As it’s Friday, here’s a second chapter from A Series of Unfortunate Events, The End. In Chapter Nine we followed the Baudelaires into the arboretum and discovered Ishmael’s secret hidey-hole along with his own personal diary of the island, which include an entry which appears to have been written by Mrs Baudelaire. Unfortunately they were discovered in there, so now we’re going to find out just what’s going on here on the island.
What Happens?
Ishmael tells the children all about his past and how the pasts of
the Baudelaire parents are intertwined. It seems they were the facilitators
before he arrived and a schism forced them to leave. Ishmael argues that he does
what he does because he wants to protect the colonists and he wants to prevent
another schism from dividing them all. The Baudelaires want to take a look at
the book which his parents wrote, but Ishmael gently tells them their parents
wouldn’t have wanted them too and then leads them out of the secret room.
Thoughts as I read:
I love the picture for this chapter. It’s of a big book, lying
open with a ribbon as a bookmark down the right hand side page. It’s pretty
detailed as well, there’s the same sort of stripy binding as there is on the
spine of this book, though it looks a little more well-thumbed than my copy of
The End. The writing is just squiggles though, unless it’s some other
V.F.D. code.
Sure enough the person hanging out in Ishmael’s hidey-hole is
Ishmael himself and when Violet catches sight of him, she’s reminded of a time
before Sunny was born when she and Klaus had had a row about taking the rubbish
out. This prompted her to invent something to do it for her in the future, to
prevent arguments with her brother, and her mother showed up in her room and
Violet wasn’t sure whether her mum was angry or smiling, but she gave Violet a
cup of tea which reminded Violet it was her turn to take out the rubbish.
Why this is important I’m not entirely sure? Except that they
can’t tell whether Ishmael is smiling or frowning at them; he certainly doesn’t
give them anything to drink. When he turns on the light they see that he has a
funny look on his face and tells them Baudelaires always ‘rock the boat’. The
kids fire questions at him and he doesn’t answer any of them.
Instead he tells them about a time when he was a schoolteacher and
he had a child in his class with ‘scraggly dark hair and just one eyebrow’.
Violet guesses that this was Olaf, but Ishmael tells them that this child was a
girl (who only had one ear) who lived in a house which was owned by someone who
killed a man with a cantaloupe grown on the Lucky Smells Melon Farm. Klaus
guesses that this links to Sir, but Ishmael tells him that the farm was owned by
a pair of brothers and one of the two was murdered in a village and some
children were accused of his death. Sunny guesses that this was Jacques, but
again, Ishmael is talking about someone else.
Ishmael continues on, explaining that the student in his class
wouldn’t drink the tea her guardian made for her and mentions a fish themed
restaurant. Violet guesses ‘Cafe Salmonella’ which is obviously wrong; Ishmael
says no, it was the ‘Bistro Smelt’ which is a good name for a restaurant though
I suppose it depends what it smelt of. Then there’s mention of a ship to Peru
which wasn’t the Prospero, well, it was but at the time it was known as
the Pericles. Sunny interrupts with ‘Yaw’ which I suspect means that
she is growing bored, but is translated as ‘Ishmael’s story is tangential’.
But Ishmael insists that in order to answer these questions he has
to make them understand why he likes his tea bitter and what important
conversation he had with a waiter and all the other things that followed along
afterwards which apparently make the story nonsensical without knowing them.
Clearly in order to understand one story you must know them all:
“But you can’t read every story, and answer every question,”
Klaus said, “even if you’d like to.”
Oh Klaus, that is so true. There are so many times I’ve bemoaned
the fact that I can’t read all. the. books. to Mr Click.
So it seems that at one point the Baudelaire parents were the
island’s facilitators and they had a hand in getting a water filtration system
set up along with the library. They even wanted to build a passageway between
the island and a marine research facility which means that following the
passageway they’re in would take them part of the way to Anwhistle Aquatics,
though it remains unfinished. Ishmael is pleased it was never finished because
otherwise the Medusoid Mycelium could have reached the island. I’m guessing now
wouldn’t be the time to tell him the it kind of already has.
Ishmael says that when he arrived some of the islanders were
planning to mutiny and leave the Baudelaire parents on the coastal shelf because
they wanted to keep the island safe and cut off. Ishmael’s story kind of shows
that history likes to repeat itself, doesn’t it? When they were driven away, Mrs
Baudelaire was pregnant with Violet, which means that the islanders were
perfectly happy to send a pregnant woman off on a dangerous journey. Kind of
explains why Kit Snicket has had to wait so long for help, doesn’t it?
Sooner or later, everyone’s story has an unfortunate event
or two – a schism or a death, a fire or a mutiny, the loss of a home or the
destruction of a tea set. The only solution, of course, is to stay as far away
from the world as possible and lead a safe, simple life.
Or, y’know, accept that sometimes bad things happen and learn to
deal with it.
Ishmael’s plan for the island was to avoid any confrontation in
order to prevent any more schisms from happening. Sunny replies ‘Jojishoji’
meaning ‘I don’t believe that abridging the freedom of expression and the free
exercise thereof is the proper way to run a community.’ I love how much Sunny
can pack into just a couple of syllables. She’s a very well spoken toddler.
However Ishmael does admit that while he doesn’t force anyone to
do anything, the coconut cordial is a sort of opiate so he’s basically keeping
his followers drugged in order to retain his control over them. I’m not sure
drugging people is the best way to maintain control over them, they certainly
don’t have much freedom if they’re stoned all the time!
But Ishmael does point out that people do occasionally leave. The
Incredibly Deadly Viper left with two women, Thursday and some friends left but
Friday was told that her father died because that was kinder than knowing her
parents took opposing sides during the schism. Definitely kinder than the
alternative. Sunny comments on this ‘Electra’ meaning ‘A family shouldn’t keep
such terrible secrets’ which is clearly true.
As we’ve been told many times, eventually everything washes up on
the shores of the island; it’s like a giant marine rubbish tip. So Ishmael has
been able to follow the Baudelaires’ story. He’s happy for them to stay, after
all they will be safe from all the bad things out in the world, though he’s not
keen on Kit staying because the Snickets have been known to cause as much
trouble as the Baudelaires. He does rather graciously say he will accept Kit if
he must.
However we and the children know that Kit will want to return to
the real world. The children aren’t so sure. Klaus asks if they couldn’t stay
but have some of the items from the arboretum to help make life more
interesting. They also criticise Ishmael for keeping secrets from the colonists,
but he claims he’s had a hard life on the island because he’s had to document
all the bad things about the world outside. Of course he didn’t really have to
do that, so it’s not much of an excuse.
Sunny says ‘Gibbon’ meaning ‘We want to read this history, no
matter how miserable it is’. But Ishmael won’t let him. He needs to keep
everyone on the island safe. He brandishes a ring with a letter ‘R’ on it which
prompts yet another long-winded story about its origins but which culminates in
Kit Snicket’s brother (who I’m going to guess was Lemony) giving it to Mrs
Baudelaire and her giving it back, the brother giving it to Kit, Kit giving it
to Mr Baudelaire, who finally gave it to Mrs Baudelaire. Captain Widdershins
found it in the ruins of the Baudelaire mansion and it eventually got washed up
on the island. Which causes Sunny to ask ‘Neiklot?’ meaning ‘Why are you telling
us about this ring?’ Yeah, I’m wondering that myself.
Basically the reason is because Ishmael wants to illustrate how
there is much that the Baudelaire parents never told their children, obviously
because they didn’t want their offspring to know these things about them. They
did it to keep them safe. Ishmael claims that if they wanted the children to
know, they would’ve told them. I’d argue that they didn’t live long enough to
make that decision, perhaps they wanted to wait until the children were mature
enough to deal with what they had to say. I think the children have come quite a
way since the beginning of this story so deserve to know these things.
Ishmael hands Violet the ring and asks them to stay with him and
let him take care of them, the way he cares for all of the islanders and leads
them up out of the hidey-hole. As the children leave, they glance back at the
title on the spine of the book.
It says A Series of Unfortunate Events.
That’s apt.
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