Rating: 5.0
What it's about:
The actors, singers, and patrons of the Paris Opera House say that a ghost haunts the labyrinthine chambers beneath its stage. While there are those who laugh off such superstitions, they always do so nervously, in the bright light of day. Nearly everyone connected with the Opera House in any way has felt the phantom's vague, troubling presence. But beautiful, talented young singer Christine Daae will soon experience a terror far more acute than any vague feeling of unease. For she is about to learn the secret of why the man who has made the tunnels beneath Paris his private domain must forever hide his face behind a mask.
Part horror story, part historical romance, and part detective thriller, the timeless tale of a masked, disfigured musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House is familiar to millions of readers, as well as to movie and theatre-goers. At the heart of the story's long-standing popularity lies its questioning of a universal theme: the relationship between outward appearance and the beauty of darkness of the human soul.
My thoughts:
This gothic novel does a wonderful job with crossing genre lines. It mixes elements of romance, horror and mystery into a fantastic piece of fiction. We, the reader, travel from the very roof of the Paris Opera House down to the lair of the "Angel of Music" beneath that same house of music. The Phantom of the Opera contains an underground lake, a torture chamber and a graveyard. And yet this novel is fundamentally a love story. A heartbreaking one at that!
This novel by Gaston Leroux has been adapted to the stage and film many times. It is considered to be a French classic of literature. It is very deserving.
2 comments:
Now, I loved watching the older version of this story. I seen a newer version at the library but wasn't sure if it would be any good.
The new version is fantastic!
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