The Miserable Mill

Lemony Snicket

The Baudelaire orphans continue their travails in The Miserable Mill, book four in the seemingly unending Series of Unfortunate Events from Lemony Snicket. In this episode, the orphans are sent to Paltrytown, a small place in the middle of nowhere sustained by a large lumber mill, of whose boss the children are to be put in the care. All well and good, except that the boss and the foreman both expect them to work in the mill (over the protestations of the boss' partner Charles, a very nice, if ineffectual, man). Needless to say, Count Olaf is lurking in the wings, and even when Olaf isn't doing his thing, life is not very nice for the Baudelaire orphans... not very nice at all.

The Wide Window was something of a disappointment from the Snicket camp, and it's quite refreshing to see that The Miserable Mill shows a return to form. The book feels far less episodic throughout than did The Wide Window (though, obviously, pieces of it still feel that way), and Snicket, seemingly bored with the formula (or assuming the readers would be), mixes things up a bit in order to keep them interesting. And keep them interesting he does. (He also indirectly answers a question I've had in the back of my mind since the beginning: "is Sunny actually speaking a language?")

Very nice, and makes me look forward to book five.