The Hostile Hospital
 | |
| Author | Lemony Snicket (pen name of Daniel Handler) |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Brett Helquist |
| Cover artist | Brett Helquist |
| Language | English |
| Series | A Series of Unfortunate Events |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
Publication date | September 2001 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 255 |
| ISBN | ISBN Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Preceded by | The Vile Village |
| Followed by | The Carnivorous Carnival |
The Hostile Hospital is the eighth novel in the book series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. After running away from everyone, both dear and hateful, to the orphans, the Baudelaires are chased around a literally half-built hospital by Count Olaf and his evil henchmen.
Plot summary
At the start of the book, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire arrive at the Last Chance General Store on the run from police and residents of the Village of Fowl Devotees. They are falsely accused of murdering Jacques Snicket at the end of the previous book. There they find a shopkeeper who offers them breakfast and lets them send a telegram from the store to Mr. Poe seeking help, but he doesn't reply before the delivery of The Daily Punctilio forces the reported murderers to flee once more. They are picked up by the Volunteers Fighting Disease. They ask them if they knew a Jacques, but they tell them that they don't know him, and add that they don't know each other's real name, but only call each other brother and sister.
They reach Heimlich Hospital, and soon apply for a job at the Library of Records with the head of Human Resources: Babs. They enter the office, but hear her talking about three murderers in The Daily Punctilio. Just as they are about to run, they realize that Babs is not there, but rather there is an intercom set up on the desk. Babs cuts them off, saying "children should be seen and not heard", justifying her not being there by saying it stands to reason then that adults should be "heard and not seen." They get the job with Hal in the Library of Records. Hal explains to them that they look familiar, although his eyesight is poor and he can't see them too well. He then says that he remembers them in a file about the Snicket fires. At night, they are forced to sleep in the unfinished half of the hospital where it's cold and damp. Reviewing the few pages of the commonplace books they received from Duncan and Isadora Quagmire, they discover the existence of the Snicket file. They play a trick on Hal to try to get it, but only succeed in retrieving the 13th page, which, alongside a photograph of the Baudelaire parents, Jacques Snicket, and another man, reads:
- Because of the evidence discussed on page nine, experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown.
It also says the rest was taken by the authorities. At this point, Esmé Squalor picks the lock on the door and chases them for the file, wearing Stiletto heels(With actual Stiletto knives) that keep getting stuck in the floor. The children outrun her,and hide behind a file cabinet, only to hear a suspicious noise, which they realize is the file cabinets being knocked over by Esmé, causing a domino effect. Klaus and Sunny escape up a chute, but Violet is too big and gets caught. Mattathias (who is actually Count Olaf poses as the Human Resources manager at the hospital, explaining that Babs is taking up the hobby of jumping off of buildings) informs the hospital on the intercom that Klaus and Sunny are in the building.
They hide with the volunteers the next day and then they hear on the intercom system that a 14 year-old girl will be receiving a "Crainioectomy"(head removal). They then hide in a supply closet and find out (by use of a patient list, previous experience with Count Olaf's anagrams and alphabet soup) where the villains are hiding their sister, using the name "Laura V. Bleediotie". They disguise themselves as two "very short" doctors so they can get through the hospital. They use doctors' robes and surgical masks to cover their true identity. On their way they come across Esmé, who is carrying the long, sharp knife that Count Olaf threatened them with in The Reptile Room. She believes that they are the two white-faced women (regular associates of Count Olaf)because Klaus and Sunny are so nervous and pale-faced. She leads them to the hook-handed man and the bald-headed man, who lead them to Violet. They take Violet to the operating theater and begin the operation.
Although they briefly stall the operation by telling the history of the knife, Hal walks in accusing them of setting fire to the hospital. Esmé walks in along with the real white-faced women and "exposes" them. They are rounded upon and Violet wakes up. Esmé has set fire to the Library, and the fire is spreading. The person of indeterminate gender (posing as a guard) tries to catch them as they roll through the hospital on Violet's journey.
The three children hide in another closet which has the same contents as the other supply closet that Klaus and Sunny used, but it has a window. They then divert the crowd of escapees outside to the unfinished half of the hospital by acting like the intercom system using an empty can of alphabet soup to echo their voices, telling them that the Baudelaires have been spotted in the unfinished half. They must hurry for the indeterminate gender is outside in the hallway trying to bust down the door to the closet. They use tied rubber-bands and bungee jump out of the building, discovering that they only jumped out of the second floor.
They hear Count Olaf yelling to his associates to put the disguises in the trunk and get in his long black car. Before the trunk is shut, the Baudelaires hide in the trunk of the car while he escapes with most of his assistants, but the "person of intermediate gender" is superheated in the burning place. He or she is killed. Violet, Klaus and Sunny can breathe in the trunk for there are bullet holes in it, probably from high-speed chases with policemen.
Cultural References & Literary Allusions
- In an illustration, one of the Volunteers Fighting Disease plays a guitar with the inscription "This Volunteer fights disease". This is an allusion to Woody Guthrie, who inscribed "This machine kills fascists" on his instrument.
- In an aside the narrator refers to his friend, Mr. Sirin, who is a lepidopterist. "Sirin" was an early pseudonym of Vladimir Nabokov, a famous Russian-American author and noted lepidopterist.
- The patients at Heimlich Hospital present a wealth of allusions to famous literature, characters and authors:
- Emma Bovary, a patient with food poisoning, refers to the character of the same name in Gustave Flaubert's novel, Madame Bovary.
- Jonah Mapple, who suffers from seasickness, is named after Father Mapple, the preacher who sermonizes on the Biblical tale of Jonah trapped in a whale in Herman Melville's Moby Dick.
- Clarissa Dalloway is an allusion to a character of the same name in Virginia Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway. She suffers from no visible ailment, but stares sadly out the window, which could refer to both Woolf's struggles with depression and her novel, A Room of One's Own.
- Cynthia Vane, a patient with a toothache, is named after a character in Nabokov's novel, The Vane Sisters.
- Charley Anderson comes from John Dos Passos's USA Trilogy.
- Dr. Bernard Rieux, whose ailment is a terrible cough, from Albert Camus's La Peste (The Plague).
- Two patients share names with actual authors: Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer and translator whose works include The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Mikhail Bulgakov, a Russian novelist and playwright.
- On the last picture there is a fortune teller's ball which is Madame Lulu's, which foreshadows The Carnivorous Carnival.
In one section of the book there is a list of patients at the Hospital, and their names are all anagrams of the names of characters, real life people, and other pertinent phrases.
- Lisa N. Lootnday - Alison Donalty (the cover designer for the books)
- Linda Rhaldeen - Daniel Handler
- Monty Kensicle - Lemony Snicket
- Ned H. Rirger - Red herring (an expression for something intended to mislead)
- Eriq Bluthetts - Brett Helquist the illustrator of the books
- Ruth Dercroump - Rupert Murdoch (owner of HarperCollins, the publisher of the series)
- Al Brisnow - Lisa Brown (Daniel Handler's wife)
- Carrie E. Abelabudite - Beatrice Baudelaire
Other than the patient list of the Hospital contains anagrams, several other anagrams also appeared in the book:
- Dr. Flacutono - Count Olaf (previously appeared as Foreman Flacutono in The Miserable Mill)
- Dr. O. Lucafont - Count Olaf (previously appeared as Dr. Lucafont in The Reptile Room]] (notably, this name is different and thus not an anagram)
- Doctor Tocuna and Nurse Flo - Count Olaf
- Laura V. Bleediotie - Violet Baudelaire
Cover images
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North American cover -
UK cover
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Japanese cover
| A Series of Unfortunate Events |
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| All the Wrong Questions | |||||||||
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