Lemony Snickets Biography
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Free Encyclopedia.”
Lemony Snicket is the fictional author and
narrator of the A Series of Unfortunate Events books, actually written
by Daniel Handler. Handler has also written two other stories under this
pen-name, a children's comic and a holiday short story. Lemony Snicket
is "proudly Jewish", as represented in This News Article
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details
follow.
Snicket often writes comments of his own
life in the books, mostly relating the fact he is in peril or on the
run. He is in love with a mysterious woman Beatrice, of whom there is
very little further evidence. Both Beatrice and Snicket served at one
time as members of V.F.D. Since her untimely death in unknown (to the
reader) circumstances, he dedicates all the books to her with statements
such as "When we were together, I felt breathless. Now you are." This
sort of sarcastic humour is his normal writing style throughout the
books. On The Family Tree in pages 196 and 197 of Lemony Snicket: An
Unauthorized Autobiography, it says his grandfathers name is Chas
Snicket. He has two siblings, a brother, Jacques Snicket, who dies in
The Vile Village, and a sister, Kit Snicket, who is last seen taking
Violet, Klaus and Sunny away in a black cab at the end of book the
eleventh book, The Grim Grotto).
Handler originally came up with "Lemony
Snicket" as a pseudonym to use rather than placing his real name on the
mailing lists of several right-wing organizations he was researching for
one of his novels. It became something of an in-joke with his friends,
who were known to order pizzas under the name. When he found himself
writing a series of children's books, he decided to use the Snicket name
to add an air of mystery to proceedings; Lemony Snicket is an elusive
figure. Handler has a considerable amount of fun with the Snicket
character in the author biography sections of the books, in a page at
the end of every book where Snicket makes complicated arrangements for
the delivery of the manuscript of the next book to his publisher, on the
Lemony Snicket website and in Snicket's Unauthorized Autobiography (The
U.S. hardcover edition of this book has a reversible dust jacket so that
it can be "disguised" as The Luckiest Kids in the World Book 1!: The
Pony Party by "Loney M. Setnick," which is an anagram of "Lemony
Snicket.").
He is described, among other things, as
having been born beside the sea and now living underneath it, as a
distinguished scholar, and as having been stripped of the Honorable
Mention and the Grey Ribbon. Photographs of Snicket are shown, but are
always taken from behind, except that in The Unauthorized Autobiography
there is a photograph of the crew of a ship (whose names all seem to be
those of famous authors), with a caption indicating that Snicket is in
the photo, but the face of the sailor said to be Snicket has been
mysteriously torn from the photograph. He sometimes claims to be writing
the book in various perilous situations, such as an Italian restaurant
which is slowly filling with water.
Additionally, about once per book, Snicket
provides the reader with a glimpse of his life. We know that he:
-
plays the accordion
-
has been chased by an angry mob for 16
miles
-
had an unhappy love affair with a woman
called Beatrice, who even wrote a book (200 pages) explaining why it
was impossible for her to marry him
-
attended a costume ball dressed as a
bullfighter, to gain access to his beloved Beatrice, who was dressed
as a dragonfly
-
once had a sword-fight with a
television repairman
-
once had a curse put on him by a
fortune-teller after he accidentally broke her crystal ball after
being tripped by a policeman
-
learned how to make a salad from his
sister
-
wrote the books because of Beatrice's
death
-
was once a member of the Queequeg
-
To fill time at the end of the first
audio book, read by Tim Curry, there is an interview which is
supposed to be with "Mr. Snicket" but apparently he is not home, and
the interview proceeds with "Mr. Handler," who confuses himself with
his "employer" throughout the interview. To avoid answering any
tough questions, Handler invokes a psychological device by which the
response to a query can be so horrible that it seems to the listener
as if it was not given at all.
A commentary track entitled "Brad
Silberling and the real Lemony Snicket Commentary" was recorded for the
DVD released on 26 April 2005. Brad Silberling is the movie's director,
and the "real Lemony Snicket" joke is a jibe aimed at Jude Law,
considered the "Imposter Lemony Snicket."
Lemony Snicket, as distinct from Handler,
has also written two non-Unfortunate-Events-related works. The first was
the opening story of It Was a Dark and Silly Night, a volume of Art
Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly's Little Lit series. The story begins "In
this case, SILLY stands for Slightly Intelligent, Largely Laconic
Yeti..." The second was a short story published in the USA Weekend
magazine (a US newspaper supplement), dated December 10-12, 2004. This
was a holiday story entitled "The Lump of Coal," and included two
full-color illustrations by Brett Helquist (who has also illustrated all
of the books in the Series of Unfortunate Events to date).
****
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URL of Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemony_Snickets
Date Article Copied:
September 15, 2005
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