The eleventh book in A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Grim Grotto, takes place almost entirely underwater and makes a concerted effort to muddy the waters of the series, a phrase which here means “tries to suggest that people are neither essentially noble nor essentially villainous.” I’m not sure how effective this is. On one hand, the series has made a point of showing the foolishness of blind adherence to simple mottos [*]; on the other, the characters have so consistenly fallen into clear categories — good, evil, or indifferent — that book 11 of 13 seems a little late in the game to be injecting nuance. (Okay, yes, there was that brief bit in book 10, but it was really brief.) I’m not objecting to nuance; I’m just wondering whether it can be managed at this late date.
(Also, I think the details somewhat undercut the effort. ROT13: juvyr svban pbzrf npebff nf guerr-qvzrafvbany, ure fvoyvat qbrfa’g, rfcrpvnyyl ng gur raq.)
[*] For instance:
Having a personal philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will not come in handy at all. “He or she who hesitates is lost” sounded like a reasonable philosophy at first glance, but the Baudelaires could think of situations in which hesitating might be the best thing to do. . . . But despite all these incidents in which hesitation had been very helpful, the children did not wish to adopt “He or she who does not hesitate is lost” as their personal philosophy, because a giant octopus might come along at any moment, particular when the Baudelaires were on board a submarine, and the siblings would be very foolish to hesitate if the octopus were coming after them. Perhaps, the Baudelaires thought, the wisest personal philosophy concerning hesitation would be “Sometimes he or she should hesitate and sometimes he or she should not hesitate,” but this seemed far too long and vague to be much use on a plaque.
Other than that, I am amused to note that I am clearly more awake than I was for the last book, because I figured out the solutions to all of the plot dilemmas well, well in advance. It is a known disadvantage of the format for me, but I like Tim Curry’s reading well enough to put up with it, and I’m mildly annoyed at having to wait to start book 12 (I would have had to stop about halfway through for holiday travels, which is sub-optimal).