"The End" - front cover
A review of "The End", (book 13 and final in "A Series Of Unfortunate Events"), by Lemony Snicket (real name Daniel Handler)
The final book in this wonderful series can be summed up in one word: "disappointing".
There is too much filler in the first half and not nearly enough action overall. A bunch of semi-drunk castaways dressed in white strolling around on a beach, where's the fun in that?
The witty asides to the reader, especially in the first half, are uninspired and unfunny. I didn't start to laugh until I was half way through the book.
Count Olaf has no menace at all in this book, and not much humour either. His end is not the cataclysmic event it should have been.
The end of "The End" is amazingly weak, it doesn't tie any loose ends up, it doesn't develop any characters and it doesn't fulfill any goals. In short "The End" is not satisfying, does not climax and is not the way to end 13 books of unique style and subtle entertainment.
NOT GOOD ENOUGH DANNY! YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!
YOU'LL HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN!
Since your mind has quailed at the task of resolving all the loose ends Danny, I'll give you the plot myself, then you'll just have to fill in the gaps.
Firstly the title: "The End" is such a limp appellation, and totally out of character after all the alliteration preceding it. You start on the wrong foot and you're lost, the rewrite should be called:
Count Olaf remains a potent and sinister force. He persuades the castaways to make him their leader, by killing the kindly Ishmael (call me Ishmael), making it look like the Baudelaires did it, and appearing to try to prevent it. The Baudelaires are imprisoned.
The Quagmire triplets arrive in their mobile home balloon, where they are welcomed, but Olaf persuades the villagers that they are in league with the Baudelaires and has them imprisoned also.
Count Olaf uses one of the islanders posing as a sympathiser to get Violet to sign a request for help, which she will post by carrier seagull to a VFD service on the mainland.
In prison the Quagmires tell the Baudelaires all about their fight with the eagles and reveal that they have the sugar bowl secreted in their balloon. Count Olaf hears this and reveals himself with a "Ha Ha!". He also reveals that the request for help was actually a marriage contract with Olaf written in invisible ink and he thus gains the Baudelaire fortune at last.
Captain Widdershins and his Sub-Lieutenants arrive in their submarine after Olaf has left in high glee and free the children.
Count Olaf steals the Quagmires mobile home balloon and attempts to return to civilisation, dropping the diving mask as he ascends, spreading the Medusoid Mycellium over the island. The villagers realise what an evil creature he is. At the last minute the hook-handed man makes a leap for the balloon from the top of the observatory, puncturing it with his hooks and forcing Olaf back down to the island.
Olaf emerges from the wrecked balloon clutching the sugar bowl, wearing a spore mask, and using the harpoon gun to keep the furious islanders at bay while he steals the only sea-worthy boat. As he rows away he stands and taunts the Islanders, the Baudelaires and the Quagmires, gloating at their impending death and his victory, not seeing the fearsome Shai-Hulud of the ocean towering up behind him like a huge question mark. He turns, and screams as the huge jaws come down and chomp on him. A gruesome and satisfying death.
The children pool their resources and find the antidote to the mycelium. The islanders are saved.
In the morning the Baudelaires parents arrive with Ink in their amphibious all-terrain vehicle. After various reunions and much celebration it is revealed that they had been imprisoned in the under-sea dungeons of the Very Evil Man and had escaped with the aid of Kit Snicket, Ink, a nail file, a tin of strawberries. They arrived at the Hotel Denouement too late. The sugar bowl is actually a mass mind-control device invented by the VFD before the schism to help free the USA from the tyranny of big business, the CIA and the Republican Party. Count Olaf had intended to use it to make himself ruler of the world. The question mark Shai-Hulud is actually the ocean's guardian of power, a creature that even the resources of the VFD cannot explain. It was attracted by the sugar bowl and Count Olaf was unfortunate to be holding it at the time. The sugar bowl is safe within its endless stomach.
A shout from one of the islander children draws attention to the shore where a human foot has washed up. Around the ankle is a tattoo of an eye.
The End.
So there you go Danny. Now go burn your old manuscript and get cracking on the rewrite! And I expect a writing credit too, for providing the plot you didn't have the wit to invent.
1/5
Warren Mars - November 6, 2006