I think I may do a single run at finishing A Series of Unfortunate Events, now that the last book’s out and I’m in the mood for some frivolity. At any rate, I just finished listening to the tenth book, The Slippery Slope, as read by Tim Curry, and went straight into the next one.
The theme of The Slippery Slope is aptly described in its opening paragraph:
A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called “The Road Less Traveled,” describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn’t hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is now dead.
The Baudelaire orphans find themselves on various roads less traveled in the Mortmain Mountains, where they meet a number of unexpected characters, some new (and occasionally surprising, at least to me) and some old; face serious (though obvious) moral dilemmas; experience at least two landmark events in their lives; and learn a bit about the mysteries surrouding them. We the readers learn more [*], which is perhaps unfair, but that’s what happens to the Baudelaire siblings.
I forget how many days prior books have taken, but this one took only three by my count, and it introduces a hard deadline just five days away. The relationship of that deadline to the overall series’ progression remains to be determined. I haven’t heard howls of indignation from anyone who has finished the series, though, so I’m guessing that however we get there, the destination won’t suck. (Remember: only cake-sniffers spoil people for things they haven’t read yet!)
[*] Specifically, it seems (ROT13’ed for spoilers): gurve sngure vf hadhrfgvbanoyl qrnq; gurve zbgure znl or yrzbal favpxrg’f fvfgre, naq vs fb, fur’f nyvir; naq gel nf gurl jvyy, gurl jba’g svaq gur fhtne objy.
I listened to “The End” via audiobook and while I love TIm Curry’s voice, he did Count Olaf enough over-the-top that if I was listening in the car, I couldn’t understand his lines. Via the iPod at home, it was understandable, but not incredibly easily.
I am awaiting you finishing it, since then I will have someone to discuss a few things with that would be spoilers otherwise. 😀
I don’t have a problem with Count Olaf’s lines, unless Curry goes even more over the top in the last book, but Curry does tend to drop his volume for speech tags after dialogue, which is a little tough sometimes.
He does a really good job with the adult character we meet early in book 11. I was grinning all throughout, aye.
I read the others in book form, so I don’t know how Curry compares to them. 🙂
I recently finished listening to Tamora Pierce’s Beka Cooper: Terrier book. The reader took a while for me to get used to, but was unexceptionable otherwise.
My current (and ongoing) audiobook is Twain’s “The Innocents Abroad,” which I love in prose, but have discovered it’s because I can skim over the Victorian American attitudes towards people of other countries and classes and religions, whereas with the audiobook I have to listen to every single word of it. Being Twain, of course, he skewers everyone, but there’s still enough characterization of European peasants and Islamic people as dirty, slow, and slovenly that it’s kind of tough to listen to at times.
I really like the Full Cast Audio adaptations of Pierce’s books, but haven’t ventured into the single-narrator ones yet, mostly because I’m not that crazy about the books for which they’re available.
Looking forward to reading _Terrier_, though. Oh, dear free time, how I miss you . . .
That is my favorite quotation out of all the Series of Unfortunate Events.
Wow, your possible-spoilers are very interesting because I thought almost exactly the opposite after book 10.
I’d strongly recommend reading Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography at this point. There are things in the books that will make… marginally more sense if you read it (including one small mystery in Book 12 that you can solve and the Baudelaires can’t because they don’t have access to this information).
I’m really interested to see what you think of Book 13. I really liked it, but I could see thinking otherwise.
charlene: I’d almost forgotten about the Unauthorized Autobiography, thanks. I’ll see if the library has it; I’m about 2/3 of the way through the audiobook of book 11, but I’m not going to listen to it over the weekend when I’m not commuting, so now might be a good time.