[Dragaera] Onions (homage to Brust?)

[Gaertk at aol.com]

I can't tell if this is an homage, or just another author who thinks 
onions make a good simile.  Anyway, here are the first two paragraphs 
of Lemony Snicket's _The End_:

     If you have ever peeled an onion, then you know that the first 
     thin, papery layer reveals another thin, papery layer, and that 
     layer reveals another, and another, and before you know it 
     you have hundreds of of layers all over the kitchen table and 
     thousands of tears in your eyes, sorry that you ever started 
     peeling in the first place and wishing that you had left the 
     onion alone to wither away on the shelf in the pantry while you 
     went on with your life, even if that meant never again enjoying 
     the complicated and overwhelming taste of this strange and 
     bitter vegetable.

     In this way, the story of the Baudelaire orhpans is like an 
     onion, and if you insist on reading each and every thin, papery 
     layer in A Series of Unfortunate Events, yuor only reward will 
     be 170 chapters of misery in your library and countless tears in 
     your eyes.  Even if you have read the first twelve volumes of 
     the Baudelaire's story, it is not too late to stop peeling away 
     the layers, and to put this book back on the shelf to wither 
     away while you read something less complicated and overwhelming. 
     The end of this unhappy chronicle is like its bad beginning, as 
     each misfortune only reveals another, and another, and another, 
     and only those with the stomach for this strange and bitter tale 
     should venture any farther into the Baudelaire onion.  I'm sorry 
     to tell you this, but that is how the story goes.

-- 
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: gaertk at aol.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
                          -- James Nicoll