The Phantom (novel)

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The Phantom is a biographical novel by the English writer Susan Kay . It was published in 1990 under the original title Phantom by Scherz Verlag, Bern.

The Phantom is a prequel to the novel The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux and tells the story of Erik , the Phantom of the Opera from his birth to the tragic events in the Paris Opera.

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The book begins with Erik's birth as a half-orphan in France in 1831. The boy is horribly disfigured by a freak of nature. Even his mother can't stand the sight of him and so she gives him a mask to cover his face. She also hides her child in the house and forbids any contact with other people.

Erik, who has a brilliant mind and develops incredible musical and architectural talents as a child, educates himself, learns several languages ​​and the art of performing magic tricks, but grows up without the love of his mother. Father Mansart, the priest in Erik's home village, has contact with Erik, provides him with literature and offers him spiritual support. Father Mansart admires Erik for his incredible intelligence and his bewitchingly beautiful singing voice. Marie Perrault is a faithful companion of the mother. She is the only one who informs the mother of her cruelty towards the child. Unfortunately, it doesn't have much success. Erik's mother takes her anger, disappointment and disgust out on him again and again. When Erik was five years old, his mother showed him a mirror for the first time in his life, after which the boy was initially not aware of his ugliness. He is terrified of this 'monster' in the mirror, but is still too young to understand that it was the sight of himself that will give him nightmares from now on. Despite the cruelty his mother does to him, Erik enjoys a good education. Since he could never study at a school or university, a professor visits once a month to teach him architecture. He found out about the child's genius from the priest and regularly sends him books and tasks, which Erik conscientiously does. When father Mansart explains to him one day that his dog Sally cannot go to heaven because he has no soul, Erik turns away from God and the Church with a terrible fit of rage. Erik begins to sneak out of the house secretly at night and soon rumors of a monster are circulating in the village, whereupon some boys start to chase Erik. His beloved dog Sally is killed in a scuffle with other boys. He himself is badly injured. The mother's new admirer, a doctor wants to put him in an institution. When Erik finds out about this, he flees. He never learns that his mother would never have let that happen.

Erik comes under the control of showy gypsies who abuse him and keep him imprisoned in a cage. They put it on display as a monstrous sight. During this time his hatred of humanity grows noticeably and he loses all respect for his fellow men. Due to his intelligence and extraordinary abilities, however, Erik succeeds in gaining more and more influence in the gypsy group and he gets to know a lot of secret knowledge of the gypsies. When Javert, the owner of the small circus, tries to sexually approach Erik, Erik kills his tormentor with a knife and finds, to his astonishment, that the killing left him with great satisfaction. Several murders will follow as the story progresses.

Erik's paths lead him to Italy at the age of 13, where he met the master builder Giovanni, who took pity on Erik, treated him like a father and enabled him to train as a stonemason. During this time Erik expands his skills and amazes his master with his skills. Erik arouses the interest of Luciana, the daughter of his teacher. Luciana takes a liking to the mysterious young man who, because of his horrible appearance, finds himself unable to return the girl's love. Luciana urges Erik to take off his mask and show her his face. When he angrily complies with this request, she is so shocked that she falls from the balcony and dies. Thereupon Erik flees again from himself and his fate.

After a detour and after a life as a magician and showman, Erik was appointed to the Persian imperial court in 1850, where the Shah and his mother were extremely impressed by his magical tricks. Erik gains influence at the imperial court and becomes a rich man. Partly through the gifts of the ruler, partly he steals from the wealthy members of the court. Probably a habit he acquired from the gypsies. The high point of his work is the construction of a palace for the Shah, equipped with all kinds of magical objects, trap doors and torture chambers. After the palace was completed, the Shah decides to have everyone involved in the construction killed. Erik escapes the intrigue through a tip from Daroga von Mazenderan. During this time Erik became more and more a friend. The Daroga even forgives him for the "murder" of his only son, who was seriously ill and whom Erik saved from a painful death with a potion. Years later, after his release from Persian prison, he follows him to Paris (it is the "Persian" from Leroux's novel). He was arrested for helping Erik escape.

Erik returns to Europe and works secluded in Belgium as a famous and successful architect. His only link to society is his confidante Jules Bernard, who is completely under Erik's influence and who is blindly devoted to helping him in all business.

One day Erik returns to the house where he was born, with the intention of destroying it in order to completely erase the memory of his terrible childhood. When he arrives, he learns from Marie Perraul that his mother died three days ago and he begins to understand in his heart his unrequited love for his mother. By chance, Erik found out about an architectural tender for the construction of a new opera house in Paris. He decides to build the opera and dedicate the work to the memory of his mother. However, he was shocked to discover that the invitation to tender was already over and the contract had been awarded to the architect Garnier. Erik succeeds in gaining the trust of Garnier, who then takes part in the design and construction of the opera. Garnier was a student of the same professor who taught Erik. The professor once said to Garnier that, should he ever get to know Erik, he would have one of the greatest architects in front of him. This is how his lifelong dream of creating a monument of unprecedented beauty comes true.

Construction took years, delayed by war and financial difficulties. Erik creates secret rooms and corridors in and above all under the opera, in which from now on he decides to live exclusively in order to devote himself entirely to the art of music ... Erik becomes the secret ruler of the Paris Opera, the phantom of the opera ...

At this point the plot pans over to the events of Gaston Leroux's novel, but told from the perspective of the Phantom of the Opera and Christine Daaé . The change of perspective enables the reader to understand both points of view. The ending differs from that of Gaston Leroux, which cannot be otherwise, since the Erik described here has a completely different nature and is in many ways more 'human' than the character described in the original.

main characters

Erik

Erik, who was born with a deformed figure and a very disfigured face and who has never experienced anything like love, shows himself from two different sides in the novel.

On the one hand, he has many talents in the fields of medicine, architecture, music and technology, which he has repeatedly made use of over the course of his life. So he creates z. B. with the help of his technical skills, machines that no technician at the time could have made. Furthermore, he is able to heal people with his medical knowledge or to care for them. He makes use of his architectural knowledge by creating sketches for buildings that, despite the often short planning time, became masterpieces of the time.

The other side shows Erik as a mysterious and terrifying man. He has a potential for violence and aggression, which drives him to kill. However, the more you learn about Erik - the book is written in such detail that you will at some point feel connected to Erik - the more understanding you have for what he does and what he does.

Erik is able to influence people through his voice, which is referred to in the book as "angelic", and his other musical arts, so that they carry out all the tasks that he assigns them to. This process can be thought of as a kind of hypnosis that puts its victims into a trance . Ultimately, thanks to this ability, he also attains wealth and prosperity.

Erik also uses the ability to influence people to drive the ballet dancer Christine into his arms and to get her to do anything for him until his death. At this point, however, it must also be said that Erik was not able, due to his upbringing, to pursue what we would call normal recruitment for a loved one. Since he was not allowed to experience real family ties and love from an early age, he had created his own understanding of these things. And so he doesn't differentiate between right and wrong.

Christine Daaé

In this novel, Christine Daaé is a 21-year-old girl who is engaged to Raoul Vicomte de Chagny, who is highly regarded in Paris. He tries to promote her career as a ballet dancer at the Paris Opera.

When Erik begins to influence her at first only through his voice, she comes more and more into his power, to which she is so strongly drawn that, despite her fiancé's attempts to keep her away from Erik, she feels drawn to him again and again.

Since Christine soon realizes that he can lapse into serious outbursts of violence if she tries to defy his instructions, she submits to him and decides to stay with him despite his outbursts in order to save the life of her fiancé, Erik threatened death if Christine went back to him.

Over time, Christine learns to adapt to Erik and develops an indescribable love for him that ultimately moves him to let her go back to her fiancé.

After her marriage to Raoul, Christine gives birth to a son, Charles, who is actually the child of the Phantom. In contrast to his father, Charles is of great physical beauty. Christine dies when the child is not yet 13 years old. Raoul teases Charles and later shows him the opera.

expenditure

  • Susan Kay: The Phantom. The previously unwritten life story of the “Phantom of the Opera”; a biographical novel ("Phantom", 1990). Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-596-16892-9 .
  • Susan Kay: Phantom. A novel . Doubleday, London 1990, ISBN 0-385-40087-X .