Book Review: The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

I wanted to read The Phantom of the Opera because the booktuber e m m i e often raves about it, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical based on Leroux’s novel is definitely among my favorite musicals. Unfortunately, I think my love of the musical severely biased my opinion on the novel. While I’m super appreciative of Leroux giving the world this haunting story, and I enjoyed seeing the differences between the novel and the musical adaptation, the novel was not nearly as immersive as I’d hoped it would be. 

The novel is written from the POV of an investigator who is attempting to prove the existence of Erik, or the Opera Ghost, through his research and interviews. I think this narrative distance from the actual events of the novel contributed to my inability to immerse myself into the story. I believe it was somewhat necessary, because often there are events happening simultaneously in different locations of the opera that a first person narration could not conceivably know about, but the pacing was also either too slow, too fast, or otherwise jumpy that tension was nonexistent. The first few chapters in particular jumped around a lot, so I found myself pausing and trying to piece together the chronology and differentiate between the novel and the movie. 

There was also a ton of melodrama, which I think the musical tones down quite a lot. There’s less of Christine throwing out her arms in ecstasy, Raoul’s irritating and whiny monologues, Erik’s endless plaintive crying. And the sheer number of exclamation points in the writing is never a good sign. Even if there wasn’t an exclamation point on a particular sentence, it was almost implied. I also didn’t like the use of italics, which were overused and often in random places that didn’t need emphasis at all.

BUT I do appreciate the additional context the novel provides, like Erik’s more complete backstory or what was going through the managers’ heads as all of the strangeness unfolds. So as a companion to the multiple adaptations (and yes, I do realize that calling the original form of the story a “companion” is nearly criminal, but for lack of a better word…), it did it’s job to further my enjoyment of the story of the Phantom. And I feel like I need to mention again that I really, really enjoy the basic story of the Phantom of the Opera. The setting is superb, where the intrinsic musicality of the opera house and its labyrinthic nature might be the most genius setting for a gothic novel ever. The characters of Christine Daae and the Phantom are also superb gothic character studies. The impressionability of Christine Daae, not because of a particularly low IQ, but formed out of a backstory full of love, trauma, and mythicality. The hatred and bitterness of Erik born out of injustice, isolation, and never having been loved (but the musical does his character better). Their characters and how they interact is fantastic, but ultimately haunting music accompanies and strengthens this interplay to absurd degrees that my appreciation for the novel cannot rise above disappointing. And the musical also simply makes it more believable, perhaps because it is simply more modern and cut out some of the less believable technologies and upgraded trapdoor features that are so important to Erik’s deceptions.