Snicket is the YA-novel-writing alter ego of Daniel Handler (author of the amazing The Basic Eight, a novel I can't mention often enough). Before this book, Snicket's entire oeuvre was the thirteen-book "A Series of Unfortunate Events" and two related books. So this looked to be the first Snicket project unconnected to "SUE."Except...this is a book of aphorisms, sayings, and thoughts -- generally depressive, in keeping with the Snicket persona. (Which means that I identified with nearly all of them and enjoyed this book very much.) And I have a suspicion that some of them (many? most? all?) are actually quotes from the SUE books. So, if you have the thirteen SUE novels memorized, or nearly so, and if you are the type of person to loudly exclaim that you have been cheated whenever something unpleasant happens, please do not buy this book. (Or, at least, do not read it near me.)
Just a couple of Snicket snippets to play us out of here:
It is very difficult to make one's way in this world without being wicked at one time or another, when the world's way is so wicked to begin with.
No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read.
Everybody will die, of course, sooner or later. Circus performers will die, and clarinet experts will die, and you and I will die, and there might be a person who lives on your block, right now, who is not looking both ways before he crosses the street and who will die in just a few seconds, all because of a bus. Everybody will die, but very few people want to be reminded of that fact.
Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
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