Listening to the audio book of Lemony Snicket’s The Reptile Room was a mixed experience. On one hand, there really isn’t much plot, and what plot there is you can usually see coming pretty far in advance—a serious problem in the slow-moving audio format. On the other, Tim Curry was a brilliant choice as a reader, and it’s great fun listening to him portray “Lemony Snicket” (one of the best psuedonyms ever, surely). And it’s not as though there are many opportunities to hear Tim Curry say, “Here, snakey, snakey . . . “
I begin to suspect that I just may not have the patience for audio books.
As far as the story itself, there’s no question about it being part of “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” The violence gets stepped up a notch, and there’s a murder, though Snicket warns his readers well in advance. It’s a strange little series, and though it has fabulously skewed inventiveness, a great narrative voice, and non-annoying plucky children, I’m not sure that I can keep reading about these Unfortunate Events without feeling uncomfortably like I’m ghoulishly staring at a car wreck. Perhaps I’ll wait until the last one is out and see if there’s a semblance of a happy ending (the series is currently projected to be thirteen books); at the very least, I’ll space out any further reading or listening.
Can someone please explain to me what a Lemony Snicket is? I’ve heard this bantied about, and I’m completely lost.
I link to the author’s site in a post below; here’s the link again: http://www.lemonysnicket.com/.
He’s the pseudonymous author of this series of YA books, “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” which has become very popular.