A Year of Unfortunate Events — Part the Tenth: The Far Side of the Beatrice

Happy 13th of the month, readers (both hypothetical and otherwise)! You know what that means: it's
time for me to revisit another entry in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events!

Sticking with that intro?

Yes.

All right.

SPOILERS ahoy!

The last couple entries have been a bit of a roller coaster. How do you think this one will turn out?

Not sure. Anyway, enough chitchat, let's get down to the business of discussing. . .

Book the Tenth: The Slippery Slope

Well, what do you remember about this book?

At first I thought I didn't remember anything, but then I said, "Wait a minute! Isn't this the book where the Baudelaires come across Quigley Quagmire?"

You mean the brother of Duncan and Isadora Quagmire, believed to have died in a fire?

The very same.

Well, is this that book?

Maybe.

You're the worst, Lucas.

We'll just see if I'm right. If I am that means we'll also see the destroyed wreckage of Hector's self-sustaining hot-air mobile home.

Okay, so you've re-read it, time to put up or shut up: were you right?

Um, sort of, let's dive in. So, you may recall that The Carnivorous Carnival ended with Klaus, 13, and Violet, 14, careening down a mountain road in a caravan while Sunny, 1, was in the clutches of Olaf, et al.

I do recall that.

Well, this book picks up from there. With Violet improvising a braking mechanism from the various items in the caravan (specifically a drag chute made of hammocks and a mixture of viscous foodstuffs poured onto the axles). This stops the caravan in the TA-DA! nick of time and allows the older Baudelaires a chance to clear out anything useful (mainly clothing layers, but also a ukulele) before it eventually slips into a crevasse. Either way they begin following the Stricken Stream in order to find the Valley of the Four Drafts.

The valley where they hope to find a V.F.D. headquarters?

That's right. Only the stricken stream seems unusually dark, and all the fish are coughing. But our heroes don't have time to think about the implications of that, because they're beset by snow gnats.

Snow gnats?

That's right, they're tiny biting insects that are A) endemic to the Mortmain Mountains, and 2) slightly poisonous. Fortunately, they're able to bundle up under clothing and find shelter in a nearby cave. Unfortunately, they're greeted by a familiar voice crying out, "Hey you cakesniffers!"

Carmelita Spats! The bully from The Austere Academy!

Yep! Meanwhile, Olaf has driven to the peak of Mount Fraught, where he intends to camp out with Esmé Squalor, the hook-handed man, the powder-faced women, Colette, Kevin, and Hugo. Oh, and Sunny, who he forces to set up camp and then sleep in a covered casserole dish.

I sense a repeat of the Olaf thinks he's carrying out a horrific act of child abuse when he's really abusing an inanimate object shenanigans from The Austere Academy is immanent.

It may well be, but in the meantime, Olaf also makes Sunny cook for everyone even though he didn't really bring much in the way of food or fire starting equipment.

Well, at least there's a casserole dish.

Back in the cave, Klaus and Violet are relieved to find that Carmelita Spats is in the mountains with her Snow Scout troop, and Snow Scouts are nothing if not accommodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered. At least according to the Alphabet Pledge written by their scout-leader, and Carmelita's uncle, Bruce.

Why does this relieve the Baudelaires?

Oh! Because the Snow Scouts are all wearing fencing masks and offer them to the Baudelaires, allowing them to both hide their faces and protect them from snow gnats. However, among the Snow Scouts is another young person who seems to have figured out who the Baudelaires are and speaks to them in code, using multiple phrases with the initials V.F.D. So, after everyone else is asleep, the Baudelaire's confront this person who leads them away from the cave (which once housed Volunteer Feline Detectives) via a Veritcal Flame Diversion shaft. This leads them to the Vernacularly Fastened Door, which will open up to the V.F.D. headquarters. Hold up. Before we go any further, let's check in with Sunny.

Okay.

Turns out that Olaf dragged everyone out to the Mortmain Mountains in order to meet up with some other V.F.D. members on his side of the schism (the one that starts fires). They're known only as the Man with a Beard but no Hair, and the Woman with Hair but no Beard. And not only are they so menacing that even Olaf is afraid of them, they also announce that they've burned down the V.F.D. headquarters in the valley below Mount Fraught. The only thing they saved was the Snicket File and other evidence of Olaf's crimes (excluding the Sugar Bowl), which they agree to destroy, so long as Olaf goes over the contents with them.

Well, that's convenient.

It turns out that they're there for a more specific purpose, but that comes up later. Besides, it's time to go back to Violet, Klaus, and the stranger who is—

Quigley Quagmire!

Yes. And he tells them that V.F.D. stands for—

Volunteer Fire Department!

Well, he thinks so and he's travelled to the Valley of the Four Drafts to find out. See, he's a cartographer. In any case, during the Quagmire fire, his mother hid him in a bolt hole that was connected via tunnel to Montgomery Montgomery's greenhouse where he met Jacques Snicket. Turns out that Jacques was following the Baudelaires while compiling the Snicket File. In any case, Quigley's journey has been similar to the Baudelaire's own, and he's relieved to find out that his siblings are probably safe. He (and the Baudelaires) are less relieved when they discover that the V.F.D. headquarters has been destroyed. Well, except for a few things. Mostly Verdant Flammable Devices (which the reader will recognize as the item presented to Esmé as cigarettes (currently in)) and the refrigerator. That's when they notice the smoke from the peak of Mount Fraught (Sunny is making Lox with the discarded "cigarette"), and decide that Quigley and Violet will climb up a frozen waterfall to surveil the peak while Klaus remains behind to see if he can find any clues that might show them what to do next.

Wait, how do they climb a frozen waterfall?

By tying forks to their shoes with ukulele strings.

I'm sorry I asked.

Anyhow, along the way, Violet and Quigley bond over their shared struggles, and Snicket allows them a few brief moments of privacy. By the time they reach the top, Sunny has noticed them and manages to tell them, using both her own gibberish and a few words of English, that she's going to stay at the top and spy on Olaf and the rest. Meanwhile, Violet and Quigley climb back down to find that Klaus has uncovered the secret of the miscellaneous objects left behind in the fridge. A sort of code known as Verbal Fridge Dialogue. Turns out that any Volunteer who opens that fridge and sees Very Fresh Dill will know that there's some sort of code at work. In any case, all they can ascertain is that there's a forthcoming meeting at the Last Safe Place. They just don't know where that is.

They also need to get Sunny back.

They also need to get Sunny back. But they've got an idea. See, they could build a tiger trap.

Huh?

You know, a tiger trap, a covered pit.

Oh. . . Why would they do that?

Well, they have some Verdant Flammable Devices, which Esmé thinks are cigarettes, which you'll recall are in. They want to lure Esmé into the tiger trap so they can arrange a prisoner exchange for Sunny.

That's morally questionable.

It is. Violet doesn't think they should do it. However, majority rules, so they dig a pit, and loosely cover it. Meanwhile, back on the peak, Sunny overhears that the Last Safe Place is at the Hotel Denouement.

You've gotta be kidding.

I am not. Anyway, with that information she's eager to get back to her siblings, who have now lighted a Verdant Flammable Device back in the Valley of the Four Drafts. Olaf wants Sunny to go get them.

Hey, that would spare them the necessity of kidnapping someone.

It would, if Esmé didn't insist on toboggan-ing down the frozen waterfall herself. So, Sunny hides a roughly Sunny-sized eggplant in the casserole dish. Meanwhile—

You're saying that a lot.

I know. In the valley, Quigley, Violet, and Klaus decide that they can't just let Esmé fall into a trap and reveal their ruse. They negotiate a compromise and end up carrying Esmé and her toboggan back up the somewhat weakened Waterfall. This is where the Olaf-mistakes-an-inanimate-object-for-Sunny shenanigans pop up, btw. Anyway, the end result of all that business is that the Baudelaires are reunited, and the powder-faced women decide that they've had enough of Olaf's attempted child murder and start walking down the mountain. However, that's when the Snow Scouts, ready to crown Carmelita the False Spring Queen reach the summit.

Wait, what does this have to do with any of that?

Oh, right. So, the Man with a Beard but No Hair and the Woman with Hair but No Beard are planning to take recruits for the fire-starting side of the schism. That is to say, the V.F.D. members who commit arson in order to steal the inherited wealth of orphans. Their plan is to abduct the Snow Scouts and burn down their parents houses. And to burn down the Hotel Denouement, where the fire-fighting V.F.D. members will be meeting soon. They accomplish this by using trained eagles to ensnare the Snow Scouts in a giant net, of course.

Of course.

And Olaf and Esmé take on Carmelita as their protégé. Meanwhile, the Baudelaires and Quigley attempt to make good their escape on the toboggan. Unfortunately, the frozen waterfall shatters and the children are all swept away down the stricken stream. Fortunately, the Baudelaires are able to cling together.

But what about Quigley?

He gets carried away down a tributary.  And that's where the story cuts out. So, I was wrong about the wreckage of the self-sustaining hot-air mobile home. I'm pretty sure that will show up at some point.

This is getting awfully convoluted.

It is.

All right, so what's the take on this one?

Umm, it's to see that Snicket is being less coy. I mean, there was never really any doubt that Olaf was involved in the Baudelaire mansion fire. It was basically confirmed by the revelation of the tunnel linking it to 667 Dark Ave. And sharp readers will already have figured out that that V.F.D. stands for Volunteer Fire Department in the previous book at the latest. What's been really frustrating is that it feels like these answers have been kept away from the protagonists artificially.

Lucas, these books are fiction, everything about them is artificial.

I know that, it's just that this is one of those times when the books' conceit is getting in the way of their story-telling. The whole thirteen books with thirteen chapters each thing means that these later entries feel stretched out. This book is more than twice as long as the first one was, and while it certainly is more thematically dense and there is more story going on, I am starting to feel a little burnt out.

Enough that you'll give up on the feature?

No, but enough that I've really started to get annoyed when it becomes clear that the rest of a chapter will be devoted to one of Lemony Snicket's digressions rather than the part of the story at hand. For example, the end of Chapter Five where Snicket repeatedly writes: "The Baudelaires' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write 'The  Baudelaires' . . ." (you get the idea) enough times that he thinks its' safe to hide a letter to his sister at the end of the chapter (you know because the reader will have skipped to the end of the chapter).

That's the same as the "page of evers."

It is, but Snicket doesn't really commit to it. In fact, it goes on for less than a paragraph. And while I know that I just complained about the books getting too long, if you're going to try and repeat something like the "page of evers" stunt, you really have to go all in. But even if he had, the joke is still past its peak freshness. I guess that's the real issue here, Snicket is running out of ways to keep the writing fresh. And that works for the idea of these books as a parody of children's book series, but at the same time it's also starting to work to the detriment of the actual story.

So, speaking of the actual story. . .

For all that I'm complaining about it, this book still had me hooked. Sure, the stylistic tics are getting out of hand, but splitting up the Baudelaires worked quite well to maintain tension throughout the story. It increases the stakes, and, sure, it might be obvious that they'd be reunited by the end of the series (Snicket's not going to change the status quo that drastically), it also frees up Violet and Klaus to be involved in riskier activities like scaling mountains and fleeing snow gnats without having to lug a baby around. I'm not sure if Snicket had this in mind when he split them up in The Carnivorous Carnival, but it was a smart move logistically. As was the appearance of Quigley.

But wasn't it a tad predictable that he and the Baudelaires are separated by the end of the book?

Oh, definitely. But it was nice to temporarily have someone around who could answer some of the Baudelaires' questions. And giving Violet a romantic interest does make sense given that the characters are teens. But Snicket can't let those kids be too happy or have allies that are actually helpful, so Quigley has to get washed down the wrong stream before he has a chance to have too much of an impact on the series.  Hmm. I feel like I'm being really negative about a book that I enjoyed reading.

It's possible to enjoy something but still notice the problems with it.

That's true. In any case, this one had some good stuff and some bad stuff.

Is that it?

That's it. See you next month for The Grim Grotto.

Links:

The Gothic Archies' "How Do You Slow This Thing Down," accompanied the audiobook version. It's pretty bland.