Adverbs: A Novel by Daniel HandlerReview: This was by far one of the biggest let downs of the past few months for me. I thought that I had stumbled upon a novel that would be 1. a fast read and 2. a side splitting funny story about love. Instead, I was stuck with a 272 page tome about "nothing", "nothing" you say, yes, "nothing". I could not connect to any of the characters, let alone did I even care about any of them. The only reason I picked up this book in the first place, the fact that the author is actually Lemony Snicket, writer of a sequence of children's novels collectively entitled A Series of Unfortunate Events. I do not know, maybe I missed the boat on this one, but I did not enjoy this novel at all and I only finished it because I thought that it was going to get better as I read and low and behold, I was wrong. Okay, so here is "the light at the end of the tunnel"... he mentions in a chapter entitled "barely" a great album, Sandinista! by The Clash. If you do not know this double CD, then you have to check it out. This has got to be one of the most underrated records of all time. As for me ever picking up another Daniel Handler book, I doubt it! I have to stick to his Lemony Snicket books, they are definitely worth the read. The movie Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events by Jim Carrey, Liam Aiken, Emily Browning, and Kara Hoffman is actually even a better choice.
Here are two fun soundtracks that came out of that movie:
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Thomas Newman
The Tragic Treasury: Songs from a Series of Unfortunate Events by Gothic Archies, Stephin Merritt, and Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Thomas Newman
The Tragic Treasury: Songs from a Series of Unfortunate Events by Gothic Archies, Stephin Merritt, and Lemony Snicket
A Conversation With Daniel Handler
(taken from: http://www.powells.com/)
Can you describe the pleasures you find in writing novels for children and adults, and how, composition-wise, these endeavors differ for you?
"I don't find any difference — whatever I'm writing, I engage in the usual sporadic research, the wiggy, baggy first draft and then heaps of rewriting. But it seems worth noting that Adverbs focuses on love — the emotional terrain that's more or less absent from the Snicket books."
books to check out:
Series of Unfortunate Events #12: The Penultimate Peril
by Lemony Snicket
by Lemony Snicket
