well right now i am reading the 13th last book of the series of unfortunate events. indeed this series is very tedious and repetitive, with the most predictable endings you can ever ask for....but i bought the whole series a couple of years ago in taiwan (where it's cheaper....13 books is a lot) with the intention of forcing myself to read more by reminiscing with my first favourite book and then a while after, first favourite series.
so basically, three orphans, the baudelaires, go through a lot of bad stuff because of this villainous man called count olaf. and each book of the thirteen brings another adventure in which they are catapulted into a series of obstacles. the eldest of the three, violet is the master of all things mechanical, making inventions to help save their backsides. klaus, the middle child, is the bookworm and knows everything about...well...everything. and sunny is the youngest; a baby, who can cook better than those guys you see on masterchef.
and every book ends in the same way....with another unfortunate event.
i have yet to finish the last book because i am lazy and all the books in the series are exactly the same.
the only thing that makes it all worthwhile is the witty passages of play on words and inventive stuff which the author lemony snicket, known as daniel handler in real life, weaves into a few chapters to confuse the kiddies. for example, when the baudelaires enter a really dark ersatz elevator he says that words can not describe how dark it was and that the best description he could give was on the next page which was just a black page.
and there is also a part where klaus is really tired and needs to continue reading a particular book to save their lives, he writes: "he found himself reading the same sentence again and again. he found himself reading the same sentence again and again. he found himself reading the same sentence again and again".
many mores treasures like that are scattered throughout the series...luckily, cause it's the only thing that maintains my interest twelve books and all these years later. there is also a back story within the story where you uncover who "lemony snicket" is and how he is related to the baudelaires.
the series was also made into a movie a few years ago, with that maniac emily browning as violet (i say maniac because she is seriously weird....yes i have stalked her on myspace, years ago though), liam aiken as klaus (way too hot to play the part realistically) and ....some baby/toddler as sunny. i forget her name haha.
i shall end this post with an except of a witty passage from chapter nine of the thirteenth book of this series, better known as "the end":
The phrase "in the dark" as I'm sure you know, can refer not only to one's shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one might be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another.
If you are sunbathing in a park, for instance, but do not know that a locked cabinet is buried fifty feet beneath your blanket, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas if you are on a midnight hike, knowing full well that several ballerinas are following close behind you, then you are not in the dark even if you are in fact in the dark.
Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but in the dark in the dark nonetheless, not only because of the dark, but because of the ballerinas in the dark, who are not in the dark about the dark, but also not in the dark about the locked cabinet, and you may be in the dark about the ballerinas digging up the locked cabinet in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the hole that the ballerinas have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park.
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