Well, at least I tried to spare you. Our generation had many book series that came to be something more to us: ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Junie B. Jones’,’ Goosebumps’, and more. However, the one series that we were cautioned against reading by the author himself was the one series that helped us see that not all stories can be happy, but we can still find enjoyment in reading them. ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ was a sequence of books written by a mysterious man known as Lemony Snicket. But who is this man and what happened to him?
Lemony Snicket is the pseudonym of Daniel Handler, who is the actual author of A Series of Unfortunate Events, as well as authoring several books for adults that can be equally as dark and unique. The nom de plume was coined when Handler was on the phone doing research for his novel The Big Eight. He had been calling right-wing organizations asking for copies of pamphlets and agendas and was asked for a name to send them to causing him to blurt out Lemony Snicket (lemony-snicket-stuff.com). So we should really be asking ‘Whatever happened to Daniel Handler?’
After The End, the 13th book in A Series of Unfortunate events, was published in October of 2006, Handler continued to write books for adults and children. He is currently working on an adult novel entitled We Are Pirates, and just released Shouldn’t You Be In School? which is the third installment of the series ‘All the Wrong Questions’ based on Handler’s life.
The movie ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ released in 2004 was both engaging and disappointing, much like the work of Lemony Snicket. For me, the movie was a bit too much on the humorous side, making it less true to the lovers of the book series. Many of the people I have talked to about the movie agree that they tried to fit way too much into the hour and a half runtime. There is no reason why Montgomery Montgomery couldn’t have as much time in the movie as Aunt Josephine. Even with all of its flaws, I was saddened that they did not continue the franchise. However, this is soon to change.
Arguably, the most distressing and dismal event to happen to Daniel Handler recently is the uptick in interest in ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ that comes with Netflix adapting the books as a TV series. However, Handler as his alter ego Lemony Snicket shows more concern for the reputation of Netflix than his own stating “After years of providing top-quality entertainment on demand, Netflix is risking its reputation and its success by associating itself with my dismaying and upsetting books” (deadline.com). This statement is representative of Handler’s sarcastic, pessimistic voice present in his literary works. However, Netflix responded in a complimentary voice when they released their statement “Mr. Snicket’s participation will be limited, given his emotional distress, but the project has the full involvement of his legal, literary and social representative Daniel Handler, who is often mistaken for him” (deadline.com). I don’t know about you, but this exchange makes me both extremely happy and excited for the show. There hasn’t been much information released regarding the Netflix version of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events.’ However, that does not dim the fire of excitement ignited in my soul for the show.
So, there you have it, Lemony Snicket is doing very well, which is sure to have him looking over his shoulder for the dark cloud to appear and rain on his parade.
Sources:
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/7252-lemony-snicket-biography
http://www.lemony-snicket-stuff.com/daniel_handler_biography.html
