The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

 The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux - 360 pages ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The dancers, actors, and stagehands at the Palais Garnier in Paris have been experiencing strange occurrences, which they attribute to a phantom haunting the opera house.  Only one stagehand has seen this mysterious phantom -- and, shortly thereafter, the same stagehand is found dead, hanging between two pieces of scenery.  The prima donna Carlotta suddenly falls ill, and little-known soprano Christine Daae takes her place for the performance, astonishing everyone with her talent.  She claims to have been taught by an angel of music, sent by her deceased father.  But when Christine's childhood friend, Raoul, enters the picture, Christine's angel of music turns out to be less angelic than she first believed.  

As a fan of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, I was curious how much the book resembles the musical.  The musical (and the 2004 film based on it) follows the first half of the book's plot quite closely, but drastically diverges in the second half.  The boat ride, the chandelier crash, the rooftop scene with the Phantom eavesdropping on Christine and Raoul -- most of the most memorable scenes are in the book, but there are enough differences to keep fans of the musical engaged.  Oddly, the book includes much more of Raoul's perspective, and there is one character, known only as the Persian, who becomes very important later on in the story, but does not appear in the musical at all.

Unlike the musical, which focuses more on the love triangle between Christine, Raoul, and the Phantom, the book is more gothic horror, something more akin to Dracula than Beauty and the Beast.  There's a creepy atmosphere throughout the book, especially when Raoul sees Christine wandering around near her father's grave at night, while a mysterious figure plays the violin.  The Phantom is also creepier, both in terms of appearance and behavior.  He looks like a living corpse, not Gerard Butler, and while it's clear that Leroux intended the reader to pity the Phantom, he also does not make him the good guy here.  The Phantom has kidnapped, tortured, and murdered people, and it's quite clear that the iconic chandelier crash actually did kill someone, although the Phantom denies all responsibility.  

The book is also similar to Dracula in that it is an epistolary novel, told through letters and other documents.  A narrator (who seems to be some sort of investigative journalist or historian, possibly even Leroux himself) pieces together letters, newspaper articles, memoirs, and other documents in an attempt to reveal the truth behind the legendary phantom haunting the opera house.  While in Dracula each document sheds more light on the truth of what the characters experienced, in The Phantom of the Opera the truth becomes murkier with each new perspective.  The characters' emotions, ignorance, and, in some cases, their ulterior motives, result in potentially-flawed and unreliable accounts of events.  Raoul, for example, is both infatuated with Christine and jealous of the Phantom, which casts some doubt on his portions of the story.  I won't spoil the ending, but I will say that it is filtered through three perspectives -- one character tells another character, who then tells the narrator what happened.  It's up to the reader to decide how much credibility each character has, and whether to believe their versions of events.  

I did wonder why Leroux includes so much of the opera house managers' perspectives.  It is amusing to see them blaming each other for the strange notes from the "Opera Ghost" demanding Box 5 and a salary of 20,000 francs, but these scenes often seem like a distraction from the main story rather than an addition to it.  There is also an absurd amount of characters, some of whom have nothing to do with the main plot.  It can get confusing, but you don't need to worry too much about remembering these side characters.  The only ones you really need to remember are the ones in the musical, and the Persian.   

Despite the excessive amount of unimportant characters and scenes, however, I would highly recommend The Phantom of the Opera to fans of the musical and fans of gothic horror.  It's brilliantly written, atmospheric, and as captivating as the Phantom's voice -- just don't expect Gerard Butler to be behind that mask.