Snicket the High Brow

I admire what Lemony Snicket has done in his "Series of Unfortunate Events". He developed a unique style and format for Kid Lit that incorporated humorous pessimism and an intrusive narrative voice into the standard serial cliffhanger genre. When I first encountered it, my reaction was, "Why didn't I think of that?" What I most like about his writing, though, is his evident love for words, and a determination to teach kids vocabulary through reading.

There is however, something not quite right in "Events." I've listened to the first book on tape, and browsed through a number of the others (one of my children is a fan). What I noticed is the tendancy to insert references to serious literature in the stories (Tolstoy, Melville, etc.). There's nothing wrong with that, many of them are so offhand, kids won't have any idea to what he is talking about. I can't be sure without reading all 2000 pages of the series, but I think this technique becomes more explicit and even troubling as the series progresses.

For instance, I stumbled on this in Book 12, "The Penultimate Peril":

Richard Wright, an American novelist of the realist school, asks a famous unfathomable question in his best-known novel, Native Son. "Who knows when some slight shock," he asks, "disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the skyscrapers of our cities toppling?"

He then goes on for an entire page to explicate this "unfathomable" quotation. These books, I have to remind you, are intended for readers age 9-12. Nine years old to twelve years old. Native Son deals with racism, murder, institutional injustice, sexual violence (allusions to), and is informed by the communist world view of its author. The quote is famous, but not as impenetrable as Snicket implies - it's simple Marxist apocalyptic wishful thinking.

Once again, Snicket is writing for children, ages nine through twelve.

Lest you think this an isolated example, I offer this bizarre passage from the Slippery Slope:

The writer who can most accurately and elegantly describe the path of the three orphans was an associate of mine who, like the man who wrote "The Road Less Traveled," is now dead. Before he died, however, he was widely regarded as a very good poet, although some people think his writings about religion were a little too mean-spirited. His name was Algernon Charles Swinburne.*

Many of you may not be familiar with the 19th century poet Swinburne who celebrated sadomasochism, lesbianism, and atheism in his work. Now my second born at least knows his name (or would if he were paying attention, which I know he wasn't).

I guess this is what happens when one becomes a best-selling children's author. Your editors no longer have any hold over you. In Snicket's case, you can see this when you glance at a shelf of the "Series", arranged in order - they grow more corpulent with each volume.

I think what is on display here is a person who really wants to be a college English professor, but wound up a writer of juvenile fiction. Or maybe he is a professor (that would explain the pen name and the funny sub rosa biographical bits).

* Those who have been reading my blog for a while might recognize a certain similarity between his style of writing and my own. Another reason I have can't condemn the man in toto. Also I must get in this dig - Because M. Scott Peck had not died yet when the Slippery Slope was written, he must be referring to Frost's The Road Not Taken. More evidence for substandard editing.