The Complete Wreck (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Books 1-13)

published	2006 by HarperCollins
binding	Hardcover
isbn	0061119067 (isbn13: 9780061119064)
description	Some boxes should never be opened. For the first time, the complete A Series of Unfortunate Events – including the highly feared #13: The End – is available in one awful package! ...more [close] Some boxes should never be opened. For the first time, the complete A Series of Unfortunate Events – including the highly feared #13: The End – is available in one awful package! We can't keep you from succumbing to this international bestselling phenomenon, but we can hide all thirteen books in a huge, elaborately illustrated, shrink–wrapped box, perfect for filling an empty shelf or deep hole. From The Bad Beginning to The End, this box set, adorned with Brett Helquist art from front to back, is the only choice for people who simply cannot get enough of a bad thing! Ages 10+
date added	02-04-07 edit book

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Scooter rated it:

12/20/07

bookshelves: childrens-books

In the final pages of The End, the recently-released final volume in A Series of Unfortunate Events, Klaus Baudelaire announces his intention to read the novels of P. G. Wodehouse. I like seeing a shout out to my favorite writer, and I could see how Plum’s influence is evident throughout the series. Both are farcical writers, and both rely more on the telling than the tale to entertain the reader. I have read that Wodehouse would labor over his prose, trying to pack a joke into every sentence:...more In the final pages of The End, the recently-released final volume in A Series of Unfortunate Events, Klaus Baudelaire announces his intention to read the novels of P. G. Wodehouse. I like seeing a shout out to my favorite writer, and I could see how Plum’s influence is evident throughout the series. Both are farcical writers, and both rely more on the telling than the tale to entertain the reader. I have read that Wodehouse would labor over his prose, trying to pack a joke into every sentence: he was reluctant to waste a sentence merely telling the readers what happened. Lemony Snicket, the (purported) author of this series, seems to have a similar tendancy, sometimes digressing for paragraphs or even pages to give readers a belabored and amusing analogy, an epic catalog of random items, an amusing definition, or another aside, to amuse and educate the readers. Indeed, one of his humorous refrains is to beg the readers to stop reading, to extend his sorrow and sympathy to those who insist on pressing on, and to foreshadow the coming events with a promise of more gloom and misery… a brilliant strategy for getting kids to read on.

Some might even say he tries too hard, but stripped of these exercises in style, the books really would be nothing more than a series of unfortunate events. The books are formulaic over the first ten volumes, only slightly changing form over the last few books to bring about a conclusion to the series. In the first volume, the Baudelaire children are orphaned, and nearly adopted by the loathesome Count Olaf. For the rest of the series, they find temporary homes (where they are often subject to tedious work and the company of selfish, stupid people) until Count Olaf appears and they have to flee again. Volume by volume, they learn bits and pieces of the back story which explains how their parents became endangered and clues as to where they might find help. All of this would be tiresome reading if it weren’t for the narrative intrustions and clever asides.

Though we know Violet is an inventor, that Klaus likes to read, and that the infant Sunny likes to cook, the characters can barely develop beyond the descriptions they’re given in chapter one of the first book, unless becoming increasingly exhausted and cynical count as character development. (Only Sunny really gets a chance to grow over the 13 volumes, becoming slightly more verbal as she becomes a toddler.)

Wodehouse is no less formulaic, though, and his characters are no more dynamic. Some authors merely use the story as a vehicle for literary flourish, like a jazz musician playing a pop standard.

Lemony Snicket himself, the narrator and pseudonymous author, is a minor character in the series, though his purpose for chronicling the adventures of the Baudelaire children and his role in the backstory is never clear. Rather, he sprinkles hints through asides and occasional dialogue among characters, and two companion volumes (the brilliantly titled Unauthorized Autobiography and The Beatrice Letters) which may or may not mean anything if painstakingly cataloged by a careful reader. Probably not… the final volume of the series reveals that even the most knowing and central characters of the backstory are confused about the details, and that every secret requires a dozen more to explain it.

Children will learn from this series. The book makes great use of words themselves, offering a dozen vocabulary builders in a volume with Snicket’s amusing definitions. They are also packed with trivia, literary allusions, and puns that kids will only somewhat absorb (I’m quite sure I missed a few myself.) Indeed, if there is a moral to the series at all, it is to champion knowledge itself — to suggest that children are better knowing about the real world and being prepared for it, rather than being sheltered from it. There is a scene in the final volume that captures this notion beautifully, with a striking and brilliant visual.

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The Complete Wreck (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Books 1-13)

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