Setting is very important in "A Series of Unfortunate Events," almost the other major character, especially given the mock gothic quality of the stories. Like Count Olaf, the setting in each book is antagonistic to the poor Baudelaires. For example, Prufrock Preparatory School, the setting of Book Five The Austere Academy, is a dark, depressing boarding school with buildings shaped like gravestones, a brown lawn, a school motto of "Momento Mori" ("Remember you will die"), and a shack for the children's dormitory. The shack is really bad, moreover, with only hay bales for furniture, infested with hundreds of small crabs, and the ceiling dripping with some nasty fungus. Needless to say, the school is inhabited by horrible teachers and a harsh vice-principal named Nero, final exams are pointless, and students have to go to school on weekends, too. The weird details the author adds make this perhaps the...