The Miserable Mill

This book hurt.

When I was in the Army I tried to keep my spiritual life intact. I'd try to keep up with my morning and evening prayers, to hold to the ideals I believe in, and to keep hope alive. I'd learned long ago that,unless you work very deliberately at spirituality, it dies. Keep it going, even if it makes no sense, even if it's painful, and you will be genuinely sustained.  There is no rational process to it: either push forward or stop. Belief is a verb, not a noun.

Most do not know the absolute... Joy... That is going to The Field. I will attempt to explain, so you may empathize without having to go through such a horrible experience. Imagine that, from the moment you wake up (5 am) to the moment you go to sleep (11 pm, possibly later), you are busy with the most boring, most insipid, most useless and stupid work you can imagine.

No, you're not going dumb enough.

Dumber.

Dumber.

Dumber, I say!

But it's all urgent. All of it is "important", and everyone around you is saying it is. And then they stop to complain about how pointless their work is and how they hate it and how they'd wish they could stop. Everyone says the emperor has clothes, and then turns around to say he doesn't. And then continues to say the emperor has clothes.

Constantly.

There's only one rank who doesn't seem to be complaining, by and large. They actually seem kinda excited. They're giving unreasonable orders, don't complain like the others, and never say what they're doing is pointless. Ever.

I am, of course, talking about the Army Major, in all his profane glory.

What's so special about the Major and his shiny gold oak leaf? He's not in charge. He doesn't have a unit. And that's just it: he doesn't answer directly to anyone, while being the advisor. He is isolated from the effects of his ideas, and may come to like the smell of all his farts. He loses touch with the men and isn't under threat like a captain or a lieutenant colonel.

Nothing will destroy a unit like a bad Major.

Oh, I didn't mention, sorry, you're in a tent with no privacy, whatsoever. If you think you have a spot to take a few minutes, even really a few seconds, you're wrong.

But now imagine you're a kid who only gets one square meal a day, is paid in coupons, and it gets worse, doesn't it?

When you're under that level of stress you just sorta... Go into a trance. You can't help yourself. Life just gets so mind-numbing, so tiring, so exhausting, that you can barely summon anything purposeful. Outside of Field I'd always managed a more-or-less consistent prayer schedule. That was almost impossible in Field: everything was designed to keep me occupied until I collapsed after 18+ hours of work.

Honestly I'm surprised Klaus needed a hypnotist to fall into a trance. It's so easy to do with all the stressors he was under.

How does one stay out of this trance? Well, first you have to acknowledge that all societies are designed to focus you beyond your own problems. 

If it's done right, you will be able to work with others and find fulfillment and answers for your own interior questions in working with others. Humans are relational being first, and that's what society should be enabling. With relationship comes questions, with questions comes empathy.

But if it's done wrong? You're isolated, caught up in a series of stressors that break you down mentally and spiritually, constantly otherizing, constantly asking you not to think, providing rewards for turning your brain off and letting yourself be dictated to. You don't investigate. Your basic function as a relational being is cut down.

Which one are you in, now?

There is no in-between, folks. You're either being enabled to relationship or you're being isolated to manipulate, on a societal level.

Given the society Mr. Snickett chooses to write about here,  I can guarantee he doesn't think most children growing up in today's society, his target audience, are in the former.

The fact that the folks in his book have stopped noticing they're being isolated is the point.

The Reptile Room

 Mild Spoilers for this book to follow!

"Do you know what sort of scientist he is?" she asked.

... "I'm afraid not," Mr. Poe admitted. I've been very busy making the arrangements for you three, and I didn't have much time for chit-chat."

Oh man, ow ow OW. The above made me think this book would stay with the true but familiar "Adults are stupid" trope, which Mr. Snicket likes to talk about. He's right, of course, and I don't think it's talked about enough. But I wasn't really going to write another review. Or rant. Or whatever the hell these are. They're probably exorcisms, at this point, knowing my luck. 

 But when Uncle Monty dies, the children realized that their last conversation with him was awful. They'd just figured out that Count Olaf  had snuck his way into Uncle Monty's house as "Stephano", and they were so distraught that they didn't really talk to Uncle Monty the rest of the day. Uncle Monty, the one who loved them fiercely and was utterly clueless as to the danger! And the children couldn't say anything to Uncle Monty, out of fear of dying themselves.

They wake up in the morning to find Uncle Monty dead.

And in that sickening moment they realize they had a moment to just be with Uncle Monty, and wasted it.

For those of you who have not experienced such a moment, you will be tempted to tell the Baudelaires they're being too hard on themselves. They couldn't help it.

Congrats, you just condescendingly described what the three children were experiencing. To blame themselves is not the point. To realize that they lost something before they even knew they lost it?

That is. The Point.

The rest of the text continues to subvert the Baudelaire's expectations. They're now aware they have a narrative, however dimly, and so they are trying to step outside of their own trance, to think, an act that is herculean, even on a good day. The Baudelaires don't have good days, do they? Oh wait, they did.

With Uncle Monty.

It is amazing to me, just how much the narrative twists around pushing the Baudelaires into doubting everything but one thing: Count Olaf. He's clearly got a lot of... trouble... in his soul, and who the hell sneezes into curtains except if you're crying so freaking hard that you need something, anything, wipe your nose? It's an odd thing to mention. It's very, very, very specific.

But the the thing that takes that cake for me is the end of the book. The Baudelaires actually get to say good-bye to someone. Yes, The Incredibly Deadly Viper counts. I didn't expect this. The Baudelaires realize they have a chance to say good-bye and move heaven and earth to get it done. They break out of the narrative they are powerless orphans and choose to do what genuinely matters.

Folks, that is actually a good ending. At least in my books. Funny how death is one of the few things to do this to us, by and large.

"It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair then there actually is. Your foot falls down, through the air and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things."

The Bad Beginning

 

The only difference between children and adults is power.

On my Facebook I put up a picture of this book and called it "light reading". I was halfway joking, of course. I heard a lot of the front half of this series while I was a teenager, as my father read it to my younger siblings. I know it's a stupidly dark series, this book is about legalized child rape, after all! But, given that I've been climbing through books about the history of the 19th century and... well.... anything by Wolfe... I just thought I'd take a quick break into something simple.

And I'll admit it! The level of self-satisfaction in saying that is immense. There is a smugness to that comment that is very hard to cop to. Ooh, look at how smart I am! Looky me! Most of my life has been spent watching as groups of people make phenomenally stupid decisions that I am on the wrong end of.  It is satisfying to be able to sit down in front of a computer and vent how broken perception is,  because for me it is a way of trying to communicate that we inherently step on me, a white man living in the United States.

So in other words one of the most deluded class of individuals living in a country that is a personification of Mordor (if there ever was one) is complaining about how he is being stepped on inherently in a world where the "Not-Slavery" of the UAE, which I have spent time defending in a military capacity, exists.

The only difference between children and adults is power.

But you know what? It's fine! I can make these complaints while at my incredibly cushy job. Yeah, sure, it's stressful as hell, but I'm with the freaking government! I get health insurance the rest of the country pines for. I'm at 90% disability from the VA, for the rest of my life. That's right! There's a  pay-out (tax free!) from the VA for the pain and suffering the idiotic military put me through. And what's more I could sit down and try to make a case for 100%, which would give me (tax-free!) an income that equals (if not beats) what some of my friends make in a year, for doing nothing more than having some pieces of paper in with a government agency.

But no, somewhere in my head there's a narrative that somehow I have an extremely hard life. And I have the power to buy into that narrative. Because that's what defines an adult.

If my children made a claim about being unfortunate half as ridiculous as that you know I'd put them in their place. "Look at the blessings you have! Surely the fact that you're with Mom and I outweighs them, and we love you and will help you with the rest", is probably what I'd tell my six and three year old. I have the power to make sure that they get a good stiff reality check. Hopefully I wouldn't be too much of a dick about it but... Yeah.

The only difference between children and adults is power.

The adults in The Bad Beginning all have one thing in common: they're all hopelessly deluded. The banker, the judge, the evil man, they're all nice or not nice or just flat out evil or whatever, but they're all lost in a constructed world that the children don't have the power to go into. The orphans can't escape Olaf. They can momentarily lose themselves in something, but they cannot escape the situation that Olaf is after them. The adults? They don't have to look at that. No, they've spent their lives building up narratives and lies known as legality that allow them to look the other way, reflexively. 

But the children don't have the power to look away, not for long. They can't play the game because the game is power. And children have very little to none. They have to deal with the fact that the world is a wretchedly sad place. They can't lose themselves in drugs (no money for children to buy them because adults are hypocritical assholes), they can't bury themselves in their work (children are not mature enough for work that adults are certainly not qualified for, adults are hypocritical assholes), and they certainly can't plot revenge (adults are greedy about this last point especially because...), so they're just stuck.

But adults can. And they do.

The only fictional part of this book, besides the supposed absurdity of Count Olaf, is the children winning at the end. It is a false promise, made with a nudge and a wink from Mr. Snicket to us. Because the rest of us? 

We didn't win. We just got power.

And thus became an adult.

And can now ignore children, who are stuck until they get power.

Woe upon you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites that encompass sea and land to gain a single proselyte, and then make the proselyte twice as worthy of damnation as yourselves. Matthew 23:15 

If you doubt that, I'll ask you if the below photo is a little girl dressing up for fun or not.

Go ahead! Guess!

Hint: the fact that you can guess it's play-acting is because you have the power to delude yourself. I assure you she doesn't. And someday she will. I hope we didn't make her like us.

Light read indeed.