The Ersatz Elevator
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| The Ersatz Elevator | |
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| Author | Lemony Snicket (pen name of Daniel Handler) |
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| Illustrator | Brett Helquist |
| Cover artist | Brett Helquist |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | A Series of Unfortunate Events |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Publication date | March 2001 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 259 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0064408647 (first edition, hardback) |
| Preceded by | The Austere Academy |
| Followed by | The Vile Village |
The Ersatz Elevator is the sixth novel in the book series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Daniel Handler under the pseudonym of Lemony Snicket. The Baudelaires are sent to live with the wealthy Esmé and Jerome Squalor.
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[edit] Plot summary
Jerome Squalor welcomes the children to an apartment as dark as the street below. He offers them aqueous martinis (actually just water in a fancy glass with an olive) and introduces them to his wife Esmé Squalor who is a very "in" person and the city's sixth most important financial advisor. She is obsessed with what is that is "in" and "out,"--currently, orphans, dark and aqueous martinis are "in" while tools, elevators and light are currently "out" (which is why the Baudelaires had to walk from the lobby). Esmé presents the children with outsized pinstriped suits, as they are very "in", despite of Jerome's suggestion that they might like something more to their taste, and sends them off to the terribly "in" restaurant, the Café Salmonella. She remains in the penthouse to discuss the "In" Auction with Gunther, the auctioneer.
Gunther arrives as the Baudelaires are putting their pinstripe suits on. They immediately recognize him as Count Olaf, despite his attempt to disguise his eyebrow with a monocle and high boots to disguise the eye tattoo on his ankle. Then Esmé and Jerome come and Jerome takes them to Café Salmonella, where the Baudelaires don't enjoy their meal, not because of all the salmon, but because they're afraid of Olaf/Gunther. Jerome explains to them he thinks they are being xenophobic. He also explains his philosophy about never arguing (his example is that he went to this restaurant to please Esmé, even though he didn't like it).
When they arrive home the doorman says nobody is allowed up to the penthouse until Gunther leaves and he says he hasn't. Jerome explains that he may be on his way down and so the doorman lets them go. When they reach the penthouse Esmé tells them that Gunther left a long time ago.
The children are left alone in the penthouse the next day when Esmé and Jerome head off to pick up the new "in" drink, parsley soda. They search the penthouse for Gunther, find nothing, and decide to look for him in the other apartments by walking down to the lobby and listening at each door. The doorman, redecorating the elevator, mentions that solutions are often right in front of people. Esmé and Jerome come in with crates of parsley soda, and they return to the penthouse.
That night Klaus tells his sister that there is one elevator on each floor except for the top floor which has two. They go to investigate and find one is an ersatz elevator--there is no elevator but just an empty shaft. They climb down the shaft, using an ersatz rope of Violet's design (she uses cords, ties, and curtains) to find the Quagmires, trapped in a cage at the bottom of the shaft. The Quagmires say Gunther/Olaf is planning to smuggle them out of the city by hiding them in an object in the auction, which one of his associates will bid on. The Baudelaires plan to attempt opening the Quagmire's cages by creating some ersatz blowtorches (three pokers heated in the penthouse's ovens) but when they return they find that Olaf has spirited the Quagmires away already. They return, dispirited, to the penthouse.
Jerome has already gone ahead to the auction; Esmé will take them to the auction. Klaus finds a Lot #50, V.F.D. in the auction catalog. Esmé pretends to believe the children's story about Olaf's plot to kidnap the Quagmires, but when they show her the ersatz elevator, she pushes them down the empty shaft. They land halfway down in a net. Esmé laughs and says that Olaf is a wonderful person and that he was her acting teacher. She also says that she knows about the Quagmire kidnapping and leaves them to go to the auction.
Sunny climbs up the shaft with her razor sharp teeth, gets their ersatz rope and jumps back down into the net. Sunny bites a hole in the net, they attach the rope to the pegs that hold up the net and climb down. They travel along the hallway at the bottom of the shaft, using Violet's ersatz welding torches for light, only to find that it is a dead end. Pounding on the "ceiling" reveals that it is in fact a trap door; the children escape through it only to find themselves in the charred remains of the Baudelaire Mansion, their home at the beginning of the series.
They rush to Veblen Hall, the location of the auction, and join the crowd already there. The auction has begun, and Gunther and Esmé are on the stage auctioning off Lot #46. The children ask Jerome and Mr. Poe to buy them Lot #50 as a present. The doorman wins the bidding on Lot #48 (a statue of a red herring). Gunther skips Lot #49 and goes right to #50 which is a big box. Mr. Poe and Jerome back down but Sunny bids 1,000 dollars on it and wins. The Baudelaires rip open the box only to reveal Very Fancy Doilies. "Gunther" slips on the doilies and is revealed as Count Olaf's identity when his boots and monocle come off. He and Esmé race out of the auction hall. The audience try to chase them, but get into a hopeless tangle when slipping on the doilies and tumbling down. The doorman is revealed as The Hook-Handed Man, and the Quagmires are in the red herring statue. Although Jerome wants to keep the Baudelaires, he insists on taking them far away. They refuse this, however, because they want to rescue the Quagmires. The story ends when Jerome is forced to give them up, because he is too cowardly to help them, Mr Poe is calling a Vietnamese restaurant instead of the police and the three children sit on the stairs of the Hall.
On the last illustration there is a crow, foreshadowing The Vile Village.
[edit] Cultural references and literary allusions
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- The Café Salmonella is a reference to either the Salmonella bacteria or the infection that can result when people eat food contaminated with the bacteria.
- The Crying of Lot 49 is a novel by Thomas Pynchon in which a set of rare stamps are sold in Lot 49 of an auction.
- Esmé Gigi Geniveve Squalor's name might be a reference to Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger. One the of the stories is called For Esmé - with Love and Squalor. Jerome is also J. D. Salinger's actual first name, as it is also the name of Esmé's husband. He has the initials J.S., which is a recurring acronym in the series. Her middle names may be references too. Gigi may be a reference to the grande cocette, as well as Esmé's love of Count Olaf (not her husband). Geniveve may refer to Geniveve Coya Kruston.
- The opening discussion of nervous versus anxious is reminiscent of The Giver written by Lois Lowry.
- The Verne Invention Museum is said to be located in town, a reference to Jules Verne.
- Akhmatova Book Store is also referenced as located in the town, a reference to a Russian poet.
- Pincus Hospital, we learn, is where Sunny was born. This is an ironic reference to Gregory Goodwin Pincus, inventor of the contraceptive pill.
- Gunther, Olaf's disguise, may refer to the ancient King of Burgundy, Gunther.
- Jerome Squalor, when discussing xenophobia, mentions Galileo and Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.
- There are 1849 windows in 667 Dark Avenue. 1849 is the year in which Edgar Allan Poe died.
- Armani, another one of Sunny's utterances, is a reference to Armani, an expensive clothing brand.
- 667 Dark Avenue is one number away from 666, a number often associated with evil.
- Veblen Hall, site of the auction of mostly useless goods, may be a reference to Thorstein Veblen, sociologist, who coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption".
- When the Baudelaires first climb the stairs to the penthouse, they overhear a woman say "Let them eat cake". This quote is attributed to Marie Antoinette.
- In the final image, a crow flies overhead, foreshadowing The Vile Village.
[edit] Special Editions
[edit] Salmon!
A Series of Unfortunate Events No.6: The Ersatz Elevator or, Salmon! will be a paperback rerelease of The Ersatz Elevator, designed to mimic Victorian penny dreadfuls. The book will include approximately five new illustrations, an 11-part comic by Michael Kupperman entitled The Cafe with a Theme, and a gossip column written by Lemony Snicket, along with other additions.
[edit] Translations
- Russian: "Липовый лифт", Azbuka, 2004, ISBN 5-352-00952-1
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