A review by beholder
Phantom by Susan Kay

slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
Before we start, I must say that, for me, a good book is the one that makes me want to either hug and worship the author forever, or slap him/her cross the face for eternity. This book made me want to do
both. It's genious.

Since it's a really huge book, with many details, I will simply comment on each part of it.

I also must say that I never read 'The Phantom of the Opera', by Leroux. All my previous knowledge about this story came from the 2004 movie adaptation (which I loved) and an adaptation the school asked me to read (adaptations, ugh).

Madeleine
Wow. Heartbreaking. It's definitely a brilliant start, that shows us an Erik full of innocence and curiosity on life, and it's impossible not to love him or feel sad for him, and his mother... You hate her, but you completely understand her. And the end of this part, I thought it was cruel when I read it.

Erik
Just let me say that every single sentence on this book contributes to show the reader the character development. It's been so long since I read this that I don't remember what I felt. I believe it was a feeling of revolt and compassion for Erik.

Giovanni
This part didn't really touch me. We see Erik trusting and being happy to learn again and growing up. And then shit happens. The interesting thing about this story is that there is no one to blame. It can be summarized in "shit happens". The characters react accordingly to what destiny had planned, and that is it. The "problem" here is destiny, and can you blame it?

Nadir
It was the hardest part for me to get through. It doesn't have a very encouraging beginning, I guess, full of words I had no idea what they meant. And I wasn't really interested in this dude, but he was point of view on Erik was crucial for the reader to understand where his character was going. Later, Nadir became a friend to me; someone I understood and liked, respected. The end of this part is quite beautiful.

Erik
This part was cruel. I loved seeing Erik's sarcastic side rising, but when he discovers about his mom's death... Simply depressing. Again, destiny's fault.

Counterpart: Erik and Christine
As any good fan of the 2004 movie adaptation, this was the part I was waiting most for. I hated Christine for leaving Erik. I hated Raoul even more for getting in the way of my pairing! Was she plain dumb? She was perfect for Erik!

This, folks, was the most extraordinary, brilliant, genious, revolting and son of a bitch portrayal of an abusive/co-dependent couple I have EVER seen. This part is the most... Not important. Significant, maybe? Extraordinary, for sure. It is the story itself, you see. The reader becomes Christine. From the very beginning of this part, you KNOW you love Erik. It's a fact, your love for him. And then he meets Christine and everything changes, for both, as it is expressed here, "I knew then that there could be no turning back. Wherever this shadowed path might lead, we were both irrevocably commited to follow it to the end".

He begins kidnapping her, talking about his lust for her (and notice that he refers to her a lot as "child", and her age is not revealed, so I was literally getting pissed, because I was actually involuntarily comparing 'The Phantom of the Opera' to 'Lolita')...

And at first, I was so disappointed. I was hating it, to the point of reducing the review to 1 star only. Christine seemed plain stupid and devoid of any intelligence or sense, and Erik was so not like his usual self, controlled by his desires, and not the other way around... He was getting on my nerves. There are two quotes that I must put in here because they made me see what the author wanted me to see.

"I'm beginning to realize how much of a child she really is, how terrifyingly immature and vulnerable... even unstable. There's a fatal flaw running through her, like a hairline crack in a Ming Dynasty vase, but that imperfefction makes me love her with even greater tenderness. [...] Whoever marries Christine is going to have to be prepared to play the father as well as the lover; if she lives to be eighty, she may never be more than a child at heart, a lost and frightened little girl bewildered by the demands of reality".

"I dared not think how near I had been to losing control, how terrifyingly easy it would have been in that moment to rape her". (This was the moment in which I closed the book because I needed to reevaluate my life.)

The first quote showed me that Christine was not in her right state of mind. That made her different from everyone else, as Erik said, and capable of reacting very differently than the normal human being that bumped in Erik in the Opera would.

The second one represents all their relationship until that point. The following words came into my mind, "it is not romantic, it's not beautiful". BOOM. That's it. It's not romantic or beautiful. It's tragic and sick, and the reader grasps that idea with shock (at least, I did), because it is a new concept. Something that seemed so good for both of them in the beginning of the relationship, with the Angel of Music drama, has now become a nightmare??

Yep.

Oh, and it gets worse. Because Raoul.

As Erik, I felt so, so, so annoyed by his presence! Christine never helped, really, but once you put in your head that her relationship with Erik was an abusive one, it gets much easier to understand, or try to understand, all her choices. Why she accepted and loved Raoul but kept going back to Erik and feeling jealous of him? The author was a professional when it comes to making the reader understand the character.

I don't know if you can see it, but at this point, I was a ball of nerves. I couldn't stop reading, even if I tried. Even if I wanted to. There were points, such as the the scene in which Christine is jealous of the cat, that I thought were ridiculous and hated because it was childish! But I couldn't stop reading.

I realized that it was a kind of metalinguistic experience, as if I was reading an opera about an opera. As I read about the counterpart, I felt the change in me. I felt what Christine felt. I didn't know what to feel or think of Erik, but I couldn't leave him; he had changed me forever.

And the writing was his music; a great way to express the only art I couldn't picture.

And the final scene. The one when she pleads and begs for Raoul's life...
I curled up in a ball and cried as the hole in my chest got wider and my heart was punched with the feels. Words. Why. So. CRUEL???

Raoul
Perfect ending. Perfect. Ending. I even symphatized with Raoul, now that the fella suffered and all, and felt like I could accept his relationship with Christine at last. I understood it, and why it was the best option, and I will never be able to see this story or its characters with the same eyes ever again. Thank you, Susan Kay. Thank. You.

(I sure suffered as hell while reading this book, but everyone must read it.)

P.S.: A++++ to Erik's sarcasm. It's a gift from God.