urban fiction – arquerociego

This book is a contemporary novel in French literature.

Thus, this book can be classified within the narrative genre in the form of a novel and subclassified into categories such as gothics novels and urban fiction.

This is a single edition launched by Diario El País S.L. of the publishing group Anaya S.A. in 2004, which is a Spanish publishing group formed in 1988. It publishes books for adults (fiction and non-fiction), children’s books, juvenile books, popular works and classics. This book is available in English.

Publication date: 1911
Country: France
Pages: 323
Reading date: June 2020
Rating: 2/5

The author is Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux (Paris, France, 1868 – Nice, France, 1927). He was a French journalist, lawyer and novelist. Born into a wealthy family, he studied law in Paris, graduating in 1889. For a time he practised as a lawyer, but soon abandoned this profession to devote himself to journalism, a field in which he excelled as a reporter. As a journalist he covered important events of his time, such as the Russian Revolution of 1905 and various criminal cases in France, an experience which had a notable influence on his mystery narrative. He was a reader and admirer of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, an influence reflected in his most famous character, the reporter-detective Joseph Rouletabille, the protagonist of several of his police novels. His literary career was consolidated between journalism and fiction, writing gothic horror and mystery. In his later years, he founded a film production company to adapt literary works, but the project failed. He died at the age of 59 due to a urinary tract infection.

Other books by the same author are:

The mystery of the yellow room (1908)
The perfume of the lady in black (1908)

Within the list of other books published by the same author, those for which there is already a post in this blog are highlighted.

Click on it to read it!

The Phantom of the Opera, a classic of the French gothic novel, had never caught my attention. I had heard it mentioned somewhere, but I couldn’t quite remember where. I came across the book like so many others I’ve picked up at Tuuulibrería, a bookshop in Madrid which offers second-hand books where you pay for them through donations. I didn’t choose it to take it home because I really wanted to, but rather because I knew it was a classic and because it was a classic, I felt it was my duty to include it in my personal library.

When I decided to read the book, it wasn’t a good time for me either. I had two jobs at the same time and a lot of stress because it was the first summer I was working as a nurse after finishing my degree. So let’s say I read it for the sake of reading it, to have a distraction or entertainment on the bus or metro ride from one job to another.

«Love cannot exist where there is doubt».
Raoul de Chagny

«There are moments when excessive innocence seems so monstrous that it becomes hateful».
Erik (The Phantom of the Opera)

My mental image of the plot of the novel was that it was a book that, as the title said, was about a ghost and would therefore be a horror classic. Nothing could have been further from my subsequent reading experience, which was full of drama, romance and passion. I may have been influenced by the fact that I was also having a horror reading streak at the time, having read Lovecraft shortly before.

The plot is set in Paris, specifically in its Opera House, and tells the story of the relationship between a young woman soprano named Christine and a figure known as ‘the Phantom’, who is later revealed to be a man named Erik. He teaches her from the shadows about music and singing, as he is a genius in the field, but he does not allow himself to be seen by the woman as he is deformed and fears rejection. Erik turns out to be a mentor figure for Christine but he falls in love and becomes obsessed with her. Later, the character of Raoul de Chagny, a childhood friend of Christine’s, takes over. They are in love and want to lead a life together, although Erik will not make it easy for them. The plot of the novel is woven from these relationships, whose themes deal with unrequited love, betrayal, obsession, power relations, social stigma, art…

«He pressed his heart with both hands to silence it. But the heart is not a dog’s snout…».
Gaston Leroux (narrator)

The author’s style is very descriptive, immersing you in the spaces of the Opera House and contributing to a dark and mysterious atmosphere thanks also to his way of narrating the events in the manner of a police report or investigation. I didn’t dislike this characteristic of his style, but I think that other authors I have read do it in a way that makes you feel more immersed in the setting. On the other hand, the drama of some of the dialogue, his emphasis on the feelings and demands of the characters and the weight of romanticism were tiring at times and made the reading quite dense, and I easily lost my attention at various points. I don’t know if this could have been influenced by the time in my life when I read the book, when I was feeling very mentally exhausted and perhaps it wasn’t the kind of book to read at that moment. However, it is true I am not usually hooked on romance novels, so I think both of these things might have influenced me in my reading.

As for the characters, I can only say that I didn’t connect with any of them and found them indifferent. The only thing I could feel at times was a certain compassion for Erik’s character because of the social stigma given his physical deformity and his feelings of shame, but at times I also hated him for psychologically abusing Christine and becoming obsessed, although at the last moment of the plot he redeemed himself. I found the rest of the characters very flat and insipid.

«Do you think, perhaps, that I wear another mask — that this… this is a mask, too?».
Erik (The Phantom of the Opera)

All in all, I didn’t like the novel in general. Flat characters, grandiloquent language, story sometimes not very fluid, and the figure of the ‘tortured genius’ is already overused if you have read more of the genre.

This myth of the tortured genius, the symbolism of the mask and the duality of the monster inspiring terror and compassion at the same time, may have a high importance in modern culture but specifically in this work I didn’t connect with how it is carried out, how it is developed and executed. At least I can say that I have read one more classic and I can rescue some phrase or dialogue that I did like, and that’s all.

«I tore off my mask so as not to lose one of her tears… and she did not run away!… She stayed!… She stayed with me!… We wept together!… I tasted all the happiness the world can offer!».

«I am not an angel, nor a genius. I am Erik».

«I wanted to be loved… for myself».
Erik (The Phantom of the Opera)

Some reflections:

Do you believe that in love the end justifies the means? How have you dealt with your unrequited love(s)?
Do you have a favourite mask?
What do you think of the romantic love portrayed in this type of literary work? Comment on things you like and things you don’t like

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