WANTED: Lemony Snicket
Have you ever read any book from A Series of Unfortunate Events? If you haven’t yet, lemme tell you a thing or two bout the novels. The series is actually the narration of the lives of three children after their parents’ death. All across the thirteen books, they’ve been put under much stress like being fed to lions, being sold in an auction and almost being swallowed by an ancient sea monster-robot, yet, amid all the fantasy and humor, it is revealed that the children are actually having a bad time instead of an exciting one. In fact, their life after the books are left ambiguous. Who wrote the mysterious mystery? No other than the afflicted author, Lemony Snicket, our Author of the Week. Or at least, the man behind him.
Who exactly is Snicket? Well, according to the author page after every book in the sad series…
| Book | Quotation |
|---|---|
| The Bad Beginning | Lemony Snicket was born in a small town where the inhabitants were suspicious and prone to riot. He now lives in the city. During his spare time he gathers evidence and is considered something of an expert by leading authorities. |
| The Reptile Room | Lemony Snicket was born in a small town where the inhabitants were suspicious and prone to riot. He now lives in the city. During his spare time he gathers evidence and is considered something of an expert by leading authorities. |
| The Wide Window | Lemony Snicket was born before you were and is likely to die before you as well. A studied expert in rhetorical analysis, Mr. Snicket has spent the last several eras researching the travails of the Baudelaire orphans. |
| The Miserable Mill | Lemony Snicket grew up near the sea and currently lives beneath it. To his horror and dismay he has no wife and children, only enemies, associates, and the occasional loyal manservant. His trial has been delayed, so he is free to continue researching and writing the tragic tales of the Baudelaire orphans. |
| The Austere Academy | Lemony Snicket first received his education from public schools and private tutors and vice versa. He has been hailed as a brilliant scholar, discredited as a brilliant fraud, and mistaken for a much taller man on several occasions. |
| The Ersatz Elevator | Lemony Snicket’s extended family, if they were alive, would describe him as a distinguished scholar, an amateur connoisseur, and an outright gentleman. Unfortunately this description has been challenged of late. |
| The Vile Village | Lemony Snicket is the author of quite a few books, all of them dreadful, and has been accused of many crimes, all of them falsely. |
| The Hostile Hospital | Lemony Snicket is widely regarded as one of the most difficult children’s authors to capture and imprison. Recently, he had to give up on his hobbies due to laws regarding musical performances in mountainous terrain. Most things written about him are not true, but this is. |
| The Carnivorous Carnival | Lemony Snicket published his first book in 1999 and has not had a good night’s sleep since. Once the recipient of several distinguished awards, he is now an escapee of several indistinguishable prisons. Early in his life, Mr. Snicket learned to reupholster furniture, a skill that turned out to be far more important than anyone imagined. |
| The Slippery Slope | Until recently, Lemony Snicket was presumed to be “presumed dead.” Instead, this “presumed” presumption wasn’t disproved not to be incorrect. As he continues with his investigation, interest in the Baudelaire case has increased. So has his horror. |
| The Grim Grotto | Lemony Snicket has received several citations for bravery in the face of evil and several more for caution when bravery might have proven to be more trouble than it was worth. He was last seen by witnesses who proved to be unreliable and/or of a particularly suspicious nature. In his spare time, he hides all traces of his actions. |
| The Penultimate Peril | Lemony Snicket has been chronicling the lives of the Baudelaire children with only occasional breaks for food, rest, and court-appointed sword-fights. His hobbies include nervous apprehension, increasing dread, and wondering if his enemies were right after all. |
| The End | Lemony Snicket is the author of all 170 chapters of A Series of Unfortunate Events. He is almost finished. |
| Chapter Fourteen | Lemony Snicket is still at large and ‘wanted’.
|
Thanks to Wikipedia for providing the table. So now you have an idea that Lemony Snicket is not only the author of the books, but also a character in it. A very important one in fact. This only means the Lemony Snicket himself is a fictional character! Then who’s the real author of the books? It’s actually no other than Daniel Handler.
Handler, born in San Francisco, February 28, 1970, is the son of an opera singer and an accountant, a relative of British writer Hugh Walpole, and a student of the Wesleyan University. Therefore, there are three things he have been given. First, the talent of music (proven by his membership in the San Francisco Boys Chorus and his talent with the accordion), second, the talent of writing and third, riches. Lotsa riches. At the moment, he’s relishing his rhetorical philosophies with his wife, graphic designer Lisa Brown, in a very beautiful (and big) Victorian house.
His first indulgence into the yummy world of writing is The Basic Eight, quite a dark novel if you ask me, but beautiful nonetheless. The novel’s a view of a teenage girl’s life and it tackles high school English classes, standardized testing, satanic panic and talk-show analysts. Get this: the novel had been rejected 37 times before getting finally published. Did he give up? Not at all. This led to the series that made him (or at least his fictional counterpart) famous. The Lemony Snicket books have been international best-sellers, and the 13th and final installment of the series came out (guess when) on a very lucky Friday: October 13, 2006. Interesting, right? On the day the thirteenth book came out, Handler had been on the seat on the Today show as Lemony Snicket’s “representative”.
Other than writing, Handler spends his time with charities and movements. He has supported LitPAC and the Occupy Wall Street movemen. In fact, her had been kind enough to answer to an interview from 667 Dark Avenue fan site, where he shared his “Never refuse a breath mint.” philosophy.
OH MY GOD. YOU DID IT. THANK YOU, ALF. 😀
He is real.. I knew it! I now know who Lemony Snicket *really* is! This is so cool, thanks again, Alfred! It was a great article to read and I loved it! 🙂
– Iggy.