Dominick, I think that's an interesting take on TSOUE. Maybe the series always was intended as a didactic tool (I mean, look at those word definitions!) and those of us who were disappointed in the ending simply failed to hold that in mind. Still, from a narrative point of view, I didn't find The End quite as satisfying as I would have hoped, even though I didn't expect all the answers.

Bonnie,

I do not think the End was supposed to be bittersweet or satisfying. It was meant to make you think and wonder. It's called A Series of Unfortunate Events...and the Unfortunate End...truly was Unfortunate....much like life...all the answers were not there and not everything was sunshine and roses.

I liked it personally. I thought it was actually quite poetic.

Cheers,
Dominick

I haven't read this one yet, I'm still only about half way through the series. But I am looking forward to 'The End' even if it really isn't the end.

Thanks for the review! I enjoyed it!

There's almost a touch of the good old Monty Python crew in this review! You can bet that I mean that as a compliment.

But did you have to give away that Lemony Snicket is really Daniel Handler?! All this time I thought that was the author's name...(joke :D)

I was personally disappointed in The End. Everything Lemony Snicket built up from book one; every year buying the newest book the day it comes out, reading it in a day and having to wait another year in hope that some questions would be answered; all the plots piling ontop of each other- none of this was resolved in the end. I don't ask for all of the answers, but atleast finish the story. It was as if the first 12 books were a waste of time to read. All of the questions didn't need to be answered, because you always want to let your audience answer some questions themselves and have questions after a book, but atleast tie together the major plots- the Quagmires, VFD, Sugar Bowl, Olaf and Orphans, and Orphans returning to city and Mr. Poe. After reading the book, reflect it, and think to yourself if Snicket could have accomplished the same ending with only a few pages rather than a full pontless story. The book itself was not bad but the end of The End was disappointing, so i give the story a 4/5 and the end of The End a 0. A very bad way to end my favorite series of books.

I love the end of THE END. I was blown away when i found out Beatrice, the love of the narrator, was actually the mother of the three Baudelaires. That would mean that the narrator was the father of the children. When i found out it said Beatrice on the side of the boat, i didn't think it mattered at first. After i thought about it, though, I realized that it could mean that the boat originally belonged to the Baudelaire's parents. This means they could have left that island on that same boat. Whew, I'm done analyzing the end of THE END.

actually alex, the narrator is not the baudelaires father. beatrice got married to bertrand, the father, instead of lemony, and that is why he is heartbroken. that book was kind of disappointing.

While I agree that readers of The End are complaining for the wrong reasons (Lemony does tell us over and over NOT to read the books or expect anything nice), I think you are wrong about using deductive reasoning to figure everything out at the end.

In the end, I think Handler writes The End to make his readers understand that fiction is just words, not truths. He loves to play with words.

If the words have any meaning at all, Handler expects us to know that he is not responsible for making the meaning. Readers make meaning out of words that writers juxtapose in interesting and unusual ways.

Why do you suppose Lemony continuously defines his words for us? (And do you feel his definitions are ever correct?)

Or how do the children ever "understand" those nonsense words of their little sister? Sometimes they seem to be puns, but not everytime. She seems to have her own language--whatever a language is.

My favorite part of The End is the endless sentence Handler writes to define "in the dark." It is not a nonsense sentence at all, but in the end, does it tell us anything? Or leave us "in the dark"?

So anyone trying to figure out who Beatrice is at the end, is probably just the victim of another paradoxical joke by Lemony Snicket.

i just finished reading THE END like practically like two seconds ago and i was like"ummmm...sure...i dont get it" so i turned on my computer and was like ok i got to figure this out.so just someone tell me this,who the heck is beatrice,i have a very strong feeling she is there mother,and seeing what i have read so far, im right.but how did lemony come into all of this? how does he tie in here? and how did he die,cuz it syas that the parents name there children after someone who dies,its a custom remeber,and they said that theyd name violet lemony if she was a boy, but how did he die is what im asking,and who is he really( well david of course) but i mean in his role in the story.

also i was sorta miffed that kit died and that friday wouldnt take the apple,becasue i thougt,even though she was on "olaf-land";)since she was born,that she seeemed that she was different from the other islanders and she had something that we should have known about her and i wanted to find what it was.

also what happened to the sugar bowl? that was super important in the 12 book and then it seemed that it didnt even exsist in the thirteenth book.


i know that all questions cant be answered in this book or it would practically have to surpass the number of pages in all the harry potter books,but could he just answer the ones that have almost been the major plot of the books?

anybody agree?

by the way,happy new year!

It wasn't so much the dissatisfying-ness of the end of The End that got me. I thought it was just a horrendous book. The metaphors were exaggerated far beyond necessity in contrast to his past books. Before, they were appropriately brief and interesting. In The End, I had to skip pages so I could see the story progress. I was sad to find out that there was not much other content in the book.

i love the series of unfortunate events book series. I use to come home from school in 5th grade with one of Lemony's books, and return it the next morning. They are truly addicting,and leave you wandering,and wanting more for the next book to come.