Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux is a very different beast to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical movie. I'm sure none of you are surprised by that statement, but I'm going to elaborate anyway.
On Friday I bought five classic novels for $20. Phantom was one of them, and since I am somewhat obsessed with the music I am now reading it. It is a fantastic book; well written, funny, scary and exciting, but I am struck again and again by the fundamental differences between the Phantom I know and the book.
First and most striking point: Raoul cries a lot in the book. Mostly because he loves Christine and she is acting like a crazy bitch, but still. He cries a LOT. He never cries in the movie.
Second: well, mostly I'm just sticking with the crying men thing. The Phantom himself cries too. I think it must be Christine, she makes men cry with her crazy.
Thirdly: They keep performing Faust. In the movie they perform Il Muto *and Hannibal. I don't know why the Faust bothers me except for the fact that it seems to be all they perform ever.
Fourthly: Well, it's longer, obviously. There's much more explaining of the story points, and backstory. Everyone calls the Phantom by his actual name (Erik) which is somewhat different.
Ok, so mostly men cry in this book. I haven't read many books where the men cry. It's neaty.
In other news I was concerned this morning to hear many gunshots. I think it was the cannons on Roseneath but I have no idea why they were firing. It's no one important's birthday is it? Anyway they normally do salutes at midday, so we assumed it meant the harbour was under attack.
Sure enough when I looked out the window there was a distinctly military** looking ship moving around by the docks. The news mentioned nothing about us being at war, so I'm going to assume they're trying to keep it secret.
*Is Il Muto even a real opera? Or is it something that Lloyd Webber made up? I don't know, but if it's a real opera I'm frightened. It seems awful.
**It was all grey. Not just partially grey, but all grey. Like a sky satelitte dish.
Posted by jenni at March 22, 2005 10:19 AM