The Hostile Hospital

infobox Book |
name = The Hostile Hospital
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Lemony Snicket (pen name of Daniel Handler)
illustrator = Brett Helquist
cover_artist = Brett Helquist
country = United States
language = English
series = "A Series of Unfortunate Events"
genre = Novel
publisher = HarperCollins
release_date = September 2001
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (hardback & paperback)
pages = 255
isbn = ISBN
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, the Baudelaire orphans are chased around a literally half-built hospital by Count Olaf and his evil associates.

Plot summary

On a hot summer day at the General Store, The Baudelaires had just escaped from hectors balloon because they where running from from police as they are falsely accused of killing Count Olaf. The store's shopkeeper lets them send a telegram from the store to Mr. Poe seeking help, but then the newspaper arrives, and the shopkeeper runs the children out of his store. The children then get in a van that has V.F.D. written on the side of it. The people inside are Volunteers Fighting Disease, and they take the children to Heimlich Hospital.

Once they reach the Heimlich Hospital, Babs the head of Heimlich Hospital starts talking about the library through the intercom. The three orphans decide to sign up for the job and goes to her office. Fortunately, Babs is not actually in the room, but is speaking through an intercom. Babs hires them to work with Hal in the Library of Records. At night, they sleep in the hospital. Reviewing the few pages of the commonplace books they received from Duncan and Isadora Quagmire, they discover the existence of the Snicket file. They 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 states that the authorities have taken the file's remaining pages. At this point, Esmé Squalor breaks into the room, and chases the children. She is hindered by her stiletto heels, which have real stiletto knives for heels, as she keeps getting stuck in the floor. Klaus and Sunny escape up a chute, but Violet is too big to fit through the chute and is captured.

Klaus and Sunny hear on the intercom system that violet will be receiving a Crainioectomy. They then hide in a supply closet and find out (by use of a patient list, previous experience with Count Olaf's anagrams and a fortuitous can of alphabet soup) that this is their sister--the villains have hidden her as a patient in the hospital under the false name "Laura V. Bleediotie". They disguise themselves as two "very short" doctors and head for the operating system

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 upoand Violet wakes up. Olaf 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 gurney.

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 using the empty soup can to impersonate the intercom system. They bungee jump from the second story window, using a rope of rubber-bands.

They hear Count Olaf yelling to his associates to put the disguises in the trunk and get in his long black car. The Baudelaires hide in the trunk of the car and Olaf escapes with all of his assistants but the "person of indeterminate gender", who is caught in the burning hospital, and killed.

Cultural references and literary allusions

*Heimlich Hospital is a reference to Henry Heimlich, an American physician best known for the Heimlich Maneuver.
*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 "U.S.A. 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 the picture where Esmé Squalor is knocking down the filing cabinets, many files are shown which contain elements from previous books, which are a map of Lake Lachrymose, a file with the title, Dangerous Viper, referring to The Incredibly Deadly Viper from "The Reptile Room", a wanted poster with a picture of Count Olaf, and a document with the words, Mulctuary Money Management, referring to the bank Mr. Poe works at.
*In order to warn her siblings of Count Olaf's associate, who looks neither like a man nor a woman Sunny Baudelaire cries, "Orlando" which is a reference to the eponymous character of Virginia Woolf's novel "", who is magically transformed from a man into a woman, and continues to switch between the sexes by changing her clothing.

Anagrams

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). It also spells "Torch Up Murder"
*Al Brisnow - Lisa Brown (Daniel Handler's wife)
*Carrie E. Abelabudite - Beatrice Baudelaire
*Laura V. Bleediotie - Violet 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")
*Doctor Tocuna and Nurse Flo - Count Olaf
*Laura V. Bleediotie - Violet Baudelaire

=Cover

Translations

* Russian: " _ru. Кошмарная клиника", Azbuka, 2005, ISBN 5-352-01227-1