|
|
Post by phantomphreak4life on Mar 7, 2007 19:35:50 GMT -8
Alright, so I just got home from the library with The Phantom of Manhattan. I've yet to open it because I'm very...very scared.
The back cover has a review from ALW: "Frederick Forsyth not only captures the spirit and style of Gaston Leroux's original novel but also the romance and thrills that make the Phantom such an alluring character."
Now from what I've read about this book, this Forsyth guy "corrects errors" made by Leroux. So how is this capturing the spirit and style? Ya got me.
I'll start reading it right now and post reviews as I go along. Wish me luck.
|
|
phantomluver4ever1
Principal Dancer
They lived in two seperate worlds, but both hid in the shadows
Posts: 145
|
Post by phantomluver4ever1 on Mar 7, 2007 20:40:44 GMT -8
Good luck! i hope all goes well!
phantomluver4ever1
|
|
|
|
Post by phantomgirl110 on Mar 7, 2007 21:44:35 GMT -8
Ooh, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
(Although I hope, judging by what I've heard from others about the book, that you didn't pay too much for it, LOL.)
|
|
|
|
Post by phantomphreak4life on Mar 15, 2007 13:15:32 GMT -8
I thought I'd ask everyone before I posted reviews, chapter by chapter review or no? I dont want to ruin it if anyone else was going to read it. I can get into detail or just give the basic ideas and my thoughts. Lemme know.
|
|
|
|
Post by Little Giry on Mar 15, 2007 13:29:38 GMT -8
*clutching Erik and Raoul*
Just do it, we'll be brave *Erik whimpers* Shhh, it's okay, I won't let the nasty book hurt you...
|
|
|
|
Post by phantomgirl110 on Mar 15, 2007 17:25:30 GMT -8
I'm perfectly happy with spoilers, but since other people might not be. Umm...well, I know that, if you wanted to go to the extra work, you could change the color of your font to white so it would match the background and people would have to highlight it to read it. Like this:
Highlight here: Blah blah blah spoliers blah blah blah haha you can't read me blah blah blah look we're all secretive how cool blah blah blah!
It's easy to do. Just highlight the text and pick a color from the dropdown menu that says "Colors". White's not on there so just pick any other color and the code will show up like this:
[color=Red]Blah blah blah[/color]
And then change whatever color it is (in this case red) to white.
Or you could go the easier way and just put big spoiler warnings at the beginning of your posts. That probably makes more sense, lol.
|
|
|
|
Post by phantomphreak4life on Mar 16, 2007 7:31:26 GMT -8
So far I'm only up to chapter 8 because I haven't had much time for reading so just bare with me. I guess I'll just do a chapter by chapter review. CAUTION: my reviews are totally gonna spoil the book so if you're planning on reading it, don't read this. There will be *a lot* of bashing.
And this is just my opinion so you're all welcome to disagree =]
Preface:
Forsyth basically just talks about the background of the story. About Leroux, the Paris Opera House, ALW musical, blah blah blah. Then, he pretty much bashes the original novel.
Example:"He appears also to have made an error with the position, appearance and intelligence of Mme. Giry, an error corrected in the Lloyd Webber musical. His lady appears in the original book as a half-witted cleaner. She was in fact the mistress of the chorus and the corps de ballet, who hid behind the veneer of a starchy martinet (necessary to control a corps of excitable girls) a most courageous and compassionate nature"
Now I ask you...how could the original author be wrong about his own character? He wrote the character, he could do whatever the hell he wanted
Example:"In a much more glaring error, M. Leroux describes a moment when the Phantom in another fit of pique causes the entire chandelier above the auditorium to crash down upon the audience, killing a single woman sitting beneath. That this lady turns out to be the woman hired to replace the Phantom's dismissed friend Mme. Giry is a lovely storyteller's touch. But he then goes on to say that this chandelier weighed 200,000 kilograms. That would be over 440,000 pounds, enough to bring it and half the ceiling down every night. The chandelier actually weighs seven tons; it did when it went up, it is still there, and it still does!"
Once again, its his story, he can kill whomever he wants. How is the killing of one person a mistake? So I ask Forsyth, how many people should have been killed? He thinks hes the almighty phan.
Example:"But far and away the most bizarre departure by Leroux from even the most basic rules of investigation and reporting is his end-of-book seduction by a mysterious character known only as "the Persian." This strange mountebank is briefly mentioned twice in the first two-thirds of the story, and in most passing manner. Yet after the abduction of the soprano from center stage Leroux allows this man to take over the whole narrative and tell the entire story through his own eyes for the last third of the book. And what an implausible story it is."
What's wrong with the Persian's POV? ITS LEROUX'S STORY!!! GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!
The author later complains that the story is hard to follow because of all the different POVs. Umm...if I recall, there was only 3. Erik, Raoul, and the Persian. Am I correct? So how is this confusing? I don't know, I understood it pretty easily, and I was in 8th grade when I read it.
I think hes a bit hypocritical. In the 7 chapters of his book that I've read, there has been 7 different POVs. And from characters that aren't even important to the story. What was he smoking? Honestly.
I don't even wanna talk about it anymore...I really dont...I'm sick to my stomach.
|
|
|
|
Post by phantomphreak4life on Mar 16, 2007 8:06:34 GMT -8
Chapter 1: The Confession of Antoinette Giry
We open up with Madame Giry on her death bed. There is a "steel crab" in her stomach. "I did not know then that the steel crab was in me, driving his great claws into me and always growing as he fed." So there's literally a crab in her? Weird. Oh and now they're giving her drugs? "So I lie here, trying not to scream with the pain, waiting for the next spoonful of the white goddess, the powder that comes from the poppies in the East."
We also learn a little about Meg. "And Meg? A ballet dancer and chorus girl like her mama-I could at least do that for her-until the awful fall ten years ago which left the right knee stiff forever. Even then she was lucky, with a bit of help from me. Dresser and personal maid to the greatest diva in Europe, Christine de Chagny. Well, if you discount that uncouth Australian Melba, which I do. I wonder where Meg is now? Milan, Rome, Madrid perhaps. Where the diva is singing"
WTF!!!!!!!!! Meg Giry is no maid! How could he ruin Meg??? A a maid to that jerk Christine?! Now I'm mad!
And I never thought Meg and her mother would stop talking. They're all they have in this world and now they just stopped talking? I have a problem with that.
Now Father Sebastien comes for one final confession, the story of Erik. Forsyth completely disregards Susan Kay (its clear that hes never read it) and makes up his own background story. "He was born Erik Muhlheim, just forty years ago. In Alsace which was then French but soon to be annexed by Germany. He was the only son of a circus family, living in a caravan, constantly moving from town to town."
Yeah, we don't need a freakin' history lesson. We know Alsace-Lorraine has gone back and forth a few times.
"His father was the circus carpenter, engineer and handyman. It was watching him at work that Erik first developed his talent for anything that could be constructed with tools and hands. It was in the sideshows that he saw the techniques of illusion, with mirror, trapdoors and secret passages that would later play such a part in his life in Paris.
But his father was a drunken brute who whipped the boy constantly for the most minor offenses or none at all; his mother a useless besom who just sat in the corner and wailed. Spending most of his young life in pain and in tears, he tried to avoid the caravan and slept in the straw with the circus animals and especially the horses. He was seven, sleeping in the stables, when the big top caught fire."
Circus goes bankrupt, father drinks himself to death, mother ran away, father sold him to freak show, spent 9 years in a wheeled cage. "He was sixteen when I found him"
So already the story is waaaay different. I think someone needs to send this author a copy of Susan Kay's novel.
So Madame Giry steals him from the freak show and hides him in her apartment. Meg is terrified, blah blah blah. She brings Erik to work with her and he decides to stay at the Opera House. Forsyth basically just summarizes ALW. After he lets Christine and Raoul go, he disappears but is later found by Madame Giry. She once again hides him and then sends him to NY.
A lawyer by the name of Armand Dufour arrives and accepts a letter from Madame Giry. He is to take this letter to NY and deliver it to Erik. Soon after, our beloved Madame Giry dies =[
I'll leave everyone to discuss these last 2 posts. I'll post another soon, I cant handle another one today lol
|
|
|
|
Post by Little Giry on Mar 16, 2007 10:39:06 GMT -8
Lord. Whiny. Emo. -The heck is with the steel crab?! THE HECK MEG IS NOT A MAID!! (Well, maybe to Erik...  ;D)Lord, I forsee this book will be nothing but crap. |
|
|
|
Post by phantomgirl110 on Mar 16, 2007 11:00:27 GMT -8
Great overview so far! Here are some of my thoughts so far: I guess he could be taking issues with the scenes that focus on the managers and Madame Giry in the offices, like with the safety pin and such? I dunno. But regardless, his complaint makes absolutely no sense because he goes on to do exactly the same thing, and then some! "Steel crab" must be some phrase for a sickness that I don't know of. *goes to google it* Hmmm...I found nothing when searching for the actual phrase, so I looked up Madame Giry to see what other sites had to say. This one says she is "slowly fading to the pain and ravages of cancer". *shrugs* I completely, totally agree. Even when Meg left home and was following Christine around, I'm sure Madame Giry would still be aware of where they were, because Meg would write to her at least. Forty? FORTY?! We're supposed to believe he did everything he did in FORTY years? And this is years after the whole thing that takes place at the opera with Christine, right? So we're supposed to believe Erik was like 30-35 at that time? Good Lord.  As for his background story matching up with Susan Kay's...I wouldn't consider Kay's novel canon either, and it should be Leroux's novel the backstory should match up with, but at least Kay did that to some extent. She augmented it, but still followed the basic ideas outlined in Leroux's epilogue, from what I've heard. Forsyth completely disregards it. I know it's his novel, but still...and he has no right to act as if his version is more "correct" than the original story he's raping. It's interesting to me how many of the little ideas from Manhattan seem to have made it into the 2004 movie. Erik being much younger than in Leroux, Madame Giry rescuing him from the freak show and taking him to the opera house... I admire your bravery for taking this on, phantomphreak4life! |
|
|
|
Post by phantomphreak4life on Mar 16, 2007 11:18:02 GMT -8
According to Forsyth, he was actually in his late 20s when all of this happened. Madame Giry rescued him when he was 16, she hid him for a few months, then he lived at the Opera House. Meg is rather young, 5 maybe? If her and Christine are about the same age, by the time they're 16, Erik would have been 27. I believe Forsyth said Erik should've been about 27-28. And I think he said that Erik lived in the Opera House for 11 years...so those numbers do actually add up (if Christine was 16 in his own mind)
|
|
|
|
Post by phantomgirl110 on Mar 16, 2007 12:36:47 GMT -8
At least his own numbers make sense. I still hate the idea of Erik being so young at the time of the whole Christine thing. I personally think Erik should be around 50 for the whole "Luke Christine, I am your father" thing to work.
|
|
|
|
Post by Opera Angel on Mar 16, 2007 15:51:41 GMT -8
Just after that firs chapter, preface I seriously do not want to read the book...so post spoilers as much as you want. I doubt I could go through the pain...*thinks about reading leroux a third time*
|
|
|
|
Post by phantomphreak4life on Mar 16, 2007 16:58:57 GMT -8
It's almost sickening for phans. It really is...
I love the conversation we have going here. We have new posts every couple of hours. That's great!
|
|
|
|
Post by phantomgirl110 on Mar 16, 2007 17:36:39 GMT -8
I was just thinking the same thing! This is so great!
It's hilarious to me that it took a disaster like a sequel to bring us together, lol.
|
|
;D)Lord, I forsee this book will be nothing but crap.
