The Phantom of the Opera; Chapters 7-9

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Chapter 7, Faust and What Followed

This chapter is one of the big ones as it’s where the Chandelier falls. I don’t know if in the musicals or movies if killed but it did end Madam Giry’s replacement as she had been fired. Not sure if the Phantom planed that or not but he is a Genius. Also keep in mind that Christine was wearing boy clothes as she is playing a guy in Faust which is just something to keep in mind for a later chapter.

Faust is the opera of choice here and to my knowledge only one movie version does feature it. I could be wrong but I really only recall one and in that one Christine was a blonde. I just find it so funny that because of Sarah Brightman, the look of Christine is curly brown hair and she wasn’t even the first brunette Christine, that was Mary Philbin.

Ok I’m off track here. But yeah Phantom warns people, they don’t listen and Carlotta croaks and Chandelier goes down. That sums up the chapter. Oh and Christine writes to Raoul saying that he must never see her again which makes him sad.

Also one more thing, The Phantom has messy handwriting.

Chapter 8, The Mysterious Brougham

A Brougham is a horse-drawn carriage with a roof, four wheels, and an open driver’s seat in front. So in this chapter Raoul learns of Christine disappearance and no one really care except him. The mangers tell hime she is on sick leave and her guadian know’s about the angel of music and totally cool with the whole thing.

Raoul the learns from his big brother that Christine was spotted in a brougham with a guy. Raoul stakes her out and sees her in the Brougham with his own eyes the next day. The Christine asks him to a mask ball.

Two things;
1) Raoul is a stalker, he is just rich and good-looking so in the book’s context he is being a romantic hero….
2) The scene with Christine in the Brougham would so cool on film. I don’t think it has been done I could be wrong but there isn’t like a super moody film version. Most versions are either very different or pretty self contained to the opera. We don’t get this scene or Perros in the graveyard though I think the 1989 version has the Phantom playing a Violin. The scened however  adds another aspect to the Phantom were he does get out of the Opera.

Chapter 9, At the Masked Ball

Raoul and Christine meet at a masked ball or a costume party or  a fancy dress party or ball if you rather. They are in Domino costumes. Which just a robe and a mask and not the game pieces or the pizza place.  At the party is the Phantom as the Red Death, which if you have see the Webber Stage version it’s pretty much that, so they got something right.

Christine tries to tell Raoul but he a little mad at her accuses her of being false when she says she loves him. She then tells him she will never sing nor see her again.

Being the romantic that he is, (cough) stalker (cough), he hides in dressing room. Chrristine comes in and laments for Poor Erik, which doesn’t make for for a happy Raoul in fact he is confused by it. Then they hear the beautiful heavenly yet male voice of the Angel of Music. Christine disappearance through the mirror leaving an unhappy Raoul to wonder who is Erik. Because it’s a mystery story.

The Mirror scene! It is interesting to note that in many version this mirror scene is done when Christine first goes down to the Phantom’s lair and not a second time. This is just to condense things. Not mad just interesting.

Also the way this scene is present seem much more dazzling in the book than the was movie handle it. Where there are more reflection of Christine the just a sliding mirror. Though the stage version gets a pass since with it being on stage and doing the lighting to reveal the Phantom it’s cool. Though maybe I’m wrong and there is a cool version of these scene. It’s been a while since I watch a movie version of Phantom.

The Phantom of the Opera; Chapters 4-6

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Chapter 4, Box 5

This chapter focuses on the new mangers dealing with the Opera Ghost. First they think it’s a joke and they annoyed and ask Madam Giry for answers and she isn’t that helpful. That’s kinda much it. The point of annoyance centers on Box Five, which the Opera Ghost claims but the mangers are selling to make a profit. The OPera Ghost plays haunt on those in box 5.

It’s a silly chapter that adds to the mystery of thing, like it a ghost or not, though everyone already knows that it’s a dude.


Chapter 5, The Enchanted Violin

So Raoul is also a stalker. But this a great chapter. WE learn of Christine’s back ground with her going up poor in Sweden and her father getting a patron and how she meet Raoul. We also get that scene where the Phantom plays the violin at churchyard.

Also Christine is horrified to know that Raoul heard her with the angel of music which she thought she was the only that could here the voice, so she wasn’t too happy.

I do like that Christine’s character is given more description. She is a dreamy sort of person and the connection she has to her and music is made more clear.

Good chapter, I do hope someday the churchyard scene don properly. I’m pretty they deleted it from the 1925 version and the Webber version sort had it but not really. Though made one the independent versions did the scene properly and I just missed it, totally possible

Chapter 6, A Visit to Box Five

I love me a short chapter!

Basically all that happens in this one is that the mangers look up ay Box 5 thinks they see the Ghost with its death head and the other doesn’t. They then decided that on Saturday during Faust they will sit there. More set-up and mystery.

The Phantom of the Opera; Prologue- Chapter 3

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Prologue

The book opens with the author Gaston Leroux telling us that the book was based on real events. That the ghost was real and the story was the result of Leroux looking through inquiries and not made up. Of Course the inquiry is a fiction, it all made up. I suppose it sets a mood for mystery.

Chapter 1, Is it the Ghost?

The book starts with the management changing and the principle dancer, Sorelli is getting ready to make  a speech. The ballet girls then rush into Sorelli’s dressing room as the are scared of the Opera Ghost. The Ghost is describe as a death head in a dress suit, he’s fashionable. Towards the end of the chapter Joseph Buquet is found died hanging from a set. Some say suicide but the dancers know it was the ghost since Joseph saw him.

Just some points of differences from movies and the Webber version, Meg Giry is described as having black eyes and hair which is way off from blond she is the Webber show, also the prolouge said Meg married well so F.U Love never Dies.   Also Joseph Buquet is a quiet hard worker which is quiet different to the drunk he is the musical.

Also I don’t think Sorelli and the other little dancer, Jammes are ever in any movie versions, I could be wrong.

Chapter 2, The New Margarita

Enough built-up, I mean jeeze it took what two chapters for us to meet the main characters, I kid I’m still not over The Man who Laughs, that book took forever for anything to happen.

Anyway in this chapter we meet Raoul and his older brother. WE also get their back story like Raoul is  twenty years younger than his brother and they have sisters too. It’s nice getting the backstory from the get-go as it won’t hold things up later.

Christine is also introduced. We learn that six months ago she wasn’t that great as a singer but now she is a triumph. Raoul recognize Christine but she does know him.  Christine then asks to be alone and Raoul assumes it’s for him but it’s to talk to The Phantom. She tells him that she sings only for him and that she gave him her soul. At this point the Phantom is just as voice for Christine. Christine leaves her dressing room as Raoul watches her leave, he was eavesdropping. He looks into the dressing room and sees it’s empty, dun-dun-dun. Then more Buquet stuff.

Just for the record Margarita is the role Christine played in Faust which was her big moment. She also sang as Juliet but that seemed like it wasn’t the full opera.

 

Chapter 3, The Mysterious Reason 

This time we are introduced to the new mangers, Armand Moncharmin and Firmin Richard. They are given the ropes which involve the Opera Ghost, mainly concering Box five which is the Ghost’s box but they decide to sell it, Poor Fools.

A lot of this chapter is from their memoirs.

Aside from the Prologue it’s a good start, thing move along and happen.

The Man who Laughs Post-Script

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Well, this is embarrassing, a Monday a didn’t account for. Well to put it rather simply, I hated The Man who laughs as a book and as movies.

Now I can officially move away from it and start the next book except I’m not. You see I have plans for October so I don’t want to start the Phantom posts in September only  to break the next month, so except something new next week.

 

 

 

 

The Man who Laughs Conclusions

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There are actually a few other version of The Man who Laughs including one from 1921 and 1971 but the 1928 is the most well know, the 1966 is the most infamous and the 2012 is the most recent, so that covers the major base.

Before I end The Man who Laughs I just wanted to discuss its impact on popular culture.

The Joker, Batman, the man who laughs, picture image

The Joker

Have you ever heard of the Joker? The Joker’s look is based on Conrad Viedt’s make-up from the 1928 movie. In fact a one-shot Batman comic from 2005 is called “The Man Who Laughs. ”

but there are some more (got these off of Wiki and there is more)
-In H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), Moreau refers to L’Homme qui Rit when explaining the nature of his experiments to the protagonist.
-A short story by the name of “The Laughing Man” (first published in 1949) is featured in J. D. Salinger’s Nine Stories (1953). The story appears to be influenced by The Man Who Laughs, featuring an individual facially disfigured in his childhood by criminals who have kidnapped him.
-The novelist and essayist Ayn Rand adapted Hugo’s term “comprachicos” for her own purposes in a noted essay, published in The Objectivist in 1970.
-In James Ellroy’s book The Black Dahlia (1987), the mutilation murder of Elizabeth Short is partially inspired by a painting of Gwynplaine.
-In the 2003 “Wild Cards” episode of the Justice League animated series, The Joker infiltrated a TV station by using the alias “Gwynplaine Entertainment”.
-Laughing Man, a character in Japanese anime TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002–2003) and inspired by J. D. Salinger’s short story “The Laughing Man”.
-In the 2010 Rob Zombie album, Hellbilly Deluxe 2, the last song is titled “The Man Who Laughs” and is based on the story of the same name.

Well I do think the characters could have been richer or just more interesting it does that Gwynplaine’s look does inspire people, albeit more villainous than the character or what Hugo was going with the character’s laughing face as mirror to an elitist society but whatever.

Moving on, the next book is about a deformed French guy who lives in a Paris Landmark and the story has been made into a famous musical and lot movies. Yeah, it’s Phantom of the Opera. (though there will be a hiatus till then )

 

The Man who Laughs Part II: Book 9 and Conclusion

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The Man who Laughs Part II:  Book 9; In Ruins

                                               &

The Man who Laughs Part II: Conclusion: The Night and the Sea  

I was going to talk about the ninth part and the conclusion separately but to heck with that, I’m so happy to be done with this book. Seriously this book was like some kind of life-sucking monster only more boring.

So what happens at the end? If I said not much would be you surprised?  Gwynplaine goes full on emo and almost kills himself as his family is gone and his former life. I did like this part because it was very Hugo, it was like reading a Frollo chapter which I find a delightful combination of beautiful and hilarious. They are lovely proses but read them out loud and it is so melodramatic.

So Gwynplaine is about to kill himself when Homo licks his hand. Homo leads him to Ursus and Dea. Dea is dying because Gwynplaine is not there. However when Gwynplaine presents himself to Dea, she dies anyway because she is too happy or something. Ok, what the shit? This makes no fucking sense. Tragic it is but fuck it, Hugo just wanted a tragic ending. Oh and then Gwynplaine kills himself. Whatever I don’t care really.

I get that this story is more thematic than story or characters or a plot. It’s more a tale of society and its outlook on wealth, customs and humanity. It’s art more than entertainment and more stylistic of the times it was written in, I get it.

HOWEVER it’s still a story, I have to make a sense of it.

Basically the plot goes that King had noble child kidnapped, disfigured, and left to die but then he is  adopted with a  blind infant to a wise curmudgeon and his sensitive wolf. The boy grows up and is in  an ethereal love with the blind girl and is both revered and mocked for his laughing face but it’s cool because he has love. And then in the MOTHER of all coincidence some old jerky guy working at the palace who wants to piss off a hot noble chick just so happens to find evidence that the disfigure guy is a noble and should marry the lady who he wanted to piss off and has a thing for disfigure guy. So they make him a peer but since rich people suck and don’t get it, the disfigure peaces out and finds his love dying and then he dies. WHY?

I wish Hugo had taken more time in the story to get us emotionally connected to the characters. The most I can say about Dea is that she innocent and ethereal. I don’t really doubt her love for Gwynplaine but I didn’t feel anything when she died because Hugo likes sad endings but for an ending to be sad you need an emotional connection.

More than there was no other closure with Josiana who was big player in this story. All there was like a “fine, whatever” on her end and it was in the form of a letter. And just to make me a little more bewilder, the events of the story proper, are like two days, tops. So in the course of two days Gwynplaine says he will be a peer,  leave and Dea dying.  Just because it’s a thematic story with meaning doesn’t mean you can’t have good characters. So while I don’t know much about the characters of this story I know shit tons about how storms start at sea and the British  Peerage System, Classic Fucking Entertainment.

Nope, I didn’t like this story, nooooooope  maybe the movies  will be better at least they can’t describe the storm at sea as much a Hugo did.

The Man who Laughs Part II: Book 8: Chapters 1-8

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The Man who Laughs Part II:  Book 8: The Capital and things around it

I am not opposed to learning about British history, I’m opposed to it interrupting my boring story. Seriously, most of this part of the book is learning that the British peers are jerk-faces.  And because at this point I’m just trying to get this book done, I’m really skimming the thing and at one point I must have forgotten that I was alive because Gwynplaine’s snapped me back into breathing.

Gwynplaine goes on a nice tirade about how he is laughing at these false supreme Lords and that he is reality. That part I liked but you have to go through Lord Pooington, Earl of Crapiwoodshire, Blah blah blah, pardon my lame attempt at humor it was just really boring to read about  the Lords of England AGAIN for what like the third time?

I did like that at the end one of the chapters, where the Lords are upset that Gwynplaine didn’t bow to throne before leaving. Oh I should point out that this part was about Gwynplaine joining the House of Lords. And it at the end of this part that we learn about David and Gwynplaine being brothers. Also Josiana is just going to make David her lover so she figured out her problem, kudos.  Oh and David challenge some Lord to a dual, fun.

I know this is part of Hugo’s style, explaining context and histories but in books like Hunchback and Le Mis there was a larger plot, here it’s not like there isn’t a plot but it’s smaller and to keep going back and forth with characters and then describing architecture and the Lord  Fizzywater (again bad humor) just becomes tiring to read. I feel like nothing for characters, I mean I have little baring on Gwynplaine’s personality other than his looks and his lust.  AT least there was Ursus and Homo, they had personality.

The Man who Laughs Part II: Book 7: Chapters 1-5

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The Man who Laughs Part II:  Book 7: The Titaness

If you’re like me, you thought this book would just be Hugo describing Gwynplaine’s fancy, confusing new digs. Fortunately, no he does not.

Gwynplaine comes to the conclusion that he would rather have Dea and his own life back. So he tries to leave the house-mansion-palace thing. However he can’t because he gets lost. Instead of finding an exit he finds the tempting Lady Josiana. Josiana then tries to seduce him. Girl has to work hard because Gwynplaine, while he does want her, he is like a deer in the headlights. He likes the idea of a woman wanting him who can see him, apparently blind devotion isn’t enough.

However Josiana turns a little hateful when a letter comes from the Queen telling her that Gwynplaine is now going to be her husband, which means Gwynplaine isn’t going to fulfill the role of lover but husband and that is too boring, so she leaves.

Lord David then shows up and Gwynplaine learns that his old pal Tom-Jim-Jack, who I never really paid a attention to, is really Lord David, Lady Josiana’s former fiancee and  rear-admiral. And they are half-brothers, Dun-Dun-Dunn.

I did like the part more than most, if only for Josiana’s waxing sexy poetics.

The Man who Laughs Part II: Book 6: Chapters 1-5

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 The Man who Laughs Part II:  Book 6: Ursus Under Different Aspects

Barky is a jerk, this is known earlier but MY GOD.

So Ursus sees Gwynplaine go into the jail and not come out. Naturally he assumes that Gwynplaine is really a powerful lord lost in childhood and now restored to his glory. Yeah, no he assumes the worse for his child. He returns to Dea. His plan is to tell her the true which he assumes will kill her, though he lies instead and pretends Gwynplaine for the act.

Then Ursus get tattled on by the inn keeper for his wolf. I think the police come with Barky. They tells Ursus he has to leave England by tomorrow with Homo or the will kill Homo. It is also here that Barky tells Ursus that Gwynplaine is dead, and figurity yes he is. And then Barky gives Usrus ten guineas instead of the two thousand that Gwynplaine told him to give to Ursus and then he pockets the rest because and I quote

“Barkilphedro loved money, especially money which was stolen.”

This guy isn’t even remotely likeable. Let me both this into perceptive here and you’ll pardon me from using Game of Thrones…….. but if Ramsey Bolton and Barky were in a fight I would still rather Ramsey Bolton, a fucking creepy-ass sadist, to win over this jerk and I HATE HOUSE BOLTON! I kind of want to call him Barky Bolton but I won’t. If Barky isn’t thrown off a famous English building I’m going to rage. (Not really but this guy needs to offed and if he is not I will rage.)

Then the inn keeper who snitched on Ursus gets arrest for harboring the wolf. I mean turn about being fair play and all but these guys are just asses. I mean Ursus had a loop-pole in the system and they didn’t honor it. Such Jerks!

You’re Invited to the Wedding of umm…

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Well this is a tad awkward, I have seemed to have run out of weddings in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and there is still another Monday this month. Well I will cheat next week but for this post let’s go in the dark area of fan-fiction and think about wedding that didn’t happen but could have in our hearts.

Phoebus and Esmeralda– If you want to get all technical, this one does happen in the Disney version and would have in the 1923 version. If they had gotten together in the book my guess is it would have been another Court of Miracle wedding.

Frollo and Esmeralda – Let’s face there are a lot of people who are Fresme followers, did I spell that right? This one is a little more than unlikely since it hinges on Esmeralda choice to go off with him and she was less afraid of dying than him btu Fan0fiction we can do what we want. This wedding would have been small maybe really only them somewhere outside of Paris or where ever Frollo had his little hide-out he spoke of. Though Frollo would have to left the church which I think he could have done for Esmeralda.

Gringoire and Djali – Technically they do end up together and Djali was a doppelgänger for Esmeralda but No No No this wrong.

Fleur de Lys and Quasimodo – Yeah this one just a bit of fantasy that I’m not even sure would make as a Fan-fiction but you never know.

Clopin and Esmeralda – Well he is married but maybe in fan-fiction anything can happen. They would totally have a Court Miracle wedding with lots of drinking and probably more food than Gringoire and Esmeralda’s quick affair.

What couple would like to see married in Hunchback?