Phantom (novel)

infobox Book |
name = Phantom
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author = Susan Kay
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country = United Kingdom
language = English
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genre = Historical novel
publisher = Doubleday
pub_date = 1990
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
pages = 532
isbn = ISBN 0-385-40087-X (hardcover first edition)
preceded_by =
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"Phantom" is a 1990 novel by Susan Kay, based on the Gaston Leroux novel "The Phantom of the Opera".

Plot summary

The Phantom is born as Erik in Boscherville, a small town not far from Rouen. His father is a well-known stonemason and dies in a construction accident a few months before his son is born. His mother is the beautiful and talented daughter of an English woman and a French architect. A spoiled and vain woman, she scorns her deformed child from birth and cannot bring herself to name him. Instead, she instructs the elderly priest who baptises him to name the child after himself. Due to his mother's shame but also for his own safety, Erik is forced to spend his childhood locked in his home lest he or his mother become a target for the violent attentions of the very superstitious villagers of Boscherville.

Much of the verbal and physical abuse Erik suffers from his mother is chronicled in the opening chapters of the novel. One such event occurs on his fifth birthday when Erik refused to wear the cloth mask to the dinner table. His mother drags him before the only mirror in the house in retaliation and upon seeing his visage, Erik mistakes his reflection for that of a horrible monster. He shatters the mirror, lacerating his hands and wrists, and his mother is unable to bring herself to tend to his wounds. A family friend, Marie Perrault, bandages the wounds and saves his life, but Erik is left forever physically and emotionally scarred from this event. After this, Erik becomes morbidly fascinated with mirrors and believes that they are capable of performing magic. This fascination turns into an obsession and Erik quickly becomes a master of illusion, able to make people see only what he wants them to see. Says Erik of his abilities, "I can make anything disappear, if I really want to. Anything except my face."

From a young age, Erik exhibits a strong interest in architecture and is privately tutored by a well-respected professor. However, his strongest abilities lie in the subject of music and he is an incredibly talented composer and performer. However, his mother does not encourage his pursuit of singing, claiming that his supernaturally beautiful voice cannot be one created by God.

When he was nine years old, Erik's mother begins to receive the attentions of the handsome, new town physician. This doctor makes it clear that he believes that a child such as Erik belongs in an institution for the mentally insane, and Erik begins to desperately try to win his mother's affections. He uses his rapidly developing skills of ventriloquism to create the illusion of a perfect home and family. His mother begins to surrender her links on sanity but is forced to awaken when an attack on her home by a superstitious mob of villagers leaves the family dog, Sasha, dead and Erik seriously injured. The doctor comes to Erik's aid and saves his life, but begs his mother to send her child to an institution and marry him. Experiencing a sudden change of heart and pangs of remorse, Erik's mother cannot bring herself to abandon her child and refuses the proposal. She resolves to make amends for her treatment of her child, but discovers the next morning that Erik had run away. It is not until much later in the novel that it is revealed that Erik left believing that she had accepted the proposal of the doctor and had hoped to free her so that she may live happily.

After a week or so without food and still healing from the attack, Erik stumbles upon a Gypsy camp in the woods. He is discovered as a thief and is unmasked. Upon seeing his severely deformed face, a freak show showman named Javert decides to exhibit him as the "Living Corpse" and Erik is forced to spend the next several weeks locked in a cage. Eventually, he gains some personal freedoms such as his own tent as he develops his show to include the illusions that he had begun to master as a child in Boscherville. He travels around Europe with the Gypsies and masters their languages as well as their herbal remedies. His quick mind and inhuman abilities garner him the fear of many of the Gypsy tribe. He remains with the tribe until he is about 12 years old, leaving only after he is forced to murder his master in order to evade rape.

Erik continues to join up with travelling fairs and while performing at a fair in Rome meets Giovanni, a master mason who would take the boy on as his apprentice. Erik quickly masters the aspects of the design and construction of buildings and stays with Giovanni until age 15. He spends a few happy years under the man's tutelage, but is forced to leave when he is inadvertently involved in the death of Luciana, Giovanni's youngest and favorite daughter. Erik's whereabouts are unknown for several years after this event, but it is assumed that he continued to travel throughout Europe and into Asia, occasionally performing with travelling fairs.

Four years later, Erik is sought out by the Daroga of Mazanderan Court and becomes a court assassin, magician, and personal engineer to the Persian Shah. He becomes responsible for the entertainment of the Khanum, the Shah's mother, and builds sophisticated traps and torture devices for her amusement. In addition he is involved in the design and construction of a palace for the Shah, throughout that time becoming involved in political affairs which make him a target for a poisioning attempt from which he nearly dies. Much of these years are a personal hell for Erik, and he soon becomes an opium addict. For fear of ruining his voice, some time later Erik eventually stops using opium and switches to morphine.

After construction on the palace is finished, the Shah fears that Erik knows too many of his personal secrets and, with the influence of the Khanum, arranges to have him arrested and brought to death. Nadir, the Daroga who has befriended him, helps him to escape the guards, and Erik eventually makes his way back to France.

Since early childhood, Erik has wished to eventually become the designer for a Paris Opera House. Unfortunately for him, the contest for the position is over by the time he learns of it in his perusal of his mother's old newspapers after her death. He approaches the winner, Charles Garnier, and makes a deal with him wherein he may help design and build the Palais Garnier Opera House. Below the Opera House, an artificial lake is created during its construction using eight hydraulic pumps because of problems with the ground water level that keep rising. Without the knowledge of the other workers, Erik builds a maze of tunnels and corridors in the lower levels. Past the underground lake, he builds a lair for himself, where he may live protected from the public. Ensconced here, he rides out the strife and misery of the 1871 Paris Commune.

Besides being a brilliant inventor and engineer, Erik is also a musical genius, and he is frequently involved in the affairs the opera house in order to listen to operas and interfere with the manager's bad taste. Because he cannot show his distorted face in public, he takes the disguise of a ghost, using violence in order to blackmail the opera managers and bind them to his will, exploiting the employees' superstitions to maintain his power and his knowledge about the building's secret passages for access to every part of the building without notice. With increasing amorality, he threatens those who refused his demands via letters and even kills some employees as warnings. However, he treats those who were loyal to him and obey his command, such as Madame Giry, very kindly.

The remainder of the novel is a retelling of the primary plot of Leroux's novel, which concerns the relationship between Erik and Christine Daae, the talented chorus girl he becomes obsessed with. Their history is primarily retold through alternating chapters of first-person narration by Erik or Christine, just as earlier sections were narrated by Erik's mother, Nadir, Giovanni and Erik himself. Significant variations on the theme of the original novel include Erik's continued reliance on opiates, his experience of painful spells which seem to be heart attacks and Christine's overtly sexual response to his opera "Don Juan Triumphant." An epilogue set several years after the conclusion of the novel's main events is narrated by Raoul, Christine's childhood sweetheart and eventual husband. Though it is not actually said in the epilogue, it is heavily hinted that Christine's son is actually Erik's, and not Raoul's. It states that the boy was "exceptionally musical", clearly drawing in on that fact, and that he bears a striking resemblance to Erik's father, just as Christine was physically almost identical to his mother.

Characters

*Erik, the main character, is not listed as having a last name. Erik was born in 1831 in Boscherville, France, and lived until 1881, where he died in the catacombs beneath the Opera Garnier, where he had lived in what is referred to as "The House on the Lake," the lake being, in this case, Lake Averne. Erik is said to have been unspeakably ugly, with sunken yellow eyes that were not unlike a cat's, incredibly gaunt features, and no nose. Kay keeps to Leroux's original description, depicting Erik as having "sunken, mismatched eyes and grossly malformed lips, a horrible gaping hole where the nose should have been." Erik is also skeletally thin, tall, and with abnormally long fingers which are possessed of an inhuman dexterity. He wears a full-mask at nearly all times, along with expensively tailored clothes and gloves, to hide his frightening appearance. He is also cold to the touch. He seems to have little or no sexual experience or outlet; most women are frightened or disgusted by his appearance, sometimes with fatal results (see description of Luciana below), and he was nearly raped as a young boy. Kay's Erik suffers from violent mood swings and depression, and over the course of the book, through various tragedies and a morphine addiction, he slowly loses what sanity he possessed.
*Madeleine is Erik's mother. A rather spoiled and childish woman, Madeleine is forced to birth and raise her son alone, when her husband, Charles, died unexpectedly at his work, shortly after Erik's conception. She is never overly kind to Erik, whom she resents and fears. She forces her son to sleep in the attic alone for his entire time in her house, making him wear a mask at all times, and forbidding him to leave the house under any circumstances. She beats him often, and rarely shows him any sort of affection. She is occasionally urged to do so by her plain and down-to-earth childhood friend, Marie Perrault. Later, after Erik survives a knife attack from the residents of her village, Madeleine finally realizes that she loves her son. Sadly, Erik has already run away without her noticing.
*Javert: is a man who traveled with a gypsy band. He was Erik's master, keeping the boy captive in a cage for a number of years. He was a cruel whipmaster. He becomes Erik's first murder victim when he attempts to molest him one night.
*Giovanni is an elderly Italian master stonemason, who discovers a thirteen-year-old Erik on one of his sites one morning, and takes him on as an apprentice. Giovanni practically adopts Erik and loves him as the son he never had, while training him all the while as a mason. Erik flourishes underneath Giovanni's care, and though a darkness was growing in the boy, the Italian helped to quell it for some time. Their rapport was interrupted by the return of Giovanni's youngest daughter, Luciana. Giovanni was the only father that Erik had ever known, and he almost hero-worshiped the man. For the rest of his life, Erik would refer to no other man as "sir," due to the trust that was eventually lost between them.
*Luciana is Giovanni's youngest daughter, out of four. At thirteen years old, she is a very spoiled child. She returns early from her convent school to find that her father has taken Erik on as an apprentice. Entranced by the young Erik's air of mystery, Luciana takes an instant liking to him, but is unable to express her feelings for him, so she teases and torments him. Erik is attracted to her as well; she is particularly beautiful for her age. Eventually, she requests that Giovanni remove Erik's mask, and after she has seen his ugliness, she runs away, falling from a section of crumbling roof of their two story house and dying.
*Nadir Khan. Nadir Khan, known in Leroux's book only as "The Persian," is Erik's friend. As the Daroga of Mazanderan, he is sent by the shah to fetch Erik from Nijni-Novgorod. Nadir is a moral character who lost his wife, Rookheeya, and has not remarried since. He is unlike most other Persian shahzadeh, being rather monogamous by nature, and despising the politics of the Mazanderan Court. Nadir and Erik take turns saving one another's lives, and in the process, become friends much closer than either is willing to admit. Nadir is ordered by the shah to keep a close eye on Erik, and takes it upon himself to be the keeper of Erik's conscience. is also an English word meaning "the lowest point," or "the moment of deepest depression."
*Reza is Nadir's young son, who is dying from Tay-Sachs Disease. Reza becomes attached to Erik; Erik in turn becomes fond of the boy, makes beautiful toys for him and tries to ease his suffering.
*The Persian shah is the ruler of Persia. He is depicted as being rather self-centered and helpless. He is largely a puppet of his mother, the khanum. He is a dangerous and powerful man, nonetheless, and Nadir worries very much for his and Erik's safety under the unstable favour of the shah.
*The khanum, referred to as the Sultana or "the little sultana," in Leroux's book, is widely regarded as the most powerful woman in Persia. The khanum is a frightful woman. Drunk with the power that she has over her son, and therefore over Persia, she indulges in fetishes of every kind, normally involving some modicum of pain or humiliation. She is described as a woman of "intense and urgent passions," who finds a pleasure in death so powerful that it borders on sexual. Intrigued by Erik's macabre appearance and dexterity at murder, the khanum develops a great lust for him early on, and this she harbors spitefully, never quite daring to exercise her power in this particular area. Erik never learns of her infatuation with him, though it occurs to him in passing, but he puts it down to arrogance.
*Christine Daae is the beautiful young Swedish chorus girl whom Erik meets at the Paris Opera. She is deceived into believing that Erik is the "Angel of Music," a story told to her by her late, and very beloved, father. She is described as having a voice that would make an angel cry, with perfect pitch and excellent vibrato, but absolutely no feeling whatsoever. Erik trains her to use her voice properly and, having done so, Christine sings wonderfully. Unfortunately, due to the arrangements by the company's diva, La Carlotta, she is upstaged as soon as she steps out into the public's eye. She was born in 1861, the same year Madeleine died, and is said to bear an almost perfect resemblance to her.
*Charles is the son of Christine and Raoul, born around 1881. Charles is born a few months after Raoul and Christine's wedding, and Raoul remarks that it is impossible that he is Raoul's biological child, and that he looks nothing like either Raoul or Christine, but bears a striking resemblance to a portrait of Erik's handsome father Charles. Charles is an extremely handsome and talented young man, and a great musician. Seventeen years after Erik's death, Raoul brings him to visit the Opera House.
*Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny recognizes Christine during one of her performances as a childhood sweetheart. They eventually marry and Christine gives up her opera career. Raoul raises their son, Charles, after her death from cancer. It is quite possible that the boy was actually Erik's son, though it is never stated in the book.
*La Carlotta is the bratty diva of the Opera Garnier, and hails from Spain.
*Madame Giry is Erik's loyal box-keeper. She waits on him, should he need it, and is one of the only characters in Paris to have any form of intimate contact with him. She is also the mother of Meg Giry.
*Meg Giry is a somewhat sassy character, with a broad imagination. She is a ballet dancer and the daughter of Madame Giry.
*Debienne and Poligny are the old managers of the Opera Garnier, and Poligny is described as being an easily spooked person, which made him an easy target for Erik's schemes.
*Moncharmin and Richard are the new managers of the Opera House, though they know little about Opera itself. They prove not to be quite so gullible as their predecessors, something which irks Erik to no end. It is an entirely mutual irritation, for Moncharmin and Richard are driven nearly mad by the arrogant, bossy, and magical "Opera Ghost." Moncharmin is quite small, Richard is quite large and strong
*Sasha was Erik's boyhood pet dog, a cocker spaniel who was murdered by a mob in trying to get Erik, the night before he ran away.
*Ayesha was a Siamese cat Erik adopted on the streets of Paris during the 1871 Commune, when meat was scarce and cats and horses routinely butchered.

Allusions/references to other works

Kay's "Phantom" is not a sequel, but rather a retelling of the original Leroux novel. While the book draws mainly from Leroux's text, there are also obvious references to Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical: several phrases from the musical's lyrics are used to describe certain circumstances in the book. There are also nods to the Lon Chaney film version of the story. As well, just the author's own tweaking and altering to fit the "Erik" she had developed in her own mind, and wanted to read/write about (as proclaimed in her own afterword). The character of Javert shares his name with the obsessive police captain who hunts Jean Valjean for twenty years in Victor Hugo's novel "Les Misérables." The storyline surrounding Erik's vain, childish mother bears some glancing similarities to Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary;" like Emma Bovary, she lives in a stultifyingly provincial town and is courted by a medical man.

In total, it took Kay eighteen months to complete the novel, during which time she traveled to the United States and Rome and researched various aspects of nineteenth-century life in the countries in which the novel was set. Among her references were Munro Butler Johnson's A Trip up the Volga to the Fair of Nijni-Novgorod; Curzon's Persia and the Persian Question; Lady Shell's "Eyewitness account of Persian court life in the mid-nineteenth century" and Christopher Mead's thesis on Charles Garnier.

However, despite the many sources that Kay drew on, her story is original, and the ending is significantly different from those of other stories. The most obvious difference is that the famous grasshopper and scorpion scene, which forms the climax of Leroux's novel, has been completely removed. In addition, Kay's novel expands on themes, such as the Erik's time in Persia, that are only alluded to in the original story.

Release details

For several years, "Phantom" was out of print, and was only available on the secondary market. After the film version of "Phantom Of The Opera" was released in 2004, interest in the fandom--and prices for the book--rose dramatically. The novel was reprinted in October 2005; the new editions are also available in the UK, Canada and France (only in English).

Hardcover:
* Delacorte Press, 1991, ISBN 0-385-30296-7
* Llumina Stars, 2005, ISBN 1-933626-03-8

Paperback:
* Island Books, 1992, ISBN 0-440-21169-7
* Media Creations Inc., 2005, ISBN 1-933626-00-3