Punctilio (“All the News in Fits of Print”) reports that he became a fugitive from justice after his involvement with a secret organization known only by its initials V.F.D. But a mysterious, recently discovered Post-It note signed with the initials L.S. claims “This obituary is filled with errors—most importantly—I AM NOT DEAD!”

Other media claim that Lemony Snicket is actually the pseudonym of his “official representative,” Daniel Handler. The 32-year-old writer and musician is said to have come up with the name while researching right-wing hate groups. He used it to get on their mailing lists. After the moderate success of Handler’s first novel, The Basic Eight, an editor at HarperCollins began hounding him to take a shot at the children’s market. And so it was that the mock-goth series, which has earned Handler a reputation as the Dave Eggers of children’s literature, was born.

But whichever story you believe, you must not start your reading of Snicket’s work with the autobiography. Not only is there no happy ending, beginning or middle, but there is no ending, beginning or middle at all. What we have here is a collection of songs, letters, documents, transcripts, telegrams, codes and pictures that offer clues and conspiracy theories to delight and infuriate only hardcore Snicket fans. I’m not saying it’s a bad book. It’s as entertaining and charming as the previous books. In fact, I’m guessing many budding PhDs and paranoid schizophrenics will one day list it as a major influence.
Particularly charming is the folk ballad “The Little Snicket Lad” which mythologizes the mysterious kidnapping of the baby Snicket (“They took him from the kitchen/Like you’d take a midnight snack/The V.F.D. they took him and they never brought him back.”) But unless you’ve had a previous acquaintance with The Lucky Smells Lumber Mill, Lake Lachrymose, Esme Squalor and the people, places and secret organizations that appear in the first eight books, you’ll find this book even more cryptic than it already is.

As for what V.F.D. stands for. Volunteer Fire Department? Veiled Facial Disguises? We never find out. But my hypothesis, this week, is that it stands for Very Fortunate Delay. :

Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, HarperCollins, hc, 212pp, $17.99