A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Eleventh

As informative as the previous story, The Slippery Slope was, this is more so. And far, far more intense.

The elder Baudelaire orphans have rescued their younger sister and have also made a desperate dash off the Mortmain Mountains and onto a frozen stream that runs to the sea. When they’re taken aboard a submarine and plunged into the murky depths with the crew, they’re taken away from sunshine and the open air for the duration of the book.

Conversation takes over this story, much like the spores of a dangerous mushroom might take over the lungs of some unfortunate child. We learn a whole lot more about the mysterious world of the Baudelairs, V.F.D., and the schism that’s pitted the wicked against the noble.

What’s more, we gain serious insight into the background of Count Olaf’s own most-trusted henchman, Hookie or The Hook-handed Man. Whether the author had this backstory in mind when he began writing or not is of no concern. It works, and it adds a number of pleasant layers to this inventive, quickening story.

It is, in fact, the Hook-handed Man who provides the most interesting quote of the entire series (at least in my opinion). In arguing with the Baudelair orphans about the schism, they hit upon the question of nobility: how can they know for sure that one side is purely noble while the other is purely wicked? The Hook-handed Man, after all, found peace and belonging within Count Olaf’s troupe. The murder, mayhem, and arson that eventually became routine within the group wasn’t ever really a big part of it but was rather something simply added along the way. He says:

“People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”

This food-for-thought comment may have passed unnoticed by many a reader, but I view it as a lynchpin to the entire series. Is the world—that of the book or otherwise—really so black and white as to give us purely “good guys” and “bad guys”? Apart from religious thought, no! To paraphrase Paul, “There is none noble, no not one. There is none that understands. There is none that seeks after good” (Rom 3:10-11).

Of course, I am no relativist. I do believe in absolute truth. I do believe in morality: good and evil, black and white. Yet I also know from the Bible (and from experience) that even my best behavior (my own righteousness) is nothing but filthy rags when all’s said and done. My best is always tainted with my worst, just as the most wicked in this world might have some redeemable quality (or at least the possibility of redemption).

These are deep thoughts to be found in a comedic book for youth, but I’d say that comedy in this eleventh installment is far from the author’s mind. When Sunny catches the spores of the deadly fungus, Meducoid mycelium, for example, she’s to die within the hour. She remains in this terrible, deadly, coughing state multiple chapters on end! It’s a depressing, suspenseful, not-at-all-humorous book…yet we loved it. It just goes to show you that once the hooks of a good series are in you, it’s pretty hard to give up on it, even when you probably should.

Just two books left in the series now! The plot has thickened so much that we’ll probably choke on it, but onward we press. Can’t wait to find out how it all ends.

©2021 E.T.

Read More in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket:

1. A Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (1999)
2. The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket (1999)
3. The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket (2000)
4. The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket (2000)
5. The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket (2000)
6. The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket (2001)
7. The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket (2001)
8. The Hostile Hotel by Lemony Snicket (2001)
9. The Carnivorous Carnival by Lemony Snicket (2002)
10. The Slipper Slope by Lemony Snicket (2003)
11. The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket (2004)
12. The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket (2005)
13. The End by Lemony Snicket (2006)