So, I'm repeating EUOL a little bit. The complaint I've heard from people about the movie (and about the first books in the series, in fact) is that it is the same story over and over again. People who weren't fans of the books did not understand why the movie was so repetitive. And people who did read the first books solely for plot got hung up on the repetive nature and gave up early on in the series. Which is fine. But I think they are missing out.
I did find the first books a bit repetitive. But I loved the writing style--the narrative interaction with Lemony Snicket, the "author." It made me laugh. I was in a children's literature class at the time, and through a Scholastic Book Club Order had purchased in paperback books 1-9. So I kept reading them, even though they were a bit repetitive, half because they were funny enough that I wanted to, and half because I was feeling a bit OCD and felt since I paid for them I ought to read them.
In Book 5 (The Austere Academy), when the Quagmire triplets get kidnapped, I thought, "Well, this is different." That was probably another main reason I kept reading--now I wanted to find out what would happen to the triplets, and I was also intrigued by the mystery of VFD. So I moved on to Book 6--The Ersatz Elevator. I was going along, enjoying the book, almost dying with laughter when the author used two black pages to express the despair that could not be expressed in words, when right after that something happened that entirely changed how I viewed the series. The Baudelaires are having a conversation with Esme, after they are trapped in the net in the elevator shaft, when Esme says, "I want to steal from you the way Beatrice stole from me."
I remember sitting up straight in my bed. "What?" I cried.
Beatrice wasn't supposed to be in the story. I mean, in the Baudelaire part of the story. Beatrice was only referred to by Lemony Snicket in his asides and the eulogiac dedications. I had always assumed that Lemony Snicket was far removed from the Baudelaires (like maybe researching them years later).
I started stewing on that. How was Beatrice connected with Esme? And why would Esme want to steal from the Baudelaires if Beatrice had stole from her?
That's when I began to develop my wild theory--that Beatrice is the Baudelaires' mother.
Since then, I started reading with this in mind, and found things in the books that support this, and at least one thing that contradicts it. But I can't remember what that was--only that it was in Book 11, because until Book 11 I was completely confident in my theory. I do remember some of the support, if you want to hear the rest of my theory. Book 11 still makes me think my theory is possible, because we are slowly getting closer to the Baudelaires actually meeting Lemony Snicket.
So what do you think? Whenever I meet someone who has read as far as me (which is few and far between), they never seem to have had this idea occur to them. I wonder if I'm crazy. Or just exceedingly clever.