the bad beginning book by lemony snicket

It reminds me far more of Blyton's Secret Seven and Famous Five, of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and of that horrid little dullard, Harry Potter. The Bad Beginning is deeply derivative but it is not derivative of either Dahl or Gorey. Yes, there is Dahlesque dark humour in Handler's book, but this is mostly affectation. Lemony Snicket is the alter ego of Daniel Handler, San Francisco novelist and I gather that Handler cites people like Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey as influences. Lemony Snicket has spent years researching the fortunes of the Baudelaire children and it his 'sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales'. It is the first in a series of gothic adventure books for children written by a shadowy figure known as Lemony Snicket. I very much wanted to love The Bad Beginning, but I did not. With the aid of the kindly Justice Strauss, Violet the boffin with a talent for inventing gadgets and Klaus the clever bookworm must find and foil the Count's evil planĪck. It is clear to the Baudelaires that Count Olaf has taken them in for only one reason: he hopes to get his hands on their fortune. They share a room with one bed, their clothes are dumped in a cardboard box and they must spend half the day doing chore after chore after chore. Tall, thin, gaunt and distinctly suspicious, he does not treat the Baudelaire orphans well. Mr Poe, the asthmatic, bronchial executor of their parents' will tracks down a relative with whom they must live. The only things left to them are the clothes they stand up in. Not only have they lost their mother and father, but they have also lost all their possessions. Their beloved parents have recently perished in a fire at their home. Violet, Klaus and their baby sister, Sunny Baudelaire are three very unlucky, very sad children. It's a nice idea, but the eye to the main chance spoils it. The Bad Beginning is a dangerous step towards the franchising of the books your children read and Bookbag can't recommend that, or it.

If ever a book was written as a money-spinner, then this is it.

Summary: Neither the well-chosen vocabulary nor the wonderfully dry sense of humour in Lemony Snicket's Bad Beginning can make up for its naked and mercenary ambition.

The bad beginning book by lemony snicket