 Word On Books
with Jeremy Fenton
The Hostile Hospital
By Lemony Snicket, Published by HarperCollins
 Imagine a series of books for young people that told of the adventures of three children whose parents were killed in a mysterious house fire. Books that defy all the modern conventions of story telling for children by dwelling on things like death and a world filled with bad people, that are written by a 'creepy' older man who has a penchant for always looking on the dark side of life, and that have no happy ending, ever.
Surely a recipe for a small press run (and an outcry from 'concerned' parents!).
Imagine no more. Lemony Snicket lives and writes with his eight books in the Unfortunate Events series.
Those who have discovered the bizarre and grimly hilarious world of Snicket are not complaining though. Quite the contrary, Snicket's books are slowly (mostly by word of mouth) infiltrating the reading world's consciousness.
The Hostile Hospital builds on the other seven books in the series that follows the adventures of the Baudelaire children on their journey through some of life's more unpleasant places (they've also been to the Miserable Mill, the Austere Academy and the Vile Village in previous books).
Despite it generally being good advice never to judge a book by its cover, if you were to do so with Lemony Snicket's works you would not be disappointed. Beautifully decorated hard covers grace what are in many ways entertainingly ungraceful works.
One of the great things about Snicket's books (and the same is true of the Hobbit and Narnia books et al) is the world that surrounds them. Every part of the book's presentation builds on the idea of the darkly enigmatic author behind the scenes, in such a way that even the increasingly morbid dedications to an unknown girl called Beatrice become a part of the overall tone and myth of the author and series.
'For Beatrice - Summer without you is as cold as winter. Winter without you is even colder.'
And what kind of a book begins with warning that, really, people should read no further?
I have it on good word that despite being written for children, Snicket's books are actually also being read by adults. Certainly, like all good universal fiction, they are written for several layers of understanding (it's not long into The Hostile Hospital before very sly references to the likes of JD Salinger appear).
Unsurprisingly Lemony Snicket has another name (and another life as a real 'adult' novelist). Danial Handler is the author of The Basic Eight and Watch Your Mouth and currently describes himself as Lemony Snicket's 'public representative'.
Wonderfully offbeat (if disturbing) children's literature inside and out.
www.wordonbooks.com
|
