a short, grumpy book review

[redbird]

I just read The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket.

It's far too self-consciously arch. The villains are evil for its own sake, and know it--and maybe someone could pull this off, but Snicket doesn't. The central devices appear to be exaggeration, cute names (the main characters are named Baudelaire, and the old family friend is Mr. Poe, and his oldest son is named Edgar), and repeatedly using a not-especially-difficult word and defining it parenthetically.

I believe there are five or six more of these books, but have no particular intention of spending the half hour each it would take to find out if they're better than the first.

Comments

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

For the middle reader market (the target audience for Harry Potter) try Gaiman's Coraline instead.

[redbird]

If I had to get a book for a hypothetical reader that age, I still think well of The Phantom Tollbooth, but the only "middle reader" I'm close to is probably still up to his eyebrows in Golden Age science fiction.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

I didn't care for those Snickety things, what I saw of them. I'm starting to think that blockbuster kids' books will always and forever be patronizing tripe, with really good stuff selling reasonably well a little way out of the limelight.

Sorta like the adult market, but with less sex.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

He's just finished a pile of Donald Westlake and he's re-reading Pamela Dean's Secret Country books.

But he isn't a "middle reader", he's a reader who happens to be twelve, he was a "middle reader" for a while when he was about seven.

[redbird]

Fair enough. I was sort of thinking this book is aimed at what someone thinks he's like, based on the ages of the main characters.

[erik]

I found the first one (A Bad Beginning) diverting.

The second was tedious. I didn't continue.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

We may just be too old for them. We've read enough books that we've seen people do better things with teh same technique, we've read those stories before, we need more of a hook for our interest.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

We talked of these on Sunday. I picked one up in a store once, reading enough to not get hooked, and to know I wasn't going to get hooked. Bit of a pity; I'd approached it with a favorable attitude.

Do people say, "leh-muh-nee" or "leh-MOH-nee" or what? I thought it was the latter, but people where saying the former.

K. [and how does that compare or contrast with pronoucing the name of the girl child character in "Captain Corelli's Mandolin"?]

on npr...

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

... I heard an interview with the author, and it was pronounced "lemon - ee", just like a floor cleaner fragrance might be.

I found the bits they read aloud to be quite amusing, but I have not picked up any of the books myself.

[carbonel]

I read the first one before I gave it to my (then) nine-year-old nephew. I thought it was engaging enough, though a fast read even by nine-year-old standards. My nephew liked it enough to make it known that further ones would be appreciated, so I gave him #2 and 3. I think I'll stop there, though.

[snippy]

Oh, I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I bought the first 2 and read them and I strongly dislike them for all the same reasons. They condescend, and when I was young I hated that (and I've never grown out of it).

[nolly.livejournal.com]

There are nine, plus the Unauthorized Autobiography. I've read them all. Not exceptionally wonderful, but fun reads, and I'll probably keep up with the series.

[misia.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found Lemony Snicket condescending and, frankly, awfully twee.

Gaiman's Coraline, on the other hand... gave me the willies for a week.

Does anyone else remember Alvin Steadfast on Vernacular Island, Frank Jacobs (illustrations by Edward Gorey)? The mention of The Phantom Tollbooth is what made me think of it. If you don't know it, it's really quite delightful and the illos, of course, are extra-marvy.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I quite like them, and I think Marianne will like them in time, though the time is not yet. Handler clearly intends them to be reading-out-loud books, but M's far too nesh for them; the very first scene had her horrified that a book could be so rotten to its characters. (She didn't express it like this).

She'll be a middle reader in about another year, I reckon. Currently reading huge amounts of Enid Blyton (the fairy-type stories, not the school stories or adventures), but just beginning to get into the easier Roald Dahls.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

I couldn't stand that book, and wrote a bad review (http://www.tachyonlabs.com/badbeginning.html) (though obviously that can be interpreted at least two ways :-)) of it that I put on my website.

[redbird]

An addendum to your review, with regard to stereotypes: the chief villain is an actor (and, indeed, his accomplices are all in his troupe). That one was old when Cromwell was Lord Protector.