A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Carnivorous Carnival (9)

Condition: New, Hardcover

Author: Lemony Snicket

Illustrator: Brett Helquist

The Carnivorous Carnival is the ninth novel in the book series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket.

Plot Summary

The story begins with the Baudelaires still hiding in the trunk of Count Olaf's car, listening to Count Olaf and his troupe discussing their plans. They talk about a woman named Madame Lulu. Madame Lulu has told Count Olaf where the Baudelaires are hidden each time they move. Count Olaf and his troupe depart the car and the Baudelaires then make it out of the trunk of Count Olaf's car through some clever lock picking on the part of Violet Baudelaire. The orphans spy on Madame Lulu's caravan in Caligari Carnival and hear her explaining to Olaf that her carnival needs more customers otherwise they may close. They also recognize Lulu's accent as that used by Olaf when he was disguised as Gunther.

They disguise themselves for the carnival's House of Freaks, using Count Olaf's disguises stored in the trunk of his car. Sunny Baudelaire wraps herself in a beard to disguise herself as Chabo the Wolf Baby. Violet and Klaus Baudelaire squeeze into one large shirt as a two headed person with highly differing voices, 'Beverly' and 'Elliot'. Madame Lulu hires the children after they do an act for her. She leads them to a caravan with three people inside. Colette the Contortionist who happens to be athletically flexible, Hugo is a hunchback, and the Ambidextrous Freak Kevin, who is ambidextrous.

The next morning they discover that when Olaf asked the crystal ball is one Baudelaire parent still alive, it answered yes, they are up in the Mortmain Mountains. But the crystal ball is not true; it is actually Madame Lulu pretending. She is like a ventriloquist. She is just making an estimate from the maps and newspapers. The children then participate in the freak show. Afterwards, Olaf arrives with a pack of lions and announces that a lion pit shall be made in which one of the freaks shall be thrown tomorrow. This is intended to draw a large audience.

The orphans go back to Lulu's tent to consult her. They first discover the V.F.D. symbol on the outside, and inside find a secret archival library under the table hidden by a tablecloth. The mysterious effects behind her fortune telling turn out to be no more than ropes and pulleys. They are discovered when Lulu comes in. Lulu breaks down and throws off her disguise, revealing herself as a woman named Olivia who just wants to give people what they want. She is a member of V.F.D. and tells them about the V.F.D. disguise kit and a schism which happened in the organization. Violet notes that the crystal ball special effects involve a fan belt that could be used to power the cars from the nearby roller coaster, which the orphans and Olivia could use to escape to the Mortmain Mountains.

That night Esmé Squalor comes to the caravan of the freaks in an I Love Freaks outfit. She tells them that whoever is picked to be thrown into the pit of ravenous lions the next day, should throw Madame Lulu in instead. If they do that, they will be made part of Count Olaf's theater troupe. The next morning the orphans go and get the coaster carts ready.

A large and rude audience shows up to see the lions devour someone. Among the audience is the female reporter who broke the story that the Baudelaires murdered 'Count Omar'. Olaf dramatically unfolds a paper that will show who is to be devoured by lions, and Violet and Klaus are picked. They manage to stall and eventually create a chaotic scene in which Madame Lulu and one of Olaf's henchmen falls into the pit.

Escaping to Madame Lulu's wagon, the orphans find a map of the mountains with a coffee stain on it. Olaf appears, apparently still not recognizing the Baudelaires in their disguises, and states the stain indicates V.F.D.'s secret base in the Mortmain Mountains. The orphans are recruited into Olaf's troupe as are the other freaks. Together they depart for the mountains. Violet and Klaus are in the travel trailer caravan behind Olaf's car, while Sunny is in the automobile car. Olaf then reveals that Lulu told him that they are the Baudelaires, and the newly recruited freaks cut the caravan off the car while on a steep slope.

Series Summary

The series follows the adventures of three siblings, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire, after their parents were killed in a fire at the family mansion. In The Bad Beginning, they briefly live with a friend of their parents, Mr. Poe, who is the person in charge of the Baudelaire fortune after the Baudelaire parents' deaths, before being sent to live with Count Olaf, whom Mr. Poe describes as either the siblings' "third cousin four times removed, or their fourth cousin three times removed". The siblings discover that he intends to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune, which awaits Violet, the eldest child, when she turns eighteen. In the first seven books, Olaf, each time in different disguises, follows the children wherever they go so he can get closer to the orphans and steal their fortune. Their roles switch in the eighth through twelfth books, in which the orphans adopt disguises while on the run from the police after being framed by Count Olaf, disguised as Detective Dupin, for the murder of Count Omar (really Jacques Snicket). The Baudelaires routinely try to get help from Mr. Poe, but Poe is always either busy with work, oblivious to the danger Olaf poses, unaware that the disguised Olaf is not who he claims to be or simply thinks the Baudelaires are lying.

Each of the three siblings has a distinctive skill that often helps them during their adventures. Violet is always inventing new things to help them, Klaus is always finding out new information by reading books, and Sunny has extremely sharp teeth that can bite almost anything in two. [4] In later books, Sunny learns how to cook, as she begins to grow to the normal size for her teeth so cooking becomes her primary skill. Sunny originally spoke in single word utterances which are often a variety of incomplete sentences and some short word sentences as well. Their meaning is either disguised by being spelled phonetically (e.g., 'surchmi' in The Slippery Slope), backwards (e.g., 'edasurc' [crusade] in The Carnivorous Carnival) through cultural references (Sunny says: 'Matahari', followed by a definition of 'If I stay, I can spy on them and find out.'), or being written in other languages (e.g., Shalom or Sayonara), but eventually she begins to speak more in complete English sentences, her first possibly being "I'm not a baby" in The Slippery Slope, or "Like me" in The Vile Village.

Lemony Snicket, the author of the stories and the pseudonym of Daniel Handler, is actually a character himself on the periphery of the stories. He follows the Baudelaires, researching and recording their exploits. Bruce Butt noted in 2002 that in each book a letter from Snicket to his editor is included, presented as exciting updates on Snicket's research into the Baudelaire orphans, which Butt considered to be "the slyest aspect of the way this series has been ingeniously promoted". Over the course of the series, the Baudelaires learn some vague information about Snicket and possibly meet him briefly in The Wide Window and The Penultimate Peril.

1. The Bad Beginning
2. The Reptile Room
3. The Wide Window
4. The Miserable Mill
5. The Austere Academy
6. The Ersatz Elevator
7. The Vile Village
8. The Hostile Hospital
9. The Carnivorous Carnival
10. The Slippery Slope
11. The Grim Grotto
12. The Penultimate Peril
13. The End

A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Carnivorous Carnival (9)