Kay's Bookshelf

Understandably enough I was fond of the way Frederik related to his secret: he had a small cardboard city hidden in the attic, with two residents made out of threadless wooden spools, with their heads being acorns. Frederik thinks they may feel lonely, and goes on to search for a way to get the pair a boat to go sailing, “to hunt for more family”. I found that to be a cute idea, and also the very reason why the path of Frederik and the little girl with the matches will intersect, albeit for a very short while.

This is another one of those stories where everyone is good and the atmosphere is relaxed. The queen was my favorite from this point of view, as she was quite a clumsy creature, always stepping on the hems of her dresses; a detail that could have made her ridiculous to the reader, but as she also treated everyone quite nicely, I ended up being amused by her in a good way.

A part of the product description of the book on Amazon.com (something I didn’t think about myself but is obvious once it’s been pointed out):

When it was first translated from Danish and published in England in the mid-nineteenth century, audiences likely interpreted the Little Match Girl′s dying visions of lights and a grandmother in heaven as metaphors of religious salvation. Maguire′s new piece, entitled “Matchless,” reilluminates Andersen′s classic, using his storytelling magic to rekindle Andersen′s original intentions, and to suggest transcendence, the permanence of spirit, and the continuity that links the living and the dead.

Another thing I have loved from the very first is the title. Which I find beautiful :)
I have no idea whether I am right or not, but I took it to be a play on words, as matchless means both with no matches (just like the little girl was after all her matches have burned) and without a match, alone, as two of the characters in the book happen to be. Also, at one point the girl’s mother’s eyes were mentioned to be matchless (as in unique), and I enjoyed having yet another meaning to play with. Isn’t it great that one single word title can be interpreted in so many ways? :)

Thoughts on the ending: It’s quite cute, made even more so by the pictures. How else :)

What I liked most: The fact that the author has managed to take such a gloomy story and turn it into a happy one without actually changing anything of importance…

What I liked least: …however, I was nevertheless a bit disappointed by the fact that the original story wasn’t changed; for some reason I was expecting otherwise. Didn’t bother me that much though as the whole was happy enough overall.

Recommend it to? Everyone. It a very short read (272 lines, according to one reviewer), and the pics (drawn by the author himself) are really nice :)

Written by the same author:
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Wicked

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Popularity: 4% [?]

From the very beginning it is obvious that in this book, like in some previous others, Mr. King has tried to explore the idea of a small group of people (good and bad), ending up outside the reach of the law. From this point of view the book reminds me of The Stand, where this separation from any law being applied came from the fact that there were simply no people left to apply it (the flu has killed 99% of the US population). In Under the Dome though this separation is quite literal, since we have the huge dome of glass that lets no armed force in. Add to that the fact that most of the police force inside the dome ends up consisting of bad guys and that’s a recipe for disaster right there.

The first (predictable) effect of such a rupture from the outside world would be (and is, particularly in this book) that the bad guys would let their lack of scruples (and their temporary invulnerability) go to their heads. And Mr. King is not one to shy from describing such deeds. We have multiple murders, a gang rape, arson, beatings, thievings, take your pick. What is the most awful is that most of these things happen almost within sight of the Army, stationed on the other side of the dome, and there’s nothing anyone out there can do because there’s no way to get in. As one of the characters put it, the armed forces were “Like kids looking into an aquarium where the biggest fish takes all the food, then starts eating the little ones.”

One of the fortes of the book is the fact that, albeit there are a lot of characters, Mr. King has managed to infuse them all with their own personalities and motivations. Sure, the good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad, but they are all believable and their choices make sense. Rennie for example, the all-around bad guy, sincerely believes that “This was the high point of his life, his chance to achieve the greatness of which he knew he’d always been capable.“. Adding to that his unwavering belief in God (and the fact that God is on his side no matter what he’ll do) we begin to get the idea of a dangerous man, a man who will single-handedly turn the quiet life of the small town into anarchy in no more than a few days.

Another thing I have enjoyed while reading was the imagery surrounding the Dome. When I first read summaries of the book I thought of the Dome as a sheet of glass, hardly visible for anyone looking at it, but nevertheless visible. But the actual Dome looks like… nothing. It does act like a sheet of glass, from the sound it makes when people knock on it, to the way it gets dirtied by pollution and things crashing into it, but it cannot be seen. Making the people who bump into it all the more surprised, and the related imagery (people trying to touch their hands but unable to, although there is no visible obstruction) all the more powerful. Speaking of imagery, the description of natural phenomena as seen through the Dome are quite cool too (my favorite was the part with the pink stars falling, of course, when the stars “come down in brilliant pink lines. Some of the lines crisscrossed each other, and when this happened, pink runes seemed to stand out in the sky before fading.“).

I think that, even if I hadn’t known who the author of this book was, I would probably have guessed it while reading. Not only do people die right and left (regardless on whose side they’re on), but there are also small clues now and then, clues that are to be found in almost every book of Mr. King’s. For one, we have the children sharing prophetic visions (that most of them don’t remember afterwards). Also, my favorite, the statement that repeats itself throughout the book, at various intervals (as far as I can remember every single book by Mr. King that I have read had a phrase like that, usually part of a song or something out of the main character’s childhood, that someone keeps thinking about). In this case the said statement is shared between many people (almost every important character thinks it at one time or another), is part of an old hit-song and goes like this “it’s a small town and we all support the team“.

The book would probably make a great movie, as it is very fast paced (something breath-taking is always happening), plus I can just imagine the special effects that could be created on this purpose. Not to mention the fact that the very presence of Barbie (a very good ex-Army guy, who just happens to be in the right place at the wrong time) made me think of a blockbuster movie from the very moment Barbie’s past was revealed :)

Something I didn’t think of while I was reading is the political side of the book — here’s what Mr. King had to say about it:

Sometimes the sublimely wrong people can be in power at a time when you really need the right people. I put a lot of that into the book. But when I started I said, “I want to use the Bush-Cheney dynamic for the people who are the leaders of this town.” As a result, you have Big Jim Rennie, the villain of the piece. I got to like the other guy, Andy Sanders. He wasn’t actively evil, he was just incompetent—which is how I always felt about George W. Bush. I enjoyed taking the Bush-Cheney dynamic and shrinking it to the small-town level.

While I (who live so far away from the States) barely know who Cheney was, and very little of what he did or did not do, I find the very fact that the book is sort of inspired from real life quite cool. Let’s call that an extra layer of the thing I liked most in the book, which is…

What I liked most: Unsettling as it may sound, I think the book was a great study of human nature. It other words, it explores people and feelings that are very believable for me; most people act the very way I would expect them to. For example, I can just imagine how, if something that bad would happen, the vast majority of people would look up to their leaders to tell them what to do and how to behave. I can also very well imagine how those people who abstain from doing bad simply because they’re afraid of the law would unleash their worst once it’s clear that no punishment can be inflicted on them (Nazi Germany anyone?). Not to mention the fact that many people would have trouble adjusting to the new world, clinging “to the notion that the world was as it had been before the Dome came down”, thus falling prey to the people who have a lot less scruples than that. And many, many more.

What I liked least: Silly but I kept being bothered about the Internet (how did they have Internet if the landlines were cut off? A city this small couldn’t have had Wi-Fi all over) and the cellphones still working (I know that air permeated the dome but would it have been enough for the cellphones? Somehow I doubt it.)

Thoughts on the ending: First of all, I noticed that many people said they loved the book until the ending, which they didn’t quite like. For me it was quite the opposite, meaning I thought it to be about the only ending that could actually make sense.

show spoiler

Recommend it to? First of all, I have read a lot of S. King’s books. Not all of them, but a lot. Second, this is quite possibly my favorite of them all. So yup, I recommend it to anyone around :) (however reader beware, there’s usually a lot of brutality in Mr. King’s books and this one is no exception).

See also
Chester’s Mill map (via Amazon)
The official site of the book
The “official” site of Chester’s Mill (a bit freaky, especially as it includes links to the site of Big Jim’s used cars dealership, the site of Chester’s Mill newspaper and the site of Sweetbriar Rose).

Written by the same author:
The Black House (with Peter Straub)

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Popularity: 6% [?]

The mythology of the imaginary world the author has created is very detailed; so much so that at first I had a bit of trouble keeping the hang of who was what — however, I soon got to know everyone and things started making sense. Started being wonderful, actually. There are, at first, two clearly separated kinds of things: real, the ones everyone met with at times in their daily life (gleemen, the village Wisdom (a wise woman who is said to be able to heal people and to read the future in the wind), Winternight, the Bel Tine festival, etc.) and the ones everyone heard about in stories only (the Trollocs, the Aes Sedai, the Fades, and lots more). Some of the things in the latter category are even thought to be the product of someone’s too vivid imagination, that’s how rare they are.

And yet, all of the sudden, Rand’s world and the others’ is turned upside down, all things they barely believed in coming to life. Trollocs attacked, all of a sudden. A Fade/Myrddraal made itself known to boys of certain age. An Aes Sedai and a Warden turned out to have been in their midst. And I, I was fascinated by this sudden process of legends becoming tangible :)

There are a lot of concepts that were obviously inspired from real life, and it was interesting to see Jordan’s take on them. To name but a few, the Light is their good force (makes one think of God, especially when one sees the way it’s mentioned in daily life — “Light keep you!”, “Light, did you see that?”; they believe in a Creator too but the Light is the divinity they refer to in their every day life). The name of the evil one is Shai’tan. The Children of Light, an organisation with its own rules and ranking system, is the Andorian equivalent of Inquisition. Saidin and saidar, the male and female forces, make one think of Yin and Yang (especially as their symbol seems to be quite similar too). The Tinkers, the travelling people, are very much like the Gypsies of old: earn mend pots, travel in wagons, dress in vivid colors and are said to steal whatever they can get their hands on (what I liked most about them is that “They’re looking for a song. That’s what the Mahdi seeks. They say they lost it during the Breaking of the World, and if they can find it again, the paradise of the Age of Legends will return.“). And so on.

People often say that Jordan was heavily influenced by Tolkien, and that the plot is similar to the one in the Lord of the Rings. They are more or less right, as there are many elements in the book that make one think of Tolkien. However I would dare to say that the plot, albeit very interesting (with a few incredibly captivating moments now and then), is not necessarily the main attraction of Jordan’s work. Neither is the character development — I could say that it is actually the book’s weak point, because while the characters are believable and interesting, their emotions and dialogue aren’t always up to par. I for one felt quite meh about the relationship between Rand and Egwene, especially when the latter was being jealous — but I digress. As I was saying, the most interesting feature of the book, what makes it truly special, is the way Jordan has managed to create a living and breathing world around his characters. We are treated to detailed descriptions of villages, monuments, cities and people altogether, all forming in a colorful background behind our characters’ deeds. And it’s worth mentioning that, at least in this first volume, the author managed to present it all in such a manner that is never boring. I understand that this becomes a flaw later on, as the amount of detail tends to overcome the actual plot in some future books, but right now, after reading just this one, I am charmed.

When it comes of the characters, I very much liked the way Jordan chose to treat women. There are no damsel in distress in this book. The women are just as willing to go the needed lengths as men are; they are also, magic-wise, the more powerful, since they are the only ones able to touch the True Source. Quite a cool concept for a novel set in a medieval-like world.

Interestingly enough, my favorite character of them all was Lan. Even the author said about him that “Lan is simply the man I always wished I could be.“. My teenage self would have been head over heels fascinated with him. He is a very capable warrior, with a noble heart, always putting the interests of others ahead of his own. He is not talkative, but spends his time studying the surroundings, as any Warden on the run is supposed to be do. Yet he does notice things one would think he wouldn’t, and that shows most of all when it comes to who his love interest is (unfortunately I can’t spoil that but I was very excited about that part). Oh, and did I mention he is also of (very) noble blood?

Opposed to him, the three main characters (Mat, Rand, and Perrin) are nothing but boys. I liked Rand a lot because his emotions are very believable, and his heart is good. Perrin is the strong one, who thinks slowly but always thinks things through. As for Mat, he is the claimant of the “my least favorite male character” honor. He is supposed to be a mischievous lad, but not a bad one. However he doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut (annoying!!) and is too preoccupied with finding treasure for my taste (this happens to also be his doom, at least in his book, haha).

Mat’s female equivalent, “my least favorite female character”, is Egwene (pronounced eh-GWAIN). She is very young and she’s also Rand’s love interest, so I suppose she is meant to be likable rather than not. Well, she does have her qualities — strong willed, courageous, loves being part of an adventure even if it’s scary at times — but she is also a bit of a bully, and also a bit annoying towards the end. I probably named her as my least favorite not because I disliked her but because I fully liked the others. Moiraine (pronounced mwah-RAIN), the Aes Sedai (EYEZ seh-DEYE), powerful and with lots of knowledge. Nynaeve, the young Wisdom, very capable and taking her responsibilities very seriously. Quite annoyed with men, but a good tracker herself. Both (Moiraine and Nynaeve) are promising characters and I am quite curious to see how they’ll develop in the future books.

Two tiny quotes I liked:
At one time, this is said about one of the Travelling People: “he moved as if he were about to begin dancing with his next step“. A bit of nice imagery. :)

The folks in the Two Rivers are said to be pretty stubborn, and I liked their way of thinking: “[...]the Light will take care of us all. And if the Light doesn’t, well, we’ll just take care of ourselves. Remember, we’re Two Rivers folk.”

Thoughts on the ending: There are people who call it rushed, but I have actually liked it. show spoiler

What I liked most: Interestingly enough, although in real life I’m not fond of the idea of predestination, I was quite captivated by the idea of a Pattern comprising all lives.

“The Wheel of Time weaves the Pattern of the Ages, and lives are the threads it weaves. No one can tell how the thread of his own life will be woven into the Pattern, or how the thread of a people will be woven.”

It seemed to me that somehow being a part of a bigger pattern gave everyone’s lives meaning, and I liked that. Not to mention I enjoyed trying to imagine how the said pattern might actually look (yeah, I know it’s not a literal pattern, but I love imagining it nevertheless). As such, I was also bound to like the notion of Ta’veren:

“You see, the Wheel of Time weaves the Pattern of the Ages, and the threads it uses are lives. It is not fixed, the Pattern, not always. If a man tries to change the direction of his life and the Pattern has room for it, the Wheel just weaves on and takes it in. There is always room for small changes, but sometimes the Pattern simply won’t accept a big change, no matter how hard you try. [...] But sometimes the change chooses you, or the Wheel chooses it for you. And sometimes the Wheel bends a life-thread, or several threads, in such a way that all the surrounding threads are forced to swirl around it, and those force other threads, and those still others, and on and on.”

I love the imagery of that :)

What I liked least: Can I say the Prologue? It started out so sudden I was finding it all very confusing, so much so that I almost put the book down (of course I didn’t consider it seriously, as I knew the book must be quite good to have sparkled such interest, but for a moment I did consider it nevertheless).

Recommend it to? Anyone who enjoys epic fantasies? Actually, I fell in love with it while reading so I heartily encourage anyone to at least give it a try :)

See also
Schema of the places where the characters travelled in this book
A background of the history of the world in the Wheel of Time series


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Popularity: 12% [?]

The novel is, for lack of a better word, dark. There are a lot of moments of violence, as the author intended to present the lives of the black slaves back then with the utmost sincerity, without masking anything. Dana herself is being taken by surprise at how violent those times were, and how much real violence differed from the imagined one, or the one on TV. The usual punishment of the time was a savage whipping, degrading and inflicting a lot of pain to the punished one. Dana herself, although a visitor from another time and the main character of the book, is not spared any suffering. While this book has been a less heartbreaking read for me than Uncle Tom’s Cabin (ages ago), it wasn’t an easy one either, and I repeatedly wondered at the

For me (as a white person) it was a bit sad to notice there are no actually good white people all throughout the book, other than Dana’s husband, who comes from a different time than the rest. I am not sure how I feel about this. First of all, it is obvious that all the white people of the 19th century that we get to meet in the book have had a certain kind of upbringing, one that insisted that slaves are nothing more than animals. It is also obvious that a person acting by that time’s standards cannot be considered good by the standards of today. And yet I was a bit sorry to see whites presented in such a cookie cutter manner, unlike the black people who had actual personalities, ranging from the always unpredictable Alice to the subdued Sarah who was always aware what the “masters” can do and as such she was always wary of them.

Although to be completely honest no character is as complex in the whole book as Rufus is. My feelings towards him were just as everyone else’ around him, just as Dana’s: I cared for him, as he had some good moments, but there were also moments when I was horrified by what he could do (to Dana or other people). You know, this alone would be a reason for me to consider Ms. Butler a great writer: the fact that she has created such a conflicting yet very believable character. In a way, Rufus reminded me of Bruno, the German boy in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, because, although older, he was just as oblivious about people’s feelings as nine year old Bruno was. Yet he also had a sort of innocence (or should I call it overconfidence), firmly believing that his choices in matters are the only possible choices (not out of being evil but because that’s the way he was taught), making me care about him even though I didn’t much agree with the way he acted.

I think that this book was, at least partially, the result of the author’s imagining herself in such a strange situation. After all, she was bound to have an interest in slavery, given that she herself has had first hand contact with the mindset of the 1950s (Ms. Butler about the way her mother was treated at work: “I used to see her going in back doors, being talked about while she was standing right there and basically being treated like a non-person, something beneath notice.“). It is obvious that the inspiration for Dana was Ms. Butler’s own life: they both come from a devout Baptist family, Dana also tries to become a writer, taking as many writing classes as possible, they are both from Pasadena, and their ages were similar too (Ms. Butler was 29 in 1976). For some reasons I am always a bit fonder of characters that seem inspired from their author rather than not.

An interesting quote, Dana’s thoughts about Kevin’s (possible) life in the 18th century:

A place like this would endanger him in a way I didn’t want to talk to him about. If he was stranded here for years, some part of this place would rub off on him. No large part, I knew. But if he survived here, it would be because he managed to tolerate the life here. He wouldn’t have to take part in it, but he would have to keep quiet about it. Free speech and press hadn’t done too well in the ante bellum South. Kevin wouldn’t do too well either. The place, the time would either kill him outright or mark him somehow. I didn’t like either possibility.

Thoughts on the ending: Due to the prologue I knew right from the start approximatively how the book will end (it is obvious from the first sentence actually). While I wasn’t surprised when I reached the actual ending, I was happy to discover there is a part of a chapter where Dana and Kevin try to find out the whereabouts of the black people at the Weylin’s farm after Dana left for good. I’m always a fan of these types of endings (when “what happened to them next” is revealed) and of course I liked this one too :)

As a tiny aside, the book is for some reason classified by many as Science Fiction. I really don’t see how that’s the case as no science is ever mentioned, and I think it belongs way better in the Fantasy genre (because of the time travel, of course).

What I liked most: The differences in perception between Dana, the black female, and Kevin, the white male. It is obvious that they both filter whatever they go through according to their knowledge and previous experience, but also according to some very basic elements such as race. Dana feels a lot more powerfully the plights of everyone around her in the 18th century, going so far as becoming a part of them, identifying herself with that group of black people she ended up among, despite the fact that they didn’t have that many things in common other than the skin color. Kevin tends to be more the observer kind, watching the events around him unfold with a detached eye, and it is only natural it should be so because, among other things, he is never in that close contact with the black people as Dana is, he is never “one of them” but “one of the others”. I found these considerations interesting, all the more so because I am not sure I would have thought of them on my own, had the author not had pointed them out.

What I liked least: Once again I am back to the first sentence. I hated hated hated the fact that Dana lost her arm like that — she was so courageous and tried to help everyone around her and to see such a thing happening to her was quite sad. My copy of the book had a commentary on this event, among other things, and whoever wrote it saw this as a strike of genius because it has lots of symbolic meanings (among other things Ruth Salvaggio seems to have said about it that the lost arm is the emblem of Dana’s disfigured heritage). While I do get (parts of) the symbolism the critics are talking about, I still can’t help feeling very sad for Dana’s irreparable loss.

Recommend it to? Anyone. I read this book in just one day, that’s how fascinated I was with it. Be warned though that there are some violent scenes inside.


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Popularity: 11% [?]

At last another book in the series that I can actually like! I started it with a “meh” attitude but I was soon won over by how fast paced everything around Percy was. Now, I do realize that all of the books in the series are just as fast paced as this one, but for some reason (Percy being less annoying?) this one I do like quite a bit. So much so that it is a serious contender for the “favorite book in the series” spot, and that’s saying something because I have really loved book one :)

The recurring characters are just the same as in the previous books. Percy is still Percy (and lucky me, he didn’t have to read many things so I didn’t have to hear about his dyslexia that many times), and I actually spent the whole book liking him (though I wouldn’t have expected it after the previous one). He seems to have matured a bit, and his choices are always the good ones (not necessarily correct, but good, as he is indeed the loyal person one would expect him to be after the previous book), so I ended up liking him just as much as I did at the beginning of the series. Speaking of which, my feelings for Annabeth seem to have reverted to those I had in the very first book too, namely most of the time I cannot stand her. She is clearly the smart girl of the series (Hermione, look out), and I would have expected her to be likable because of that, but she is way too careless with others’ feelings for that.

Nico di Angelo, the brother of Bianca is also back with a vengeance. I imagine him to be about twelve (I may be wrong), but I find him to be quite cool, what with his being always dressed in black and able to summon skeletons and such. A true son of Hades, more so than Percy is Poseidon’s son to me (well, Percy can do interesting things too, summon water out of nowhere, keep himself dry in the middle of a storm and so on, but what Nico can do is way way cooler). Also, there is a new character introduced, a young “mortal” girl named Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who just happens to be my favorite character in this book (her and Calypso). I do wonder what will become of her later on, as I am certain she’s been introduced in the book only as a possible love interest for Percy, because Annabeth is still pining for her traitorous Luke — but we’ll see :)

It probably shows that I had a lot of feelings invested in (almost) all of the characters, right? I did like and did root for most of them indeed, but that doesn’t mean that the characters are all that’s interesting in the book. On the contrary, the author seems to be really good at describing visuals (a thing that for some reason I don’t remember noticing until now), plus his imagination (places, events) leaves nothing to be desired. Oh, and the battle of the Labyrinth is great!

A quote I liked, a thing Poseidon tells Percy, when asked what he thinks about Antaeus sacrificing all sorts of creatures to him:

“Percy, lesser beings do many horrible things in the name of the gods. That does not mean we gods approve. The way our sons and daughters act in our names… well, it usually says more about them than it does about us.”

Thoughts on the ending: It’s a good prelude to book five, I would say. So here Percy is on the roof, when Nico appears all of the sudden and tells him, “Wait, I know how to beat Kronos, and this is the only way you’d stand a chance!”. So Percy invites him in and… ta-daaa! the book ends :)

What I liked most: I very much loved the visuals this book made me imagine: the cherry-colored cattle, the labyrinth, with its various everchanging rooms, the scene with the skeletons who fall apart when they are no longer needed, Kampe, who was half woman and half dragon and “around her waist, where the woman part met the dragon part, her skin bubbled and morphed, occasionally producing the heads of animals—a vicious wolf, a bear, a lion, as if she were wearing a belt of ever-changing creatures“, Briares, who had no less than one hundred arms and “his chest sprouted more arms than I could count, in rows, all around his body. The arms looked like normal arms, but there were so many of them, all tangled together, that his chest looked kind of like a forkful of spaghetti somebody had twirled together” and more. Speaking of Briares, try to imagine this particular scene for example:

“Briares wiped his nose with five or six hands. Several others were fidgeting with little pieces of metal and wood from a broken bed, the way Tyson always played with spare parts. It was amazing to watch. The hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They built a toy boat out of wood, then disassembled it just as fast. Other hands were scratching at the cement floor for no apparent reason. Others were playing rock, paper, scissors. A few others were making ducky and doggie shadow puppets against the wall.”

Isn’t it really cool?

What I liked least: First of all there’s my usual qualm about people substituting “hell” with “Hades” in day-to-day expressions (“all Hades broke loose”, “Hades if I know”) that are so automated I find it hard to believe whoever says them actually thinks of what they mean (so I have trouble imagining Percy thinking something along the lines of “and then, all hell broke loose — oh wait, there’s no hell, just Hades — and then, all Hades broke loose”). Also, I hated the way Annabeth kept calling Miss Dare “mortal”, with disdain, at every chance she got. As far as I noticed half-bloods can very well die too, so they are by no mean immortal and I hated Annabeth feeling so superior over what was actually nothing (yeah, and more than once too).

Recommend it to? I am not sure it shows in the review but I have really loved this book! As such, I dearly recommend it to everyone who has managed to read the previous three books :)

This book is a sequel to:
The Lightning Thief
The Sea of Monsters
The Titan’s Curse


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Popularity: 12% [?]

The book was, more than anything, a way for the reader to remember the previous volumes and their characters, because a lot of them put in an appearance for the great meeting that was to take place on Thursday. We have Justice Strauss from Book 1, Sir and Charles from The Miserable Mill, Principal Nero and two teachers from the Austere Academy, Hal from the Hostile Hospital, the three freaks from Caligari Carnival and Jerome Squalor from The Ersatz Elevator. It was nice seeing them all again, each with their own quirks and their own agenda, all the more so because some of them are on the good side and some of them are bad people, and it was interesting to see which was which.

Also, I was happy to get to know, at last, more details about what VFD actually means (the outline of the situation was also presented in the previous book, but somehow it all seemed a bit clearer in this one). VFD’s full name is The Volunteer Fire Department,and the organization used to be one where people around the world gathered in to share knowledge. Unfortunately there was a schism (a long time ago, when Kit Snicket was four), and the organization is now split in two: the noble people, putting out fires, and the villains, setting fire to things. I have to say that the world before the schism sounded idyllic to me (“Before the schism,” Dewey said, “V.F.D. was like a public library. Anyone could join us and have access to all of the information we’d acquired. Volunteers all over the globe were reading each other’s research, learning of each other’s observations, and borrowing each other’s books. For a while it seemed as if we might keep the whole world safe, secure, and smart.“) and I was quite sorry to see that it existed no more. But who knows, there is still one more book to go, perhaps it will all get better again at the end of the series (quite implausible as there are too many villains for anyone to be able to get them all, and put them behind bars or something, however I will keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best nevertheless).

An important theme of the book is that of moral relativism, as the children struggle to reconcile themselves with the idea that they were at times forced to do things that aren’t precisely laudable, and they wonder whether or not can they still be considered good people after that. They do conclude by saying they are probably “noble enough”, but nevertheless they continue to feel sorry and ashamed for some of the things they did in the past. Quite sad if we consider the fact that the three children are actually really good people who only did what they had to in one dire situation or another.

As usual (I almost forgot), a review would not be complete without the author’s warning at the beginning of the book:

[...]the book you are reading now is the perfect thing to drop into a pond. The ripples will spread across the surface of the pond and the world will change for the better, with one less dreadful story for people to read and one more secret hidden at the bottom of a pond, where most people never think of looking. The miserable tale of the Baudelaire orphans will be safe in the pond’s murky depths, and you will be happier not to read the grim story I have written[...]“

Thoughts on the ending: It is obvious that The End is very near. I wonder what will happen next. :) (and I am also looking forward to finding out what was so special about the sugarbowl hehe)

What I liked most: I was amused by all the descriptions of the Hotel Denouement. My favorite details were the fact that on the outside the hotel was painted in such a way as to look perfectly fine when reflected into the nearby pond (all the writing was backwards) and the fact that on the inside the whole hotel was organized after the Dewey Decimal System. :)

Also, another detail I found funny was the fact that the author once said that the denouement of a story “is often the second-to-last event, or the penultimate peril“. While I do not necessarily agree with the statement, it does match the fact that this is the penultimate book in the series, which makes it also the denouement of the story (while it doesn’t contain the actual denouement, it is clear that Mr. Snicket wanted the readers to believe it so). The fact that most of the book takes place at the Hotel Denouement (and there are three Denouement brothers in the cast of characters) only adds to the quirkiness of it all :)

Plus another quote I found funny: “I may have a handsome, youthful glow,” Olaf snarled, “but I wasn’t born yesterday! Ha!“.

What I liked least: show spoiler

Recommend it to? It’s no secret by now that I love this series, so I would recommend this book (but only after the previous ones have been read) to anyone else :)

This book is a sequel to:
The Bad Beginning
The Reptile Room
The Wide Window
The Miserable Mill
The Austere Academy
The Ersatz Elevator
The Vile Village
The Hostile Hospital
The Carnivorous Carnival
The Slippery Slope
The Grim Grotto

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