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The End Book Review

The End is a 2006 children’s novel by Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler). It is the thirteenth and final entry in A Series of Unfortunate Events. It wasn’t as great as I’d expected.

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“Those unable to catalog the past are doomed to repeat it“

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After leaving the burnt Hotel Denouement, the Baudelaires get stranded on an island with Count Olaf. There, they meet a group of sheltered islanders, conflict ensues and eventually some people die and a baby is born. There are some excellent themes explored in this novel, and the prime one is the idea of a sheltered life from all the evils of the world, and how ultimately we should all be brave and continue to live inside a society the best we could. It was a powerful and crucial message for children, and I really respected it.

The governing of the island was fascinating to me and all the conflicts and rifts between the different groups represented what is probably the most mature storyline of the entire series. It tied so well with the trio’s parents as well and that revelation of their past made complete sense. The character of Ishmael really worked in particular as he is in that gray zone, not being bad and certainly not being good. Every part with him was excellent.

So, why did I ultimately find this novel problematic if the central storyline is this good? Well, that is mainly because it did not answer much. It is to be expected that the final chapter of a thirteen-part series would leave many questions unanswered, but this one answered very little. Simply the choice to end the series on an actual island was troublesome as it acts as an unintended metaphor of sorts – abandon all plot points and finish deserted from all else, so that you do not have to tie everything up. It was quite a bit of a cheat from Daniel Handler, I have to be blunt.

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How Olaf ended was good. It came out of nowhere, but again it was to be expected that he would have at least some sort of a redemption arc, and it was quite moving surprisingly so when he did die eventually. The whole ending was unexpectedly poetic and sweet with the childbirth being a terrific message that all stories come in the middle and there is no beginning nor end really. Again, this was both deep and a cheat, so I am still befuddled at what I should be thinking about this.

Kit Snicket’s story was very well told and the deadly viper returned gloriously, which was a lot of fun. The children were great here and they really have grown. The bickering between the trio and Olaf in the first half of the story was quite comedic and entertaining while the second half was suitably very emotionally grandiose while still being small in scale. I wanted for many of the previous side characters to return and have their own closures, so that was the biggest disappointment for me personally.

The End is funnily titled, which was in line with the humor of Handler’s. The writing is still a mixed bag with some dialogues being fantastic while others are too childish. The island itself was one of the least memorable settings of the series as it wasn’t that well explored nor described, but the idea of all the evils of the world washing on its shores was poetic and profound. It is one of the most serious and deepest of the books, that goes without saying.

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