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A review by cuddlesome
Phantom by Susan Kay
4.0
Trigger warning for discussion of child abuse, death, attempted rape, animal death, drugs, and probably a bunch of other things that I'm forgetting because this book is packed with so much dark content.
I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL but I have a lot of thoughts.
I guess as with a lot of reviewers here I have to agree with the general "They had us in the first half, not gonna lie" mentality. This book started off with a bang and maintained that momentum for the first few hundred pages or so.
I really enjoyed the dark slice of life setup of Erik's childhood/teenage years. If the entire novel had been just that I would've been golden. There is not a single moment where your heart doesn't break for this kid. His mom doesn't come around to truly caring for him until it's too late, his dog gets murdered, he nearly gets sexually assaulted (thankfully he kills the near-rapist), etc.
I had to physically put the book down and just take a breath a couple of times. By and large my favorite sad part was when Erik's one request for a birthday gift was having his mother give him kisses. When that was referenced again towards the conclusion of the novel my soul shattered.
I also really enjoyed the entire part of the novel where Erik worked for Giovanni. It allowed him some true happiness, at least for a while, and damn it if he didn't deserve that. Of course it all came crashing down eventually, inevitably, when he was forced to reveal his face. But you know what they say: "Without the bitter the sweet isn't as sweet."
My one big gripe with that bit is that Giovanni quite suddenly sided with his daughter when it came to Erik taking off his mask after MONTHS of not saying anything about it. It felt abrupt.
Still, these sections were by and large my absolute favorites and kept me very engrossed. Erik is massively talented, yes, but he's also awkward and hostile and just struggling to survive. He elicits total sympathy from me.
Then he grew up and it started to lose me.
Oh, the writing is still great in the second half, captivating, that's why I'm rating it so high despite my qualms, but the content takes a complete nosedive. Erik goes Anakin Skywalker for a bit and is just immensely talented at everything he does and it's a lot harder to sympathize with him when you feel like he can walk on water.
Ironically, Nadir aka the Persian aka daroga, who was by and large my favorite character in the Leroux novel, grated incessantly on me in this one. I can't quite put my finger on why. I think it might have something to do with having to relive the "Whoa, Erik is both terrifying and amazing" reaction from a narrator for the third time in a row. Like, yes, we get it, he's great, move on.
Only when Erik is finally getting to be older and relies heavily on morphine as a pain reliever did I start to feel bad for him again. But man oh man if he didn't continue to try my patience with how he treated Christine. Their relationship is pretty toxic from square one no matter which version you look at, excepting perhaps that 90s miniseries with Charles Dance, but this really took it to another level. Pro tip: if you want me to continue to like your titular character, having him contemplating raping his love interest isn't a great help.
Also, brief intermission from ranting about Erik and Christine; he has a cat? And I love cats as much as the next person, but that was the one instance where I felt that the "too fanficcy" criticism I've seen levied at this novel was really justified.
In my humble opinion, there was no need to see Christine and Erik's relationship presented in this story. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Their relationship in both Leroux's original novel and Lord Andy's musical adaptation is more than good.
I was not mentally prepared to be subjected to a twenty year old woman continuously being compared to a child and the insistence that she needs a husband who's also going to be a daddy to her. How in the world has the characterization of Christine backslid so much since the original novel when this was written a near century later? It feels demeaning to have her wailing to herself, "OH I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DOOOO I AM JUST A DUMB CHILD" and have that further reinforced by Erik's fatherly language towards her. It's one thing for ALW Erik to occasionally croon "child" and another for Kay's Erik to just point and go, "Look at this dumb idiot infant."
Then there's the whole "she looks like Erik's mom" thing. Despite not finding it all that disturbing--after all of the far more distressing content it was difficult to do more than just shrug and go, "Yeah, okay, Oedipal complex is here now."--I was bothered nonetheless. Mostly because it felt entirely unnecessary. Instead of adding another dimension to Erik and Christine's relationship I just felt that it took away from them. It cheapens his devotion to her as her own person.
ALL OF THAT BEING SAID, I still enjoyed some parts of Erik and Christine's interactions. It's really impossible not to enjoy the sharp contrast between them. The kiss that combined both the Leroux "kiss on the forehead" and the ALW "repeated mouth kiss" was REALLY fantastic. Suddenly all of the BS I went through felt justified for that moment alone. It's heart-melting.
When Erik willingly gives Christine up to Raoul it was actually really sweet. I liked that a lot.
Annnnd it would've been even nicer if Raoul actually consented to his wishes instead of refusing to send the damn wedding invitation so Christine wouldn't run back to the opera house to fuck a dying Erik.
To quote Adam Driver as Abraham H. Parnassus,"Filled her belly with my festering seed and soiled your boy, he is my final revenge."
My only other commentary on that ending is that it's a better "Erik is the baby daddy" ending than Love Never Dies but that's not exactly hard to do.
So, overall, still really happy I read this book, happy that I own two copies of it (I bought a second one because I wanted that bookmark from the first printing... yeah, I'm that kind of a collector) but when I return to it it's probably going to be for that first half and a few choice pieces from the second half. It's very intense and beautifully written and I can see why it's still a topic of conversation in the Phandom so long after the fact.
I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL but I have a lot of thoughts.
I guess as with a lot of reviewers here I have to agree with the general "They had us in the first half, not gonna lie" mentality. This book started off with a bang and maintained that momentum for the first few hundred pages or so.
I really enjoyed the dark slice of life setup of Erik's childhood/teenage years. If the entire novel had been just that I would've been golden. There is not a single moment where your heart doesn't break for this kid. His mom doesn't come around to truly caring for him until it's too late, his dog gets murdered, he nearly gets sexually assaulted (thankfully he kills the near-rapist), etc.
I had to physically put the book down and just take a breath a couple of times. By and large my favorite sad part was when Erik's one request for a birthday gift was having his mother give him kisses. When that was referenced again towards the conclusion of the novel my soul shattered.
I also really enjoyed the entire part of the novel where Erik worked for Giovanni. It allowed him some true happiness, at least for a while, and damn it if he didn't deserve that. Of course it all came crashing down eventually, inevitably, when he was forced to reveal his face. But you know what they say: "Without the bitter the sweet isn't as sweet."
My one big gripe with that bit is that Giovanni quite suddenly sided with his daughter when it came to Erik taking off his mask after MONTHS of not saying anything about it. It felt abrupt.
Still, these sections were by and large my absolute favorites and kept me very engrossed. Erik is massively talented, yes, but he's also awkward and hostile and just struggling to survive. He elicits total sympathy from me.
Then he grew up and it started to lose me.
Oh, the writing is still great in the second half, captivating, that's why I'm rating it so high despite my qualms, but the content takes a complete nosedive. Erik goes Anakin Skywalker for a bit and is just immensely talented at everything he does and it's a lot harder to sympathize with him when you feel like he can walk on water.
Ironically, Nadir aka the Persian aka daroga, who was by and large my favorite character in the Leroux novel, grated incessantly on me in this one. I can't quite put my finger on why. I think it might have something to do with having to relive the "Whoa, Erik is both terrifying and amazing" reaction from a narrator for the third time in a row. Like, yes, we get it, he's great, move on.
Only when Erik is finally getting to be older and relies heavily on morphine as a pain reliever did I start to feel bad for him again. But man oh man if he didn't continue to try my patience with how he treated Christine. Their relationship is pretty toxic from square one no matter which version you look at, excepting perhaps that 90s miniseries with Charles Dance, but this really took it to another level. Pro tip: if you want me to continue to like your titular character, having him contemplating raping his love interest isn't a great help.
Also, brief intermission from ranting about Erik and Christine; he has a cat? And I love cats as much as the next person, but that was the one instance where I felt that the "too fanficcy" criticism I've seen levied at this novel was really justified.
In my humble opinion, there was no need to see Christine and Erik's relationship presented in this story. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Their relationship in both Leroux's original novel and Lord Andy's musical adaptation is more than good.
I was not mentally prepared to be subjected to a twenty year old woman continuously being compared to a child and the insistence that she needs a husband who's also going to be a daddy to her. How in the world has the characterization of Christine backslid so much since the original novel when this was written a near century later? It feels demeaning to have her wailing to herself, "OH I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DOOOO I AM JUST A DUMB CHILD" and have that further reinforced by Erik's fatherly language towards her. It's one thing for ALW Erik to occasionally croon "child" and another for Kay's Erik to just point and go, "Look at this dumb idiot infant."
Then there's the whole "she looks like Erik's mom" thing. Despite not finding it all that disturbing--after all of the far more distressing content it was difficult to do more than just shrug and go, "Yeah, okay, Oedipal complex is here now."--I was bothered nonetheless. Mostly because it felt entirely unnecessary. Instead of adding another dimension to Erik and Christine's relationship I just felt that it took away from them. It cheapens his devotion to her as her own person.
ALL OF THAT BEING SAID, I still enjoyed some parts of Erik and Christine's interactions. It's really impossible not to enjoy the sharp contrast between them. The kiss that combined both the Leroux "kiss on the forehead" and the ALW "repeated mouth kiss" was REALLY fantastic. Suddenly all of the BS I went through felt justified for that moment alone. It's heart-melting.
When Erik willingly gives Christine up to Raoul it was actually really sweet. I liked that a lot.
Annnnd it would've been even nicer if Raoul actually consented to his wishes instead of refusing to send the damn wedding invitation so Christine wouldn't run back to the opera house to fuck a dying Erik.
To quote Adam Driver as Abraham H. Parnassus,"Filled her belly with my festering seed and soiled your boy, he is my final revenge."
My only other commentary on that ending is that it's a better "Erik is the baby daddy" ending than Love Never Dies but that's not exactly hard to do.
So, overall, still really happy I read this book, happy that I own two copies of it (I bought a second one because I wanted that bookmark from the first printing... yeah, I'm that kind of a collector) but when I return to it it's probably going to be for that first half and a few choice pieces from the second half. It's very intense and beautifully written and I can see why it's still a topic of conversation in the Phandom so long after the fact.