Lemony Snicket is the pen name under which the children’s books “A Series of Unfortunate Events” are published. Unlike some pen names, such as Daisy Meadows or Erin Hunter, Lemony Snicket is from the world of the main characters, the Baudelaire children. He is not directly present in the story, but exists as the entity narrating it. In the first book, “The Bad Beginning”, its opening lines inform the reader of the Baudelaires’ misfortune. Snicket regretfully narrates, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes.” He was not present during the events of the story, but is still able to tell the reader about them.
Throughout the series, we learn that Snicket is disposed to defining words and idioms, that his works are dedicated to the mysterious “Beatrice,” and that his friends tend to be on the run. The reader starts to suspect that Snicket is involved in some sort of complex secret society, and relaying the Baudelaires’ tale is of utmost importance. By developing Snicket’s character, the series gains a concrete narrator, someone who is actually telling the story to the reader. Many books are instead written to completely immerse the reader. Description, thought and dialogue melt together in a movie of plot, but when prose pulls the reader right into the scene, the storyteller is absent. Actual storytellers are traditionally of oral stories, folk tales, fairy tales, and mythologies. With Snicket as the storyteller, “A Series of Unfortunate Events” gains the feeling of a modern fairy tale.
Fairy tales or folktales employ the same simplistic styles and devices as children’s books. “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is literal and honest with characters’ feelings, moving through the prose with common transition words and, as the story follows the three children, making good use of the rule of three. Children’s books are predictably written to interest young readers who are still learning much about the world. These tales aren’t complicated either. Spoken stories have to be easy to remember, and using devices such as repetition, leading to predictability, makes the tale memorable. While the writing of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is fairly simple to appeal to children, its style also emulates classics and fairy tales.
However, the story of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is actually surprisingly grim, unfair, and lacking justice. The Baudelaire orphans strive again and again to do the right thing and protect what goodness they can, and are never rewarded for it. In its unfairness, “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is a lot like old tales whose characters are at the whims of gods and fate. In myths, many characters fall to tragedy despite long struggles because the world is tragic. Like those tales, Snicket’s series contains a strange depth of insight about the nature of the world that can be quite startling for a children’s series. To me, its insight and style as a tale are what make these books classic.