Gaston Leroux

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Look! You want to see! See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice!' Living secretly beneath the Paris Opera House, 'The Phantom of the Opera', Erik has haunted those who work there with his demands and shrouded the opera house in fear with the legend of his disfigured face. When Christine joins the company, a young woman with a beautiful voice, Erik is instantly smitten and secretly teaches her to become a great singer. He soon develops an obsessive love for his beautiful prot�g�, even though she has fallen for her childhood friend, resulting in her disappearance during a performance and sparking a tragic and terrifying chain of events. One of the most well-known and well-loved gothic horror stories, Leroux's suspenseful tale of unrequited love, passion and tragedy is both dark and moving in its portrayal of Erik, the anti-hero in his yearning for Christine.

Collins Classics - The Phantom of the Opera

Kath

"It is true, Christine! I am not an Angel, nor a genius, nor a ghost. I am Erik!"

I enjoyed every bit of The Phantom of the Opera: it is short, succinct, and on top of that, a comedic and detective romance full of dramatic irony. How can it be all of that and be less than 280 pages?

Underneath the marvelous full-house productions of the Paris Opera House is a horror carnival unbeknownst to its stage's occupants: secret passages, an underground tunnel, a lake, a torture chamber with heat-reflecting mirrors that can make one lose sanity; resting on top of a bed of gunpowder barrels that can be ignited by a grasshopper mantlepiece - sufficient enough to obliterate the house and everyone in it. 

I didn't expect the novel to be so different from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical. It is so different that you'd not choose which one you prefer - they have the same but different characters, the same but different overarching themes, and two very different endings - yet both dwell underneath the dark setting of the opera house.

On the nature of beauty vs ugliness
I think I can say that I apparently love tales of disfigured monsters searching for sympathy (yes, I'll read Frankenstein soon). From the moment Erik was born, his mother and everyone around him hated him because of how he looked. Every time he sought for affection, he was always pushed away and a mask was given to him. His features were so repulsive that his humanity was forgotten. Erik in turn, decided to embody the monstrous descriptions about him, and lived away from society, alone with his own genius, blaming everyone for his fate. 

"Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be someone, like everybody else. But he was too ugly!"

 It is society's reverence to beauty that has made Erik fail to be a part of it - it is beauty and its control over society that pushed Erik away from its eyes. His intelligence and the beauty of his talent never saw the light of day for everyone chose to be against him even before knowing what's inside of him. 

This novel strongly suggests that Erik chose to be an immoral being because this evilness, which wasn't born with him, was a product of society's repulsiveness towards disability and deformity. Shall we pity Erik? Yes, but not for his appearance. We shall pity him for not finding beauty within himself that no physical attribute can trump. For all the years that he spent living underground - creating art inspired by his life's darkness - he failed himself by not seeing beauty within himself. However, on the greater scheme of things, society has failed Erik.

The Phantom of the Opera has reminded me to peel away the layers of humanity. What's beautiful and precious outside may be rotten within - and this gnawing dark core is always hidden and difficult to find.

Lynn

Coherent thoughts on the book: this was a nice read. I had very high expectations before going into this. I didn’t quite love it as much as I’d hoped. There is some beautiful prose in this book, its atmospheric tone and mysterious elements create a very enjoyable narrative that is easy to follow and a quick read. There is a lot of characters and I didn’t particularly love any of them, however I adored the Opera house as a setting. I think this might be much more enjoyable on the second read while being able to tab and track things.

Collins Classics - The Phantom of the Opera

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