What I Learned From Lemony Snicket

Brian and I saw a sneak preview of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY last night!!!

It was pretty darn good!

When I first saw the trailers and commercials for it, I wasn't thrilled, because Tim Burton seems -- to me, anyay -- to have forgotten that Story is as important a part of a movie as the visuals are. (Did you see his version of PLANET OF THE APES? Superbly perfect visuals, but you don't really care very much about the characters! It's just a matter of "and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then SURPRISE! The Earth is different now! No reason why, just SURPRISE!") But some of the people whose opinions I trust most -- includung my writer friend, Chuck, who is, like, 10 times the writer I am -- told be "No, no, NO! You HAVE to see BIG FISH! DUDE! YOU of ALL PEOPLE should see this movie!" And I haven't, yet. But when I stumbled onto some Sneak CHARLIE passes after Brian expressed and interest in the flick, I figured I could open my tiny opinion just a smidge.

Besides, as Brian pointed out on the way to the theater, even if it sucks, it was free.

Turns out, though, that the movie didn't suck at all!!!

Maybe Burton's growing up a bit.

I mean, don't get me wrong: I'm ALL ABOUT retaining our childlike (that's "child-like" and not "child-ish") qualities as we grow older!!! I believe that the moment we relinquish our sense of whimsy, our sense of humor and our sense of fun we're just waiting for the grave! But it seems to me that maturing is not mutually exclusive to having a blast! My perception is that maturity is simply a matter of realizing that other people are sharing this planet with us, and we can share our fun with them! OR, if they're intent on having a miserable time -- as some on our planet are -- we can at least not allow them to recuit us into their lifestyle.

And CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY seems to indicate that Burton is maturing, without loosing a bit of his sense of humor, fun or whimsy!

So YAY!!!

Then when Brian and I got home, I was jonesing for some Lemony Snicket. So we watched LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, and Brian retired as I watched the movie again with the director commentary, then I retired and read the first 12 chapters of A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, BOOK II: THE REPTILE ROOM (essentially the middle portion, or Act II, of the movie), and then I finished the book when I woke up.

And I was struck with a revelation!!!

First, I began to wonder why I, a 34-year-old, still enjoy Juevenile Fiction so much.

Now there are some obvious and unflattering jokes that probably spring to mind reguarding the level of my intellect, maturity or vocabulary.

Go ahead, make them. I'll wait.

Feel better?

Okay, so I started analyzing what makes up a good "children's" story. And it was THE REPTILE ROOM that gave me the answer. When the Baudelaire children have gotten to know Uncle Monty a bit, the four fall into a daily routine of working from breakfast until dinner, then catching a movie after dinner. And unlike the work they did at Count Olaf's house, each person -- even Sunny, the biter -- is doing work that they LOVE to do!!!

My immediate thought about this passage was "Now THAT'S THE LIFE!" I have been struggling for over a decade to have THAT lifestyle! I'd love to write/shoot/edit/act from breakfast until dinner time, then catch a meal with the people I love, then go see a movie. I could do that every day for the rest of my life without ever (probably) getting bored with the routine!!!

That sentence described and defined what I want most out of Life, what I'm working to attain in my Life (though I'm honestly not far from it now), and revealed the true allure and point of Juevenile Fiction: So-called "children's" stories -- when they're good, when they're not just an insulting attempt to snatch money from a so-called "less sophisticated" audience -- strip Life down to what is essantial to live well and happily.

Think about it!

"Adult" stories are mired with ambiguity and ideals that are more complex and muddled. "I love her, but I can't be with her because our society won't approve and her vicious father will make her life a nightmare if we're together, so I'll let her go for her better good, though I will undoubtedly die alone in a ditch of a broken heart." Or "I've finally discovered the truth about this man that everyone thought was great and looked up to, but I can't reveal him for the pathetic monster he is because society will better beniffit in blissful ignorance, looking up to him as a hero." That type of thing.

And I am by no means knocking those stories! We NEED those stories!!! We NEED to question our own values and develop a more strong sense of EXACTLY what we believe in and stand for!!! That function is one of the reasons I finally decided I don't need to feel guilty about wanting to receive money for doing something that's so much fun I do it even when I'm not paid.

However, and especially with all the moral ambiguity that confronts us in what often appears to be an amoral universe, it's refreshing to be reminded of the basics of what Life is about! I mean, we can be as morally high-minded as we want, but if we forget to spend most of our day doing work that fulfills us and then eating and then doing something we enjoy doing, we won't accomplish a great deal. We'll become one of those homeless guys ranting about the evils of society on a street corner, bumming change off passersby in between rants.

And there's worse than that, even. How about being a distracted husband and father who makes enough money to keep food on the table, but doesn't really KNOW his children anymore, and whose relationship with his wife has gone from romance to simply being roommates with her?

And there's much worse than that, too, but I think you get the picture.

And more astounding and illuminating to me is the SOURCE of this revelation!

I had this epiphany while reading a Lemony Snicket book! The UNFORTUNATE EVENTS series is one that parents allow their kids to read, but don't themselves read. And therefor, when the movie came out, and faithfully adapted the tone and nature of the events that happen in the stories, parents were shocked and horrified! Not all -- some parents actually DO read what their kids read! -- but a considerable number. A significant enough number to make the editing -- and re-editing -- of the movie very tricky before it's release.

See, Frank L. Baum inadvertantly did a very cruel thing to children growing up in America between the 1940s and 2000s: He removed the darkness from children's stories. He wrote a forward to THE WIZARD OF OZ explaining that he enjoyed British children's stories, but felt the children shouldn't have to be exposed to all the darkness and evil contained in (at the time) the older children's stories.

Now, granted, most of us have never read any of Baum's books, and are only aware of his creation because of that great MGM movie, which is jam-packed with darkness and evil. Still, I suspect enough US publishers read that forward (even if they ONLY read the forward) and decided that was a good idea. "Let's hide darkness and evil from children! That'll equip them for life after they grow up! We'll pretend that it doesn't exist until they're adults, then POW! Won't they be surprised!" I suspect that that's why teenagers started getting nuts around the 1950s and after, but I'm not a sociologist so take my speculation with a grain of salt.

My point is that even though the tales of the astoundingly unfortunate Baudelaire Children are frought with ongoings that tend to shock parents when they realize their children have been reading these books all this time, the CORE of the stories is this: What do we need to have a happy Life? What gets in the way of having a happy Life? How much can we do without and still lead a happy Life?

Not merely SURVIVE. Lead a HAPPY Life! ENJOY Life! Be FULFILLED in Life!!!

Now THAT is a theme worth exploring!

It's an excellent foundation for chiuldren, but more, adults could stand to revisit this theme themselves!!! What is REALLY important? Not to say that politics and religion and office finagling and possessing more wealth than your neighbors and getting revenge on people you don't like and all that doesn't have its place in adult life, but does it sometimes get in the way of living a happy Life? [I keep capitalizing "Life" because I'm refering to it not as the act of breathing and not-being-dead, but because I'm refering to all-that-it-is-and-all-that-it-can-be. An ideal of "Life", rather than the mere state-of-being known as "life".]

Then I go back to the Juevenile Fiction I still love, such as the Harry Potter books -- NUMBER 6, "THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE", COMES OUT FRIDAY!!! -- or PIXAR movies or the rare, good Disney flcik (usually not the animated ones anymore) and I realize that that is the core of good "children's" fiction!!! How do we live a fulfilling Life?

It's really quite astonishing!!!

So anyway, I should probably get ready to go to work and stuff. You know, do the "adult" thing.

But may your day be filled with childlike awe and joy!!!