Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

I looked everywhere, but I can't find it. I know I read it, because it was a print-only publication, and the article in question was opposite a full-page advertisement for duck rubbers and chocolate-covered beaver droppings. (Don't ask.)

Anyway, take my word for it: I read an article which attempted to lay blame for the ruining of America's children, morally and ethically, at the feet of literature, specifically children's literature. According to the author of this article such efforts as "The Little Black Sambo Story Book" and numerous works by Dr. Seuss are singularly responsible for the state of children in the United States of America nowadays. That is to say, had said carpet-munchers and ankle-biters not been exposed to clever little boys and surreal alliterating pussies bedecked in Salvador Dali fashions they might have turned out otherwise.

Well. As the proud owner of a nearly complete Dr. Seuss collection and several editions of Helen Bannerman's masterpiece, let me just say this as reply and retort: I turned out quite well, thank you very much, and suspect had I not been allowed these efforts my life and subsequent accomplishments would be quite dull.

Thank God for the small miracle.

Without such literary efforts as Dr. Seuss and "The Little Black Sambo Story Book" it is quite likely the ability and talent to be creative and original would be all but gone, crushed under the perverted need for homogeneity and blandness. Thank God, then, for efforts, albeit unorthodox, with names likes "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events", works that are undeniably seditious, but delicious, for they are clever and coy, bright and brilliant, and make a child desirous to know the fantastic.

Especially since such efforts tend to be presented contextually as forbidden literary fruit. Consider as proof of same the aforementioned "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events". Here is a story, when first published, that encouraged people not to read it because it involves three youngsters who encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, uncomfortable clothing, a fire, a conspiracy to steal their family fortune, and cold gruel for breakfast, and because doing so would more certainly cause them--the reader--to want more.

Naturally they did. On both counts.

Now comes the film with the same naughty wink and nod, this time with Lemony Snicket himself (Jude Law) bent over a time-worn typewriter, pounding out the sad and dire tale of the three Baudelaire children, who suddenly become orphans. Orphans with a great burden to shouldered. The family banker, Mr. Poe (Timothy Spall) breaks the news to them: A fire has destroyed their family manison and left them without parents.

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