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Fwd: I'll bet Vladimir Nabokov never got a fan letter that ...
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EDNOTE. Lemony Snicket (a.k.a. David HANDLER) IS A FORMER STUDENT OF pRISCILLA
Meyer, current President of the International VN Society. He often works VN
refs into his popular novels.
-----------------------------------------------
----- Forwarded message from spklein52@hotmail.com -----
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 00:54:49 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: SPKlein52@HotMail.com
Subject: I'll bet Vladimir Nabokov never got a fan letter that ...
To: spklein52@hotmail.com
[1] http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6039687/site/newsweek/[2] Fame and
Misfortune
Newsweek, NY - 1 hour ago
... that I made up. That is a rare pleasure. I'll bet VLADIMIR
NABOKOV never got a fan letter that closed with five exclamation
points.
MSNBC.COM
-----------------------------------------
Fame and Misfortune
KIDS\' AUTHOR LEMONY SNICKET TAKES ON NEWSWEEKNewsweek International
Sept. 27 issue - You might feel sorrier for the orphaned Baudelaire
siblingsViolet, Klaus and Sunnyif only they weren't so popular. But
to date the 10 volumes of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony
Snicket (a.k.a. Daniel Handler, 34), in which the Baudelaires are
forever fighting the evil Count Olaf's attempts to steal their
fortune, have sold 25 million copies since the series began in 1999.
In the 11th installment, "The Grim Grotto," the Baudelaires find
shelter aboard the creaky submarine Queequeg (commanded by the kindly
but garrulous Captain Widdershins,) barely survive a caveful of
poisonous mushrooms and, of course, fend off Count Olaf.
MALCOLM JONES: I\'VE GOT GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS. WHICH DO YOU WANT
FIRST?
DANIEL HANDLER: I'll take the bad news.
I'll say right up front that I didn't like Captain Widdershins. He
bored me. He annoyed me. And while I realize that all the adults in
this series are supposed to be hapless and feckless and unhelpful--
Or evil. Don't forget evil.
OR EVIL. EVEN SO, HE WAS ONE THAT I REALLY HAD NO USE FOR.
You must've been overjoyed, then, to find him missing halfway through
the book.
YES! AND COUNT OLAF\'S NEW LAUGHING HABIT ANNOYED ME, TOO.
I'd have to agree with you there. There's nothing more annoying than
someone who's developed a new laugh.
The largest criticism I have is that the book just seemed to go on
and on. It meandered. And maybe that's a fault of the fact that it's
the 11th in a series. And in a series there's a certain formula. You
can tinker with it, but at the end of the day you've got these three
kids versus this evil guy--
Certainly.
I don't want to say the series is running out of gas, because the
10th installment was one of my favorites. And there were certainly
parts of this story that I enjoyed, particularly those poison
mushrooms.
One doesn't often meet a literary critic who expresses an enthusiasm
for mushrooms. Did you take any this afternoon?
Never when I'm working.
So far I don't have much in the way of rebuttal. The captain is
indeed on the inept side. The villain is indeed on the irritating
side.
Then let me get to the good stuff, and maybe you'll disagree with
that.
I'm sure I will.
One of the things I like most about the books is that you don't try
to give us character development over the course of the series. We
admire the Baudelaires. They're brave, loyal to each other and
likable. But we don't have to endure a lot of drivel about their
interior lives.
It's interesting to me to keep the Baudelaires as heroes in which
every reader could imagine themselves. One way to do that is to keep
them fairly blank. Working from a tradition of Gothic storytelling, I
find that the external drama and melodrama are just more interesting
than interior landscape.
Your books operate on two levels. There's lots of adventure for
young readers. And then there are loads of literary "in" jokes that
only adults will catch. But where you really give both parents and
kids a break is in your effort to avoid teaching moral lessons.
There's nothing even faintly medicinal about your stories.
All books that are well written and well constructed and well
thought-out wind up being moral books. So if you want your children
to have proper morality, you just need to seek the best in
literature. It's never occurred to me to wonder if I'm teaching some
unsound lesson, because I just think those become unsound books. I do
try not to write unsound books, and I don't think I have. But I'm
young yet.
It is a constant on sitcoms for childrenand in quite a few
children's books, including yoursthat adults are always stupid,
teachers are always buffoons, parents are always clods. Speaking as a
parent and an adult, I do wish just occasionally that we could meet a
grown-up in these stories who is not only older but wiser as well.
I wish it myself when I walk around this planet. What is the number
of really intelligent, imaginative, competent people? It's a very
small number. And I'm not one of those romantic people who think that
children are inherently more honest or in some way superior to the
adult world. I don't think the children the Baudelaires meet are
always good. It just reflects the level of intelligence and
imagination one finds here in the world, which to my mind is a sad
state of affairs.
I always think children's book authors are the luckiest writers in
the world. Because no one takes books as seriously as a child does.
When you love something as a child, you _really _love it.
I honestly believe that that's a fairly sacred relationship between
someone who's young and a book they adore. It's emotionally
overwhelming that there are quite a few people out there who have
relationships like that with books that I made up. That is a rare
pleasure. I'll bet Vladimir Nabokov never got a fan letter that
closed with five exclamation points._Newsweek_
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6039687/site/newsweek/[3]
Links:
------
[1] http://msnbc.msn.com/
[2] http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6039687/site/newsweek/
[3] http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6039687/site/newsweek/
----- End forwarded message -----
Meyer, current President of the International VN Society. He often works VN
refs into his popular novels.
-----------------------------------------------
----- Forwarded message from spklein52@hotmail.com -----
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 00:54:49 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: SPKlein52@HotMail.com
Subject: I'll bet Vladimir Nabokov never got a fan letter that ...
To: spklein52@hotmail.com
[1] http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6039687/site/newsweek/[2] Fame and
Misfortune
Newsweek, NY - 1 hour ago
... that I made up. That is a rare pleasure. I'll bet VLADIMIR
NABOKOV never got a fan letter that closed with five exclamation
points.
MSNBC.COM
-----------------------------------------
Fame and Misfortune
KIDS\' AUTHOR LEMONY SNICKET TAKES ON NEWSWEEKNewsweek International
Sept. 27 issue - You might feel sorrier for the orphaned Baudelaire
siblingsViolet, Klaus and Sunnyif only they weren't so popular. But
to date the 10 volumes of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony
Snicket (a.k.a. Daniel Handler, 34), in which the Baudelaires are
forever fighting the evil Count Olaf's attempts to steal their
fortune, have sold 25 million copies since the series began in 1999.
In the 11th installment, "The Grim Grotto," the Baudelaires find
shelter aboard the creaky submarine Queequeg (commanded by the kindly
but garrulous Captain Widdershins,) barely survive a caveful of
poisonous mushrooms and, of course, fend off Count Olaf.
MALCOLM JONES: I\'VE GOT GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS. WHICH DO YOU WANT
FIRST?
DANIEL HANDLER: I'll take the bad news.
I'll say right up front that I didn't like Captain Widdershins. He
bored me. He annoyed me. And while I realize that all the adults in
this series are supposed to be hapless and feckless and unhelpful--
Or evil. Don't forget evil.
OR EVIL. EVEN SO, HE WAS ONE THAT I REALLY HAD NO USE FOR.
You must've been overjoyed, then, to find him missing halfway through
the book.
YES! AND COUNT OLAF\'S NEW LAUGHING HABIT ANNOYED ME, TOO.
I'd have to agree with you there. There's nothing more annoying than
someone who's developed a new laugh.
The largest criticism I have is that the book just seemed to go on
and on. It meandered. And maybe that's a fault of the fact that it's
the 11th in a series. And in a series there's a certain formula. You
can tinker with it, but at the end of the day you've got these three
kids versus this evil guy--
Certainly.
I don't want to say the series is running out of gas, because the
10th installment was one of my favorites. And there were certainly
parts of this story that I enjoyed, particularly those poison
mushrooms.
One doesn't often meet a literary critic who expresses an enthusiasm
for mushrooms. Did you take any this afternoon?
Never when I'm working.
So far I don't have much in the way of rebuttal. The captain is
indeed on the inept side. The villain is indeed on the irritating
side.
Then let me get to the good stuff, and maybe you'll disagree with
that.
I'm sure I will.
One of the things I like most about the books is that you don't try
to give us character development over the course of the series. We
admire the Baudelaires. They're brave, loyal to each other and
likable. But we don't have to endure a lot of drivel about their
interior lives.
It's interesting to me to keep the Baudelaires as heroes in which
every reader could imagine themselves. One way to do that is to keep
them fairly blank. Working from a tradition of Gothic storytelling, I
find that the external drama and melodrama are just more interesting
than interior landscape.
Your books operate on two levels. There's lots of adventure for
young readers. And then there are loads of literary "in" jokes that
only adults will catch. But where you really give both parents and
kids a break is in your effort to avoid teaching moral lessons.
There's nothing even faintly medicinal about your stories.
All books that are well written and well constructed and well
thought-out wind up being moral books. So if you want your children
to have proper morality, you just need to seek the best in
literature. It's never occurred to me to wonder if I'm teaching some
unsound lesson, because I just think those become unsound books. I do
try not to write unsound books, and I don't think I have. But I'm
young yet.
It is a constant on sitcoms for childrenand in quite a few
children's books, including yoursthat adults are always stupid,
teachers are always buffoons, parents are always clods. Speaking as a
parent and an adult, I do wish just occasionally that we could meet a
grown-up in these stories who is not only older but wiser as well.
I wish it myself when I walk around this planet. What is the number
of really intelligent, imaginative, competent people? It's a very
small number. And I'm not one of those romantic people who think that
children are inherently more honest or in some way superior to the
adult world. I don't think the children the Baudelaires meet are
always good. It just reflects the level of intelligence and
imagination one finds here in the world, which to my mind is a sad
state of affairs.
I always think children's book authors are the luckiest writers in
the world. Because no one takes books as seriously as a child does.
When you love something as a child, you _really _love it.
I honestly believe that that's a fairly sacred relationship between
someone who's young and a book they adore. It's emotionally
overwhelming that there are quite a few people out there who have
relationships like that with books that I made up. That is a rare
pleasure. I'll bet Vladimir Nabokov never got a fan letter that
closed with five exclamation points._Newsweek_
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6039687/site/newsweek/[3]
Links:
------
[1] http://msnbc.msn.com/
[2] http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6039687/site/newsweek/
[3] http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6039687/site/newsweek/
----- End forwarded message -----