The Bad Beginning Book Review by a Child
| The Bad Offset past Lemony Snicket | |
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| Category: Confident Readers | |
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| Reviewer: Jill Irish potato | |
| Summary: Neither the well-chosen vocabulary nor the wonderfully dry out sense of humour in Lemony Snicket'south Bad Outset tin can brand up for its naked and mercenary ambition. If ever a volume was written every bit a money-spinner, then this is information technology. The Bad Beginning is a unsafe step towards the franchising of the books your children read and Bookbag can't recommend that, or it. It'south a nice idea, merely the eye to the main chance spoils it. | |
| Purchase? No | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 180 | Date: May 2003 |
| Publisher: Egmont Books Ltd | |
| ISBN: 1405208678 | |
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Violet, Klaus and their babe sister, Sunny Baudelaire are 3 very unlucky, very sad children. Their beloved parents take recently perished in a fire at their home. Not only have they lost their mother and father, only they have also lost all their possessions. The only things left to them are the dress they stand up in. Mr Poe, the asthmatic, bronchial executor of their parents' will tracks down a relative with whom they must live. Count Olaf is not a nice human being. Tall, thin, gaunt and distinctly suspicious, he does non care for the Baudelaire orphans well. They share a room with one bed, their clothes are dumped in a cardboard box and they must spend one-half the day doing chore after job afterward chore. It is articulate to the Baudelaires that Count Olaf has taken them in for only i reason: he hopes to become his hands on their fortune. With the assistance 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 programme
Ack. I very much wanted to love The Bad Beginning, simply I did not. It is the first in a series of gothic adventure books for children written past a shadowy figure known as Lemony Snicket. Lemony Snicket has spent years researching the fortunes of the Baudelaire children and it his "sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales". Lemony Snicket is the alter ego of Daniel Handler, San Francisco novelist and I get together that Handler cites people like Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey as influences. Frankly, I find that hubristic. Yes, at that place is Dahlesque dark humour in Handler's book, but this is generally affectation. The Bad Beginning is securely derivative but information technology is not derivative of either Dahl or Gorey. It reminds me far more of Blyton'south Underground 7 and Famous 5, of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and of that horrid footling dullard, Harry Potter. Information technology is an adventure story come mystery in which children are pitted against an archenemy and - later on drawing on hitherto undiscovered heroic characteristics - live to fight another twenty-four hour period. The gothic, night, scary, shivery bits are the book's window dressing, not its raison d'etre. As I finished reading The Bad Beginning, I felt overwhelmingly unsatisfied. I had expected much - critics I trust had enthused excitedly on the volume's release - but I had received trivial. The Bad Kickoff simply smacked to me of an endeavor at creating The Next Large Thing, a money-spinner to rival Harry Potter. I had visions of marketing departments, of films, of toy figures, of branded everythings. After I read, the film-of-the-book, starring Jim Carrey, was appear. Prescient? Moi?
The Bad Beginning is supposed to be night, scary and depressing. And indeed, Count Olaf is rather dreadful and so are his horrible partners in criminal offense - the homo with hooks for easily, the fat lady, the white-faced ladies. However, because these characters are such boringly - and very un-PC for those of y'all who care about that sort of thing, although I don't - unoriginal stereotypes they neglect to build much tension. Moreover, the resolution is deeply unsatisfactory. It is not dark or depressing at all - there is a happy denouement followed past a "buy the side by side book please" abstracted set-up for the take a chance to come. We might as well have watched an episode of Scooby Doo for all the surprises we got.
On a more than positive note, I have some praise for The Bad Beginning. Handler writes beautifully and with a very precise use of linguistic communication. There are authorial asides and in many of these he treats his young readers to an amusing definition of a word or a phrase and these demonstrate the wonderful possibilities of language in a very entertaining manner. At one point, the evil Count Olaf feigns regret at the way he has treated the Baudelaires and describes his behaviour equally standoffish. Here is what Handler has to say about that:
"The word 'standoffish' is a wonderful one, simply it does not describe Count Olaf's behaviour toward the children. It means 'reluctant to associate with others' and it might describe somebody who, during a political party, would stand up in a corner and non talk to anyone. It would Non describe somebody who provides one bed for 3 people to sleep in, forces them to exercise horrible chores, and strikes them beyond the face. There are many words for people similar that, but 'standoffish' is not 1 of them."
I love that dryness! The book is full of like and super asides. I similar the way Handler uses vocabulary to challenge but also to charm and brainwash. In that location is a adept strain of night, satirical humour and in that location are many "ooh" and "eek" moments. I cannot say that The Bad Beginning is not entertaining, for it is. I simply wish that its ii and two did not make merely four, simply five or six or vii. It is written well, merely information technology is formulaic and really no more than the sum of its parts. A great book is ever more than than the sum of its parts. Still, I am in my praising paragraph, so I should add that The Bad Get-go is presented wonderfully in dinky, mini hardbacks with a very gothic, Victorian feel. Brett Helquist's illustrations are merely perfect - small, crosshatched pencil sketches - very creepy and shivery.
Considering of the dry style, the asides and the challenging simply precise use of language, The Bad Beginning would exist suitable for reading aloud - and best if you army camp it up - and for a wide range of children to read solitary. It would fit nicely into the 8-12 subclass, with some leeway either side, I would say. I accept not read past this first in the Serial of Unfortunate Events. I found information technology too glib, as well superficial, too much with an eye to the primary chance.
Ultimately, The Bad Offset is an opportunity missed. It is soulless. And yes, I am aware that to call a gothic book soulless is an irony in itself. I similar my books to speak with existent heart - even a black heart - and The Bad Showtime seems to me to be more an practise in glib vocabulary pyrotechnics than a existent desire to tell a story. It is a shame, but this is a sadly hollow volume. It is immensely readable, amusing, entertaining, merely information technology is all so... mercenary. The Bad Kickoff is - in a deliberate platitude - a disappointing triumph of style over substance. If you really want to buy in to the corporatisation of the books your children read, then address your browser to www.lemonysnicket.com to find out more than.
You lot will forgive me if I don't follow yous.
We also accept a review of The Bad Mood and the Stick by Lemony Snicket and Matthew Forsythe.
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soccerlova said:
its an awesome series
Alice Wickham said:
Absolutely, totally and utterly concur with this review, Lemony Snicket is an irritating phoney imho.
Source: http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/The_Bad_Beginning_by_Lemony_Snicket
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