"It's off-book!" : Developing Serial Complexity across Media in A Series of Unfortunate Events
Tanderup, Sara LU
(2020)
In Children's Literature Association quarterly
45(1).
p.59-79
- Abstract
- The article traces the development of narrative complexity in the book and television versions of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. The series has been criticized for its repetitive structure; however, drawing on seriality theory by Umberto Eco, Jason Mittell and Frank Kelleter, I demonstrate how it does move beyond repetition and towards a more complex narrative structure. I point out how the recent Netflix adaptation, rather than merely repeating the books, adds to this development of serial complexity. Thus, by comparing the book series and the adaptation, I demonstrate a tendency towards developing transmedial complexity in serial narratives.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/b9921c8d-7b2d-42fb-9994-6375ff7e4011
- author
- Tanderup, Sara
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2020-02-27
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Children's Literature Association quarterly
- volume
- 45
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 21 pages
- publisher
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85086670427
- ISSN
- 0885-0429
- DOI
- 10.1353/chq.2020.0004
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- b9921c8d-7b2d-42fb-9994-6375ff7e4011
- date added to LUP
- 2020-05-06 21:56:56
- date last changed
- 2025-10-14 10:44:15
@article{b9921c8d-7b2d-42fb-9994-6375ff7e4011,
abstract = {{The article traces the development of narrative complexity in the book and television versions of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. The series has been criticized for its repetitive structure; however, drawing on seriality theory by Umberto Eco, Jason Mittell and Frank Kelleter, I demonstrate how it does move beyond repetition and towards a more complex narrative structure. I point out how the recent Netflix adaptation, rather than merely repeating the books, adds to this development of serial complexity. Thus, by comparing the book series and the adaptation, I demonstrate a tendency towards developing transmedial complexity in serial narratives.}},
author = {{Tanderup, Sara}},
issn = {{0885-0429}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{02}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{59--79}},
publisher = {{Johns Hopkins University Press}},
series = {{Children's Literature Association quarterly}},
title = {{"It's off-book!" : Developing Serial Complexity across Media in A Series of Unfortunate Events}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/chq.2020.0004}},
doi = {{10.1353/chq.2020.0004}},
volume = {{45}},
year = {{2020}},
}