The great Paris Opera House is haunted. All the stories are fanciful and rarely agree so most people tend to agree there is no ghost. Young, Swedish Christine Daaé, a nobody at the Opera is suddenly somebody. No one knows where she learned how to sing and no one believes her story of an Angel of Music. Raoul, an old childhood friend, sees her on stage and decides to ignore their station and confess his love for her—the reason he left many years ago. The Angel of Music, the Opera’s Ghost, isn’t going to let anything separate him from Christine, and I do mean anything.

I have no idea if this edition is a good translation, but I can tell you it is horribly formatted and is in serious need of a proofreader! This is a terrible edition and I don’t recommend it to anyone. The story, however, that I do recommend you read. It’s a slow starter, has some flow issues, but a classic worth reading at least once. Maybe another edition will flow better? So the edition is one star and the book three.

If you’re expecting anything like Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, you’re going to be disappointed. The essence is pretty much there, but the book is stranger and darker. Gaston Leroux leads us as the narrator through his investigations into the rumors of the famous Opera Ghost many years after the events occurred. He informs us of the evidence and interviews he conducted to show us the rumors are actually fact. I had the strangest sense of déjà vu through the entire last third of the book; but I can’t find anything telling me I’ve read this before, or even think of another story is resembles...

Anyhow... The Opera Ghost, aka the Phantom, aka Erik, has a dark past as well as serious mental issues in addition to his physical deformities and has the entire Opera doing his bidding without their knowledge. Christine is a very young woman who knows little of the world and is easily led. Raoul, for all his worldliness and travels, is a weak young man and rarely listens to his elders. The Persian is the strongest character in the book and the only one who knows what’s going on. Even though I was left with many questions and not enough closure, it is an intriguing read. ( )

Eh I don’t think I’d recommend it anytime soon. I wasn’t a big fan of the writing style it didn’t engage me in the way I wanted it to. Kind of drawn out, although I did like the conclusion. I could definitely imagine it as a better opera or play adaptation than it is a book alone, especially if they make it as engaging as I would hope (keeping the 5th box empty, etc), and going along with the story as if it was an opera, where the audience is more a part of the performance than mere spectators. The one redeeming factor that bumped it from 1 stars to 2 stars is the setting. Placing this story in an opera house in the late 1800s was really interesting. I enjoyed learning about the inner workings of an opera house and seeing how the author uses every aspect of the opera house management, architecture, and performances as important pieces of the story. I can tell a lot of thought went into weaving the opera house into the story and I was really impressed by it, it makes me want to go to an opera and get a tour of an opera house, especially it’s underground. ( )

"If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me."

The story of 'The Phantom of the Opera' is well known thanks to popular culture with its movie and stage adaptations but Gaston Leroux's classic gothic novel is less well known.

The book is set in a Parisian opera house that is “haunted” by a mysterious and alluring ghost. The phantom falls in love with young soprano Christine Daaè and this is a story about romance, obsession and mystery.

Unlike the musical the novel is more about the relationship between Christine and her childhood friend Viscount Raoul de Chagny than with the phantom. The book goes into more depth about Christine’s childhood with her violinist father and the phantom’s backstory. As a child Christine had been told stories by her father about an 'Angel of Music' who he will send to her when he dies. When she first hears the voice of the phantom she initially thinks that he is the 'Angel' and befriends him but soon comes to realise that he has more ominous intentions.

This book was very detailed and at some points extremely complicated. The author paints himself as an investigative journalist using memoirs as his evidence making him an unreliable witness. There are some very detailed descriptions of the Opera house's architecture and there are some boring parts particularly in the middle, but most of the time the book kept me engaged. There are some heavy psychological elements but what I wasn't expecting was the quite comic segment concerning the two managers and the missing money. However, I felt that the book was somewhat let down by the ending which was just too neat IMHO but overall I feel that it deserves to be more widely read.

"Erik is not truly dead. He lives on within the souls of those who choose to listen to the music of the night." ( )

dnfing this because i’m bored

Oh my gosh. I decided to finish this because it was not too long, but holy cow. It is nothing like any of the movies which is what I had hoped to glean from it. I had seen the silent "Phantom" again over Labor Day weekend and was very intrigued by the origins of the Phantom. The labyrinth under the famous Paris Opera house used as torture chambers? Had to go find out what happened, and how the Phantom became who he was.

But I did not find it, sadly, in the original book.The melodrama! The misogyny! The gasping for breath! The clutching of bosoms and of shedding tears for one's beloved! I mean, I do like me some good Victorian-era literature, and certainly get that it was a much different time for expressing one's views, but wow. This little novel has withstood time because Lon Chaney. And Andrew Lloyd Webber. And a chandelier.

The best part of this book was towards the end when The Persian tells the story of Erik (the Opera Ghost) and how his face was ugly from birth, he was rejected by both his parents, learned ventriloquism as an act in traveling circuses in Europe and Asia, and became a monster famous for mirrored rooms and trap doors. Still, that final expose does not make up for the bulk of the book. Christine and her beloved, Raoul, being discussed as children was really beyond what I could deal with.

Glad I read it, and glad it's going back to the library.

Also, this edition does not list the translator, sadly. ( )