The first story in the A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning starts, “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other books. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.” True to it's warning there are no tidy, happy endings for Violet, Claus, and Sunny Baudelaire. The book begins with the children being informed of the untimely death of both of their parents. Mr. Poe, who manages the children's fortune, does not mince words when he tells the children their parents both died in a fire. He informs them that they will come stay with him until he figures out where their closest relative living in city lives. Ultimately the children end up at the doorstep of Count Olaf, a distant relative who lives in an empty, foreboding house filled with images of eyes.
The characters of The Bad Beginning are developed through shared information by the narrator, their dialogue, and striking descriptions. Violet, the oldest at fourteen, is an inventor and has a love of taking things apart and putting them back together. Claus, twelve, has a love of reading. Sunny, the baby, has the typical and humorous love of biting. Count Olaf is a peculiar and menacing character that leaves lists of impossible tasks for the children to complete during the day. We see just how dangerous Olaf when his first violent act is toward Sunny, "With an inhuman roar he picked her up in one scraggly hand and raised her so she was staring at him in the eye."
The main setting of the story is in Count Olaf's house. It is a large, dilapidated house with blackened bricks and a worn door carved with an ominous eye. Above the only two windows in the house rises a tower. Inside the house is dimly lit and poorly furnished. Pictures of the eye are found in several rooms. The bizarre, dark setting creates a feeling of discomfort for the sweet children that are forced to share a mattress on a filthy floor.
When the children botch a dinner party for Count Olaf, making pasta and puttanesca sauce instead of roast beef (which Count Olaf did not indicate he wanted) things start to go south for the youngsters. The conniving, malicious man he is begins to show itself clearly. After the children make a trip to talk to Mr. Poe about their guardian, Olaf wastes no time in putting his diabolical plan into motion.
The grim, no nonsense narration of Lemony Snicket who tells the story from a first person standpoint that is privy to everything that goes on lends to the feeling that nothing will go right for these children. True to his opening statement, one misfortune after another befalls the children until the reader is desperate to keep reading in the hopes that something will change.
The following links are provided if you are interested in reading this book:
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