The Grim Grotto

The Grim Grotto is the eleventh book in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, the thirteen volume children’s series written by Daniel Handler under the Lemony Snicket name. By this point in the series the Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, have learned more than they ever wanted to know about the secret society called VFD that their parents were part of, about the long running schism between its members, and about the moral compromises that almost everyone they encounter has had to make.

In this volume the Baudelaires are aboard the Queequeg, a damaged submarine commanded by Captain Widdershins and crewed by his stepdaughter Fiona and the teenage cook Phil. The Queequeg is searching for a sugar bowl that the children have heard about for several books now, an item whose contents apparently matter enormously to the wider VFD conflict for reasons that the books continue to obscure. The submarine voyage takes them to the underwater Grim Grotto of the title, where they must contend with deadly fungi, the antagonist Count Olaf returning yet again in a new disguise, and the slowly unfolding question of whose side Fiona is actually on.

Lemony Snicket’s narrative voice continues its characteristic running commentary throughout, addressing the reader directly, defining unusual vocabulary, warning about the bleakness of what is coming, and offering the kind of melancholy wisdom that has made the series memorable. The Brett Helquist illustrations add to the atmosphere with their high contrast Edwardian style. By the eleventh book the moral universe the series has been building has become quite complicated, with the easy good and evil distinctions of the early volumes long since complicated by reveals about VFD and its various members.

For readers who have been with the series from The Bad Beginning forward, The Grim Grotto delivers another step toward the eventual conclusion in The End. New plot threads open. Old questions get partial answers. The submarine setting gives the book a different atmosphere from the more land based earlier volumes. New readers should start at the beginning to get the full effect.