A Series Of Unfortunate Events: The Beatrice Letters [Hardcover]

 

 

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If there's anyone on your gift list unlucky enough to own the entire series of unfortunate events, you may wish to inflict further adversity upon them by purchasing this additional volume for their collection. Not so much a book as a mystery contained between hard covers, this most attractively presented publication contains two folders, one with a large two-sided poster filled with clues, and a notebook containing correspondence exchanged between a guy named Lemony Snicket and what seems to be two people named Beatrice Baudelaire, one of whom claims to be a fourth Baudelaire sibling. The letters begin before The Bad Beginning and end sometime after The End.

It soon becomes evident that the notebook contains many clues, and from the cover we learn that these clues are "suspiciously linked to Book the Thirteenth". The most obvious puzzle is the anagram using the punch out letters, but there's no way in heck that anybody's going to ruin the notebook by actually doing that. There are several solutions to the anagram, two of which contain names, the simplest one seeming to tie in with the poster illustration, and the other one connected through the correspondence. Even the cover has an illustrated surprise which could also be a clue.

Conspiracy buffs will have a field day with this one, which is a lot trickier that it looks. For instance the occupation "baticeer" (someone who trains bats) won't be found in the dictionary, and the poem "My Silence Knot" is also a puzzle. It's highly unlikely that I'll be any closer to revealing any secrets by the time "The End" comes out next month, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see. In the interim, this one gets full marks for originality and presentation.

Amanda Richards

The end is near. Followers of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" know that the thirteenth, and last, book of the series, titled "The End", is out on the thirteenth day of the tenth month on the fifth day of the week. A confusing phrase which here means: Friday, October 13th, 2006.

Lovers of the series have devoured each book and Lemony Snicket, the series' elusive author, has earned himself quite a following. A phrase which here means a LOT of happy readers who like to devour every word the author writes in hopes of solving a complicated mystery.

Why they would amuse themselves with the trivialities and misfortune that befalls the Baudelaire Orphans is beyond me. Horrible things happen to these lucky children: Their house burns down, they lose their parents, they get taken in by a nefarious criminal, Count Olaf, who tries to take their massive fortune.

And that's just the beginning of their woes. But Lemony Snicket, chronicler of the lives of the Baudelaire Orphans, has also earned himself an air of mystery. Here which means a confusing situation that may or may not be solved with the help of bloodhounds on a cloudy day.

Little is known about the elusive author and littler still of his great love: Beatrice. Each of the twelve books has been dedicated to her in some way. "The Penultimate Peril," Book the Twelfth in "A Series of Unfortunate Events," is dedicated to her thusly:

For Beatrice-
No one could extinguish my love,
or your house.

Thus we come to: "The Beatrice Letters." Here we have a File Box of information. A phrase, which here means a book that opens to two file folders, holding a double-sided poster with clues and the letters themselves, carefully bound in tape. There are letters to Beatrice from Lemony and to Lemony from Beatrice. All through out them, codes abound.

Cryptograms appear galore; sprinkled through out a collection of business cards, file photographs, telegrams, poems and letters written on scraps of paper, we learn of a love affair between Snicket and Beatrice, who claims to be a fourth Baudelaire sibling. A love blooms between them in their search for Violet, Klaus and Sunny. And mayhap we learn a few secrets along the way.

But these are not just your normal letters. In fact there are Letters encased in amongst the letters, which is to say there are punch out Letters with which you can make many names.
Snicket says of these punch out Letters at the end of the letters:

"For many years I thought if I collected all these letters and their accompanying ephemera--a phrase which here means "documents and items which I feared had vanished, and may soon vanish again"--I could put all of them in the proper order, as if solving an anagram by putting all of the letters in the right order. But letters are not letters, so the arrangement of letters is not as simple as the arrangement of letters, and even if it were, the arrangement of these letters could spell out more than one thing..."

The only problem with the Letters is that I do not want to punch them out of the page, thereby ruining the book. I can only write them down in my commonplace book, in hopes of solving their anagram secret. There are many secrets encased "The Beatrice Letters", which is suspiciously linked to Book the Thirteenth; but this author can't figure them out.

I've read through "The Beatrice Letters" twice now and am unable to decipher anything but a few obvious clues. As to how "The Beatrice Letters" is linked to Book the Thirteenth, perhaps we finally find out the identity of the elusive Lemony Snicket? I'm going to have to rifle through "The Beatrice Letters" many more times before its secrets become clear.

Though I am loath to admit it--a phrase here, which means with great reluctance, unwilling or disinclined--I was disappointed when I first picked up "The Beatrice Letters." I was expecting a book, similar to "The Unauthorized Autobiography of Lemony Snicket" whose pages I could scour for clues. What I wasn't expecting was a file of letters and a large poster.

After going over "The Beatrice Letters," though, it's become clear to me what Lemony Snicket has given us. With only just over a month until the last and final book in the series, Lemony Snicket has given us a challenge, a game. Our challenge is to try and find the shocking secrets about Book the Thirteenth. Indeed, "The Beatrice Letters" are quite brilliant. Instead of another book to add to the series, Snicket has given us something all together different; something we can sink our teeth--and brains--into until the last book finally hits stores.

I for one will be waiting with anticipatory glee--a phrase here which means great eagerness--until then. I'll have to read "The Beatrice Letters" again, commonplace book beside me open to a fresh page, to see if I can find the secrets out, before it's too late.

There are some very interesting tidbits in this volume that clearly affect how I look at parts of the series and how the final book will turn out. This book made me look forward to the next one in the series. In the meantime I got two books in a new series - Why Some Cats are Rascals. Great reading!

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4.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too
If you've been following Lemony Snicket's A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, then you've undoubtedly read of Beatrice Baudelaire. Who she is, exactly, is a mystery. Read more

Published on Mar 5 2007 by TeensReadToo

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