Basically, I'm a jerk in class
The Basic Eight
by Daniel Handler
I make no secret that I am a Lemony Snicket fan; I read and loved A Series of Unfortunate Events and bought heehaw_tng The Latke Who Wouldn't Stop Screaming for Chanukah/Christmas. I've known that Handler has other, non-Snicket books floating around but never bothered; I guess I could say I was a fan of the world he constructed around the persona so everything outside wasn't all that tempting to me.
Then I read something, somewhere (probably LibraryThing) which referenced him as the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events *and* The Basic Eight. And I guess I thought, "Well, if they bothered to call out this other book, maybe I should take a look at it." So I put it on my library list and here I am.
I was amused by the characters at first; tom_kiper used the phrase "petit bourgeois teenagers," which is pretty accurate. The pretentiousness struck me as funny instead of grating (at first), and that's part of why I recommended the book to her. Teenagers are funny to me in general now, actually. I was reading one of luminifer's old school papers a few months ago (on Archive.org) and thought it was amusing, but then I was looking at my own old stuff a few weeks ago and I wasn't much different in my own essays. We were silly, silly people.
The other thing I liked was just that the novel actually felt like high school to me, which many novels about teenagers fail to do. The problem tends to be that many authors view the school part of high school as nonessential to the plot, and as such, gloss over it. It's just in the way of their grand vision of teenage love and temptation and drama. But anyone who's actually in high school knows that classes and such aren't incidental, they a huge part of the teenage experience, dominating your consciousness and defining your life for that period of time. So many of the journal entries in this novel reflect that - Flannery might mention something that happened in class and not say anything about her friends at all and that's an entire day. Sometimes life is just like that.
Because the book is a teenage journal, it is hard to read at times. I don't remember what my journal entries looked like as a teenager, but I would hope I believed in paragraph breaks. We're talking long, meandering blocks of text here, which are being edited as they're transcribed at some point after all events have taken place. Flannery evens acknowledges she's changing things around to make them flow better but part of the novel's conceit is that she's really not that good at it, and sometimes things don't work properly and she knows it, too. So I was never really sure if I missed something earlier in the novel, or she did. Maybe it sounded like a good idea in Handler's head, but on paper it doesn't work as well and it certainly doesn't work well in my head.
So tom_kiper mentioned there was a twist at the end. Not a big deal to have this "spoiled" for me, since a good twist should be surprising no matter what. (Last night's House? That had a good twist.) Of course, I always end up wondering what the twist is, and eventually I wonder if there even is a twist. I like to call these "Schrodinger's spoilers" since they're in a constant state of flux. I spent Iron Man in that state, and it ended up being absolutely delightful anyway.
But The Basic Eight? I figured out what the twist was oh, 2 seconds after I heard there was a twist. Was it all in her head? Doubtful. Was it one of the other characters? Also doubtful. Does one of the characters not exist? Oh, wait, no one really talks to that character anyway and she always seems to be (or not be) in the right place at the right time. Duh.
(Which raises a question - was mental instability not brought up in the trial at all? Because our heroine seems a good candidate for an insanity plea. But then again, you get the impression she was railroaded and just didn't care.)
The twist would have been innovative if I hadn't already seen it (or variations of it) before. But it seems like every fresh and upcoming writer thinks they're really bringing new and special to the table. So, a story:
I took a creative writing class at NYU, and everyone was responsible for turning in two stories over the term, which would be handed out to the rest of the class to read and comment on. It could get pretty painful sometimes; I believe I've mentioned how a lot of the stories were "a chapter from my upcoming novel" and almost all of the stories were set in the East Village.
So this girl in my class passed out her chapter set in the East Village and we read it at home and came back the next class with comments. The story was something with a somewhat "normal" girl and her crazy friend (I think named Alexandra), and crazy friend kept doing destructive things to/with normal girl. And there was a part with the mild girl almost passing out in the shower, and a therapist's visit. I don't remember the details so much.
But we get to class, and the class is asked their comments, and eventually, I don't think it was me but I can't say for sure, but someone asks, "Oh, Alexandra isn't real, is she?"
And author girl says, "Uh, um... yeah, that was supposed to be the end."
Everyone in the class is like, "Mmm, yeah, I thought the same thing, mumble mumble."
Author girl is very uncomfortable and asks, "Uh, but how did you know?"
Everyone just shrugs and/or mumbles, and I raise my hand and say, "Well, I think it's because it's very similar to Fight Club."
A few mumbles of agreement, and author girl (who is probably completely mortified at this point) says, "I haven't seen Fight Club."
"Well, it is similar. So, uh, maybe you should watch the movie or read the book and see how they did it."
"Mumblemumbleokay."
...so there you go. I think that about sums up how I feel about this book's ending.
by Daniel Handler
I make no secret that I am a Lemony Snicket fan; I read and loved A Series of Unfortunate Events and bought heehaw_tng The Latke Who Wouldn't Stop Screaming for Chanukah/Christmas. I've known that Handler has other, non-Snicket books floating around but never bothered; I guess I could say I was a fan of the world he constructed around the persona so everything outside wasn't all that tempting to me.
Then I read something, somewhere (probably LibraryThing) which referenced him as the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events *and* The Basic Eight. And I guess I thought, "Well, if they bothered to call out this other book, maybe I should take a look at it." So I put it on my library list and here I am.
I was amused by the characters at first; tom_kiper used the phrase "petit bourgeois teenagers," which is pretty accurate. The pretentiousness struck me as funny instead of grating (at first), and that's part of why I recommended the book to her. Teenagers are funny to me in general now, actually. I was reading one of luminifer's old school papers a few months ago (on Archive.org) and thought it was amusing, but then I was looking at my own old stuff a few weeks ago and I wasn't much different in my own essays. We were silly, silly people.
The other thing I liked was just that the novel actually felt like high school to me, which many novels about teenagers fail to do. The problem tends to be that many authors view the school part of high school as nonessential to the plot, and as such, gloss over it. It's just in the way of their grand vision of teenage love and temptation and drama. But anyone who's actually in high school knows that classes and such aren't incidental, they a huge part of the teenage experience, dominating your consciousness and defining your life for that period of time. So many of the journal entries in this novel reflect that - Flannery might mention something that happened in class and not say anything about her friends at all and that's an entire day. Sometimes life is just like that.
Because the book is a teenage journal, it is hard to read at times. I don't remember what my journal entries looked like as a teenager, but I would hope I believed in paragraph breaks. We're talking long, meandering blocks of text here, which are being edited as they're transcribed at some point after all events have taken place. Flannery evens acknowledges she's changing things around to make them flow better but part of the novel's conceit is that she's really not that good at it, and sometimes things don't work properly and she knows it, too. So I was never really sure if I missed something earlier in the novel, or she did. Maybe it sounded like a good idea in Handler's head, but on paper it doesn't work as well and it certainly doesn't work well in my head.
So tom_kiper mentioned there was a twist at the end. Not a big deal to have this "spoiled" for me, since a good twist should be surprising no matter what. (Last night's House? That had a good twist.) Of course, I always end up wondering what the twist is, and eventually I wonder if there even is a twist. I like to call these "Schrodinger's spoilers" since they're in a constant state of flux. I spent Iron Man in that state, and it ended up being absolutely delightful anyway.
But The Basic Eight? I figured out what the twist was oh, 2 seconds after I heard there was a twist. Was it all in her head? Doubtful. Was it one of the other characters? Also doubtful. Does one of the characters not exist? Oh, wait, no one really talks to that character anyway and she always seems to be (or not be) in the right place at the right time. Duh.
(Which raises a question - was mental instability not brought up in the trial at all? Because our heroine seems a good candidate for an insanity plea. But then again, you get the impression she was railroaded and just didn't care.)
The twist would have been innovative if I hadn't already seen it (or variations of it) before. But it seems like every fresh and upcoming writer thinks they're really bringing new and special to the table. So, a story:
I took a creative writing class at NYU, and everyone was responsible for turning in two stories over the term, which would be handed out to the rest of the class to read and comment on. It could get pretty painful sometimes; I believe I've mentioned how a lot of the stories were "a chapter from my upcoming novel" and almost all of the stories were set in the East Village.
So this girl in my class passed out her chapter set in the East Village and we read it at home and came back the next class with comments. The story was something with a somewhat "normal" girl and her crazy friend (I think named Alexandra), and crazy friend kept doing destructive things to/with normal girl. And there was a part with the mild girl almost passing out in the shower, and a therapist's visit. I don't remember the details so much.
But we get to class, and the class is asked their comments, and eventually, I don't think it was me but I can't say for sure, but someone asks, "Oh, Alexandra isn't real, is she?"
And author girl says, "Uh, um... yeah, that was supposed to be the end."
Everyone in the class is like, "Mmm, yeah, I thought the same thing, mumble mumble."
Author girl is very uncomfortable and asks, "Uh, but how did you know?"
Everyone just shrugs and/or mumbles, and I raise my hand and say, "Well, I think it's because it's very similar to Fight Club."
A few mumbles of agreement, and author girl (who is probably completely mortified at this point) says, "I haven't seen Fight Club."
"Well, it is similar. So, uh, maybe you should watch the movie or read the book and see how they did it."
"Mumblemumbleokay."
...so there you go. I think that about sums up how I feel about this book's ending.