The Miserable Mill (Series of Unfortunate Events, #4)

by Lemony Snicket

Brett Helquist (Illustrator)

Mr Poe delivers the three Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and little Sunny, to their new guardian, the owner of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill in Paltryville. But far from living in the mill, they rapidly discover they will be working there and even worse, there is a book in the library by a Dr Orwell, sinisterly shaped like Count Olaf's eye tattoo. Each morning Foreman Flacutono wakes the workers by banging metal pots together and directs them through a day of arduous logscraping, with only chewing gum for lunch and damp casserole for dinner. Their guardian, a terrifying man with a cloud of smoke where his head should be, known only as 'Sir', proposes unsatisfactorily that if they work in his mill, he'll 'try' to keep Count Olaf away. Klaus trips over Foreman Flacutono's strategically placed foot and his glasses get broken. He returns from the village eye doctor, none other than Dr Orwell, strangely changed. Violet believes Klaus has been hypnotised, and when they discover Dr Orwell's receptionist, Shirley, is really Count Olaf dressed horribly, her worst fears are confirmed.
Dr Orwell herself becomes the victim of the nasty accident at the lumbermill she, Foreman Flacutono and Shirley have arranged. Sir decides to pack the children off to their next dismal adventure at The Austere Academy.

• ISBN10: 0064407691
• ISBN13: 9780064407694
• Publish Date: 5 April 2000
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: HarperCollins Children's Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 208
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.com.au/9780064407694

Reviews

The fourth installment, The Miserable Mill, sees the Baudelaire's heading to Paltryville (what a name!) to be placed with...some random guy? It never actually explains how they're related to this one...or what his name is...or what his face looks like (it makes total sense that cigar smoke would cover his face, duh). But he owns Lucky Smells Lumbermill and Mr Poe thinks this guy is fine - so much so he doesn't even bother getting off the train with them. Yes, responsible adulting right there.

Luckily for them boss dude who is probably not even related to them is willing to treat them like family. So he puts them to work at the Lumbermill under the authority of Foreman Flacutono. And Count Olaf doesn't seem to be anywhere. Not even in the big creepy house that's shaped like an eye.

Unfortunately, Foreman Flacutono is one of Count Olaf's cronies and it's not long before the latest plan to gain the Baudelaire fortune is enacted. This time it involves hypnosis and is targeted specifically at Klaus. Foreman Flacutono trips Klaus and he breaks his glasses. Klaus is taken to see Dr. Georgina Orwell - the town optometrist who hypnotises and sends him back to cause trouble at the Lumbermill. All in the hopes that boss dude will decide the children are too much trouble and agree to let the nice optometrist secretary, Shirley, (Count Olaf in disguise) adopt them. Perfectly reasonable. Couldn't have thought of a better plan myself. I honestly don't know if I'm more impressed that their plan almost works or that they came up with it and thought it might work in the first place.

Like always, the kids save themselves. Which is good because no one else was going to. And also like usual, they get removed from their guardian. Which was still good because he was terrible. And they live to see another day so I guess they're lucky.

Being alive had never seemed lucky before, but as the children considered their terrible time in Sir’s care, they were amazed at how many lucky things had actually happened to them. “It was lucky,” Violet admitted quietly, “that Klaus invented something so quickly, even though he’s not an inventor.” “It was lucky,” Klaus admitted quietly, “that Violet figured out how to end my hypnosis, even though she’s not a researcher.” “Croif,” Sunny admitted quietly, which meant something like “It was lucky that I could defend us from Dr. Orwell’s sword, if I do say so myself.”

Snicket, Lemony. A Series of Unfortunate Events Collection: Books 4-6 (A Series of Unfortunate Events Boxset Book 2) (p. 80). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Or are still terribly unfortunate but discovering they're closet optimists. 3 stars.

[abookishblether]

A quick, if a little boring read in the series. I am really looking forward to later books where I remember the plot gets deeper.

[thepunktheory]

I have to admit, so far this is my least favourite book in the series. There's a lot of stuff going on but it feels just a little more superficial than the novels before. Although there were some funny and sad moments, The Miserable Mill failed to pull me in as much as the rest of the series did.
Don't get me wrong, it is still a wonderfully written book with many weird and amiable characters, but the other ones were just a tiny bit better.
However, I have to admire Daniel Handler/Lemony Snicket for coming up with all of this stuff. This is definitely one of the most creative series I encountered in a while!

Not my favourite book in the series but still a fascinating story!

[Liz (Bent Bookworm)]

~*Full series overview here on The Bent Bookworm!*~

Whoo-boy, here we go – The Miserable Mill picks up where The Wide Window left off, with the Baudelaires going off to yet ANOTHER guardian, this one the most mysterious and incomprehensible yet. Things are getting extremely repetitive at this point, so much so that I was tempted to not read this one. But the books are so easy to get through and so FAST to get through that I persevered.

This book gives a new spin to the Baudelaires mistreatment – they actually ARE slaves in this one, for the most part! Thrown into a sweatshop/poorhouse type sawmill, they are used and abused and try to hold each other together. Hope seems to be slipping away from them as they are too exhausted to do anything at the end of the day. But then Klaus breaks his glasses and has to go see the “optometrist.” And all is not as it seems…because nothing ever is, for these kids. Of course no one believes them when they say they are being stalked. Of course no one sees anything wrong with 3 children working in a sawmill – actually, someone does, but has no guts to do anything about it, typical of the “good” adults in these stories. In the end, they of course barely escape per the usual. However, this time, the ending doesn’t have them going off to another relative, it has them going somewhere else entirely, so maybe the next book will have a change in plot. I very much hope so because I really think even most children would be bored with these by now.

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[celinenyx]

In my opinion one of the bleakest books in the series. In The Miserable Mill the orphans are forced to work in a lumber mill, where they don't even get food except for dinner. I was very relieved once the orphans escaped Olaf's clutches once again, and they could go somewhere better.

[ibeforem]

More of the same. I feel like I’m starting to get a little bogged down in them, so I think that after I finish the next one, I’m going to start alternating them with some other audio books. I think I’m coming down with Baudelaire overload.