The Phantom of the Opera (1909) - Book Review

Plot

The story takes place in the 1880's at the Palais Garnier in Paris. The personnel of the Opera House believe it is haunted by the "Opera Ghost" or "The Phantom of the Opera" and after stagehand Joseph Buquet is found hanging they are sure that it is his work. Christine Daaé, a young Swedish soprano, performs at the Opera House's managers retirement party and is asked to replace the opera's leading soprano, Carlotta, who's voice had suddenly failed her during a performance.

Thus Christine takes her place and her performance is loved by the audience, including her childhood friend, the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. After the performance, Raoul tries to meet with Christine backstage, but she acts like she doesn't recognize him. Emberassed he walks out of the room, waiting to talk to her again. Suddenly he hears a man talking to her in her dressing room, even though he never saw anyone walk in there. When Raoul confronts Christine about the voice, she says it's the"Angel of Music", who has been sent to hear by her dead father to tutor her.

My thoughts

These last two years I've been reading the original books of the Universal monster (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Invisible Man) and since it had been almost ten years since I've read Phantom, I thought it was time to do a reread. Even after all those years, I still love it just as much. Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect. There are still some things that I dislike about the book, for example there are way to many characters for such a short book. A lot of them get fused into one character or completely written out in certain adaptations, because it get's really hard to read after a while. It's also quite boring at the start and only picks up after 1/3 or 1/2 of the book, apparently it was originally published as a serial in a newspaper from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910 and I think that explains the weird flow in the story. Those are the only complaints I have, to be honest.

The book tells a tragic love story about a deformed man who has never known affection and falls head over heels in love with a young woman. He doesn't know what to do with these feelings and starts obsessing over her, even hurting and scaring her at times. I don't know why the character of Phantom intrigues me, maybe because the way he behaves can also be seen in other men today or maybe I just pity him. The way he acts in this book all happen because of childhood trauma, because he was never held or kissed as a child. The message that I got from this book is to be kind to people, no matter what they look like and also that if you hurt people with your love it is better to let go.

If you loved this book as much as I did or are also obsessed with The Phantom of the Opera musical, I recommend you read "Phantom" (1990) by Susan Kay or watch "The Phantom of the Opera" (1990) TV-Movie starring Charles Dance as "Erik".