Pages: 360
My rating: 3/5
Goodreads Description
First published in French as a serial in 1909, The Phantom of the Opera is a riveting story that revolves around the young, Swedish Christine Daaé. Her father, a famous musician, dies, and she is raised in the Paris Opera House with his dying promise of a protective angel of music to guide her. After a time at the opera house, she begins hearing a voice, who eventually teaches her how to sing beautifully. All goes well until Christine's childhood friend Raoul comes to visit his parents, who are patrons of the opera, and he sees Christine when she begins successfully singing on the stage. The voice, who is the deformed, murderous 'ghost' of the opera house named Erik, however, grows violent in his terrible jealousy, until Christine suddenly disappears. The phantom is in love, but it can only spell disaster.
Leroux's work, with characters ranging from the spoiled prima donna Carlotta to the mysterious Persian from Erik's past, has been immortalized by memorable adaptations. Despite this, it remains a remarkable piece of Gothic horror literature in and of itself, deeper and darker than any version that follows.
The Phantom of the Opera is an interesting book with a mysterious touch to it. However, I already knew the plot before reading this, because of the movie/musical. The book was very different from the movie. I still had the same dark and mystic vibes from it, but in the book they had a new, for me, way of looking at the Opera Ghost. There was something more terrifying about his actions and choices in the book. The difference between the forgiveness given to the Opera Ghost in the book versus the movie is quite grand. In the movie, I felt more sorry for the Opera Ghost, because they painted a vivid picture of his heartbreaking background. In the book, he seems to have always been causing chaos.
The characters were not exactly the best and sadly I didn't feel for Christine Daaé and Viscount Raoul de Chagny's love as much as I would have wanted to. I do not mean to be too harsh, but it seems sort of made up in my eyes. I felt kind of sorry for Raoul though, because not only is he madly in love, but he is also in grave danger because of that love. And Christine was not a very likable character. I really liked her in the movie, but not so much in the book, except for one thing that she did. I can't say more than that in order to keep you unspoiled. But Raoul was very hurt in the process of this book, both by everything that went down and mostly by the love he had for Christine.
The plot was intriguing and in time I started to really like Raoul and the Persian. The scenery is also amazing and graphic. I love the opera and all of the history that lays in it. The language is old and a bit academic. Overall I did actually enjoy reading this novel, even though I didn't like Christine as much as I did in the movie. It was interesting to see how the story plays out in the book, compared to the film/musical.
Something I want to briefly discuss is the fact that the Opera Ghost is also called "Angel of Music." It might sound like Gaston Leroux is trying to embellish the ghost, but actually, it makes him appear as even more cruel and evil. Did you know that Lucifer sometimes has the title as the Angle of Music? It is said that he is the first fallen angel and that he was the head of the ministry of music in heaven. This is something I found out after finishing the book and something that I cannot let go of. Comparing the Opera Ghost with Lucifer could either be a genius move by Leroux or an incredibly wrong one. I am definitely going to read up on this.
Lastly I want to let you know that I didn't give this book the highest rating, because I struggled with it a lot and it wasn't as great as I thought it would be. But the actual story is very dark and interesting and I would still recommend it if you would like to read about an Opera in Paris, strange happenings, murder, love, sacrifice and of course the famous Opera Ghost or as he is also called "Angel of Music."
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