The Beatrice Letters

If you have come to this blog entry looking for a tale of happiness, I would suggest that you click the back button and forget you ever stumbled upon this entry. Instead, this post will be filled with orphans, a shipwreck, a dismal cave filled with bats, impossible anagrams, secret codes, a lost whisk, and more sorrow than any sane person would wish to bear.

I am only writing this because I told M that I would do some research on the fate of the Baudelaire orphans.

:)

Now that we've gotten that out of the way...

If you're not familiar with Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, you're about to really get confused. If you are familiar with it, you're probably also going to be confused.

The Beatrice Letters attempts to "answer"--in that way in which the author only answers questions with more questions--some of the questions we all have had while reading these books.

Things we know about TBL:

1. The poster is supposed to give a clue as to what happened. One side of the poster features a cave with a bat in it, snicket's hat, a book featuring kitchen utensils (a whisk), a picture of Klaus' glasses, a picture of Violet's hair ribbon, a piece of the ship named Beatrice, and other things that I don't think are important. The other side of the poster features a wrecked ship (including the paddles from the hotel that they used as oars), Klaus' broken glasses, Violet's ribbon, and Sunny's whisk.

2. The punch out letters are supposed to be used to form an anagram (or multiple anagrams). The one that makes the most sense is "BEATRICE SANK", but other people have also suggested "A BRAE SNICKET" or "A BRAE SNICKET SANK BEATRICE". More on that later.

3. We are told that TBL start before The Bad Beginning and continue after The End.

4. The dedication says, "To Beatrice and From Her"

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The Letters: (BB1 is the mother, BB2 is the baby)

LS to BB #1: Written by LS when he was an 11 year old boy to BB1. He has a crush on her and wants her to meet him for rootbeer floats (probably also an anagram).

BB to LS #1: Is addressed "dear sir"...the distance between them is far. He has an office. She references "My Silence Knot" which must also be an anagram because it's used so often. She says he is a man she's never seen. She says her bedtime is early. This is written by BB2. She has been separated from the other kids.

LS to BB #2: Who is R?--Male O is Olaf. Beatrice is referred to as a baticeer. This is a made up word that is an anagram for Beatrice.

BB to LS #2: She references jumbled up letters and says one is missing. Refers to Violet, Klaus, and Sunny as siblings--they are her siblings.

LS to BB #3: LS has grown up. He has a job and uses it as a segue to say, "just one letter can change everything". Who is R?--Female. Who is J? Who is G?--Female. Looks like BB has returned his affections. The is talk of evenings together and her sending him sonnets. Mentions rootbeer floats again.

BB to LS #3: BB2 is tracking down LS. She refers to him as a brae man who lived in a cave. She says she gave a shepherd a ring with an R on it (same ring mentioned in The End). She might use Sebald code here, but I don't think so. She mentions Sunny appearing on a radio program to discuss her recipes, so we know that after The End, Sunny grew up. At least she didn't die in the ship wreck. She also mentions rootbeer floats again.

LS to BB #4: Says the bats need better trainers (baticeers). He mentions My Silence Knot as the name of a play. There is a stain on the letter. I tried to make the letters that are stained into a sentence, but I couldn't get too far: Bring myself to calm in dyp en earth e In root we seme asky. I read something online that suggests the stain is a sonnet. Maybe the words inside the circle of the stain can be made into something? It seems like in this letter, BB1 has been kind of giving him the cold shoulder, but he hasn't caught on.

BB to LS #4: BB2 says she's in a Business Letter Writing Class which would make her the same age as LS was in one of his early letters. She explains that a baticeer is a person who trains bats. She has been chasing him down, trying to get information from LS, and he is avoiding her. She says "The three Baudelaires may be long gone..." and she asks him to untie "My Silence Knot".

LS to BB #5: He has received a 200 page book explaining why BB won't marry him. He mentions My Silence Knot again. She has returned the aforementioned ring. It looks like Olaf has convinced BB not to marry LS. There is also a Sebald code that says: "Are you certain your co-star is one of us". The co-star is Olaf. M is Monty. J is Josephine. He mentions the possibility of these things being coded: letter, word, theatrical performance, sonnet.

BB to LS #5: BB once saved Violet's life. This must have happened after The End. Suggests that the shipwreck didn't kill them. She asks him to "Untie My Silence Knot" again.

LS to BB #6: It's addressed to Mrs. Baudelaire. This must have been written right after the Baudelaires (Beatrice and Bertrand) left the island. She's pregnant with Violet. He says there's something so dangerous and terrible that she must know and he's typing it out in big print, but the only letter like that we see is A.

BB to LS #6: BB refers to herself as a 10 year old girl. Is she really 10 or is she in disguise? The card is not torn, so that probably means that he agreed to meet with her.

LS to Editor: Mentions that the arrangement of letters could spell more than one thing. It's weird that he didn't sign it.

My Silence Knot: I have no idea what I just read! "The silence broken by the one who dies..."