Chris Daniel M. Loza, 23, graduated from Ateneo de Manila University last year with a major in Electronics and Communications Engineering and a minor in Philosophy. "In my free time, which for now happens to be all the time, I read books and write on a yellow pad. Sometimes, something that vaguely resembles what I had written would be published. I want to be a Natalie Portman groupie and would want to represent the Filipinos in the multi-colored and adopted children of Angelina Jolie."
That’s one thing about reading a series of books: what it means to you changes as time and the series progress, and you cope with the revelations and tragedies happening both in the books and in your own life. Who would’ve thought that Professor Dumbledore would die or that Gandalf, for that matter, would be resurrected much in the same way that Aslan was? You pick up a book and you’re off to a different world, a life you could only imagine, and yet upon reaching the end you know that it has changed you, it has become a part of you, embedded as it was, in an inexplicable yet primal way.
A friend of mine told me about Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events as a series of books that could tide me over until the next installment of Harry Potter came out. I was in college then, and there had been five books of A Series out already when I bought them. This grim series begins with a warning from the author to go read something else. It would be the same warning that would ignite my brother’s curiosity over the book. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Forewarned, Lemony Snicket begins his account of the lives of the Baudelaire children – Violet, Klaus, and Sunny – with the tragic death of their parents, burnt crisp inside their house. But the Baudelaires are no ordinary orphans – they are rich orphans! Their parents have left them an enormous fortune, which their first guardian, Count Olaf, wants so badly and thus a series of deaths, tragedies, imprisonments and lucky escapes ensue as the books advance to their penultimate peril.
I devoured each new book that came out, reading it in one day or one sleepless night. At first, the series was nothing more than a dark, sarcastic book littered with deaths and tragedies. It’s fun reading how the Baudelaires would escape Count Olaf; how bookworm Klaus would come up with an idea which the inventive and resourceful Violet would use, with a lot of biting help from the innocent-looking baby Sunny. The series is an adventure – a children’s adventure – where in the end, after a series of unfortunate events, they would escape the clutches of the evil Count Olaf. It poses no existential questions to ponder on, no subtleties to think about, and no connection to my life then as a college student.
By the time book 11 came out, I was on my way to graduating from college, and my brother from high school. By then, he had eclipsed me by thousands of light years as the greatest Lemony Snicket fan. Our room in Bicol was filled with all kinds of Lemony Snicket stuff, info, pictures, and of course, the books. I even gave him a whole set of pictures of the Jim Carrey-movie for Christmas along with some puzzles, notations, trivia games and a DVD copy of A Series of Unfortunate Events.
To say that he was obsessed is an understatement. The upside of it was it got Bryan to reading books. Without Lemony Snicket, he wouldn’t be interested in Harry Potter, Eragon, The Spiderwick Chronicles or even Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
Between book 11 and book 12, Bryan decided to study in Manila. We became book buddies, spending hours in bookstores and going around the whole Greater Manila Area hunting for books. When book 12 came out, I was reviewing for the board exam and Bryan was in Bicol for the sem break. Naturally, I had been made to promise that I would send him a copy the moment it came out, which I did.
Book 12, The Penultimate Peril, proved to be an intriguing plot. There had been suspicions even in the previous books that the Baudelaires’ parents were alive, which excited me and my brother no end. Of course, Bryan, being a more rabid fan than I was, had already scoured the Internet for any information or clues about the last and 13th installment, which would come out this year on the 13th of October, a Friday. The significance of the date was not lost on Bryan. He e-mailed Lemony Snicket (or Daniel Handler) for further information. Bryan wanted to know several things. Could the Baudelaire parents really be alive? How could they have survived the fire? How would book 13 end? What would its title be? What would happen to Count Olaf that would mark the end of the book? These things he wanted to find out.
Alas, he never did.
Suddenly, it’s hard to see the upside of a tragic death. No positive thinking could counter the fact that my brother is dead. One minute he was alive, then bam! Dead.
Rereading the series didn’t offer me new insights into life and death, but it did offer me an avenue to relive the memories when my brother would excitedly turn the pages rabidly. It offered me a connection to my past, now suddenly rendered unreal and dreamlike and lost. The series is a testament to my brother’s passion about books and the connection that binds us even now when he’s gone and I am still painstakingly turning the pages of my own life.
They’re no longer just books to tide me over the next Harry Potter, the series has become more than that. I pick up a book from the series, and I’m off into a different world, a life I can now only imagine. And when I will finally read the last installment, the series will have become a part of me, embedded in an inexplicable yet primal way. It harkens back to the time of growing up with my brother, of books bought and read, and of a memory of him telling me, "Kuya, unfortunate events are blessings in disguise."