It's not really this book's fault that I haven't posted a review in almost over a month, but it also didn't help me out very much.

 

Journey of the Mask by Nancy Hill Pettengill, 2002

Grade: C-

 

It's been a while. I know. But I'm back, and I come bearing a review of a questionable book. I say questionable because I questioned it continually, sometimes in genuine curiosity, and sometimes in rhetorical exasperation.

 

The back cover copy of this book claims that Leroux is the source from which it is drawn; the full-face mask on the front, which resembles the one worn briefly in the 1925 Julian/Chaney film, seems to bear this out. It's a nice idea, and I'm glad Leroux is mentioned, but the text itself is going to make it pretty clear that a liberal amount of the material is actually based on Webber's 1986 musical.

 

Oddly enough, my copy of the book (purchased secondhand from the magical internets) seems to have come with a little insert containing reader reviews. I've never seen that before. Also, it appears to be autographed, a bonus not mentioned to me by my anonymous internet merchant, so should Pettengill ever hit the big time I will be prepared to roll in my buckets of money.

 

Chapter 1:

 

Since this is a sequel, it's unsurprising that Erik is revealed to have faked his death and placed a false ad in the paper in order to fool his acquaintances (and the entire situation, here, is definitely borrowed from Leroux). It's very easy to recap too much when going over setup events from a previous story, but Pettengill handles it nicely, giving us a look into the Phantom's thought processes that explains without overdoing it. His psychology seems fairly similar to the original's, and his motivations for the original novel's events are laid out as she sees them with minimal repetition.

 

An ongoing issue of the novel is introduced here when we discover that Erik has a heart condition (though, despite his ostensibly highly-educated genius, he doesn't seem to recognize it). I was curious as to whether this might indicate a little influence from Kay's novel, which featured a similar ailment, but later glimpses into Pettengill's version of Erik's backstory seem to disprove that theory.

 

However, in spite of the business with the newspaper and the corpse, the Phantom is pretty obviously based on Webber's musical version; a great deal of fuss is made in order to ensure that the reader knows that the only unattractive part of Erik's body is his face, whereas his body is strong, firm, etc. This is combined with a lot (and I do mean a lot) of inner monologue in which Erik discusses what a massive boner he always has for Christine, and the obvious setup of Sexy Virile Phantom is not so much a clue as a shotgun blast to the face when it comes to theorizing that there may be some nookie involved in this novel. Honestly, this early in the book, I really wasn't sure how I felt about Pettengill making the leap from Leroux's Erik, who represented sexuality but was definitely not sexy, to a character who is literally sexual and sexually desirable. I reserved judgment until later in the novel, waiting to see how said presumed nookie panned out.

 

While things are shaping up interestingly from a story point of view, I was derailed by incorrect use of a semicolon as early as page 2, and the sentence flow, while not unendurable, was pretty choppy and graceless. I tried to hope for the best. It was early in the day to be breaking into the liquor cabinet.

 

Chapter 2:

 

Damnation, then there was a lack of necessary commas on page 11. And on page 12. So it's going to be one of those texts, then.

 

Despite this novel's role as a sequel, Pettengill inserts an original scene into Leroux's (or Webber's, most likely a melange of both) story itself, moving Raoul's first glimpse of Erik from the graveyard at Perros-Guirec to an earlier encounter at Christine's father's cottage (apparently located in Paris). The scene has equal parts interesting choices and questionable ones; Christine's flustered and nervous demeanor is very understandable, since Erik's presence in her father's cottage is a blatant confirmation of the fact that the Phanotm is separate from her father and his stories about angels. However, Pettengill's Raoul appears to have grown a set of enormous brass balls since Leroux's novel, initiating and holding his own in direct conversational confrontation and even an exchange of threats with Christine's shadowy stalker. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at the time, since I suspected that a demonization of Raoul might be on its way in, but it was definitely an interesting new choice. It had the effect of making both characters more easily identifiable as "men"; Raoul, because he possessed the forceful qualities we tend to think of in a modern context as manly, and Erik, because he was able to be argued with as a mortal agency.

 

I can't quite get behind the revelation that Erik is severely claustrophobic, though. I can see that Pettengill is trying to set him up as having lasting psychological scars from childhood imprisonment, which I am on board with, but there just isn't enough explanation offered to convince me that this severe claustrophobe could voluntarily live in a dark underground and routinely move through catwalks, small passageways, and various other secret passages. His condition will mysteriously disappear now and not reappear for about twenty chapters, which makes me frown at it and put it into the Annoying Plot Device box.

 

Chapter 3:

 

While I haven't encountered a version that told the story from the Phantom's first-person point of view since the end of Kay's 1990 novel, I felt that Pettengill did a pretty admirable job of giving him a believable persona and conversational voice. There is more recapping going on here, too, but again it has just enough new material in it to keep me interested, despite a somewhat heavy-handed representation of Raoul as obnoxiously hysterical.

 

The manager of the opera house is a gentleman named Vaurien; this change from the original novel is not explained, and I really have no idea what to make of it. He appears in only a handful of peripheral scenes, so the only thing I can think is that the author didn't feel like managing two characters instead of one, which is a bit on the lazy side.

 

A particularly snort-worthy line comes in here when Erik explains that he did sleep in a coffin for many years, but after meeting Christine had "judged that behavior a little too morbid even for [him]". Too morbid for Pettengill, rather; she has systematically removed all the elements of Erik's character that specifically tied him to the idea of death (the coffin and Erik's corpse-like body are the most obvious examples of elements that have been removed or softened). A large amount of the original Phantom's power to terrify the denizens of the opera house (and, of course, the reader) hinged on the fact that he was basically death personified, adding the horror of mortality to the already potent fear of the unknown. But Pettengill wants him to be the hero of her novel (the sexy hero of her novel), so these ideas have been pretty much wholly excised in order to make the character more tolerable and attractive to the reader in that role.

 

In the same vein, Pettengill never completely describes Erik's deformity; which his mask and statements make it clear that it's full-face, suggesting influence from Leroux's novel, she refuses to give us any sort of details whatsoever as to what it might be that makes him look so unacceptable. The best clues we'll get over the course of the novel are that he successfully passes it off as the result of an accident, making it unlikely to be Erik's death's-head and more likely to look as though it could have been caused by an injury, and that he has abnormally large, grotesque lips, which suggests some influence from Michael Crawford's makeup job in Webber's musical. The under-description of the deformity makes it difficult for the reader to form a clear picture of Erik's great deformity, which again leaves the door open for us to imagine him as more attractive.

 

Authors, attention, however: please spell numbers out rather than dropping numerals into the narrative. It's jarring, not to mention lazy. Also, a character was "dumfounded" on page 23 and I died a little inside, as I did when modern vernacular such as "I figured I should..." began creeping into things.

 

Chapter 4:

 

Pettengill begins her relentless campaign of sexual tension between Christine and Erik. Again, it's a little bit too overt for me; Christine, as a paragon of innocence, seems at turns too easily swayed and hopelessly clueless, while I felt that much of what could have been fantastic subtext was ruined by just a little bit too much internal monologuing about how horny everyone was. This interaction, however, was believable, so I gave it a pass and hoped for the best in the future.

 

Aha, Sherlock! References are being made to an "Opera Populaire", which dispels any lingering doubts that large chunks of this novel are clearly based on Webber's musical; Leroux's novel was set in the real-life Opera Garnier in Paris, whereas the Opera Populaire is an analogue invented for Webber's musical and does not actually exist.

 

Examples emerge here of the trend toward entitlement of the underdog that seems to be so prevalent as we continue forward in Phantom literature; specifically, Erik justifies his actions by claiming that he "needed [Christine] more" than Raoul did. This always grates on me because of its side effect of completely reducing Christine to the role of trophy up for grabs between the two men, but Erik goes ahead and just vocalizes that by completely dismissing Christine's feelings for Raoul with a flippant, "I think she did love him in some fashion..." Smooth, dude. Come on, you're coming from the standpoint of being a villain; you have to work to make me like you.

 

Pettengill's version of the Phantom is here revealed to be "almost fifty"; while this is on the bottom end of the probable age range for Leroux's Phantom (most likely mid-fifties), it's nice to see that the age divide and its implications will not be totally ignored in favor of youthful sexiness. The Phantom's father role and the general power of his presence are more believable with a slightly older character, and Pettengill capitalizes on that.

 

But mamma mia, the writing becomes outright difficult to live with in this chapter. The sentences have become choppy and ungraceful, often suffering from omitted comma disease, and the effect is a little bit like reading a novel-length telegram. Even worse, Erik's attempted seduction of Christine here is just as clumsy and cringeworthy; sure, he can be bad at seduction (cut the dude some slack, he's never gotten laid!), but the narration shouldn't make me want to go take a nap while people are trying to get their groove on. The creepy internal monologue that makes Erik sound like a budding rapist didn't help much; if he were being set up to be a psychologically deviant character in that respect I'd be on board, but since he's being obviously set up as a hero rather than as a sympathetic villain, it just makes me not like him. Pettengill spends a lot of this novel trying to have her cake and eat it, too: she wants Erik to have a dark side for dramatic purposes and moral lessons, but also wants him to be the good guy, and she doesn't manage the balance to really pull it off.

 

I do, however, enjoy Christine's indignance at Erik's behavior. She remains a stronger character, as she was in the novel, and I appreciate that she doesn't appear to be a cardboard love interest for the Phantom's gratification.

 

Chapter 5:

 

Erik decides to get rid of Raoul completely in this chapter, because Christine is apparently so popular now that the opera doesn't need his patronage anymore. In fact, with Christine, the opera apparently doesn't need ANY patronage anymore. Snort. Riiiiight. Because box office proceeds TOTALLY cover all of the expenses of running a monolithic theatre, in this world or any other.

 

There are more commas missing in the vicinity of page 47, but the author's punctuation conservation pales beside her decision to make the classic move and place Raoul in the role of antagonist, freeing Erik to become more palatable as a hero. Unfortunately, this is accomplished pretty excruciatingly from a narrative point of view, with Raoul sabotaging performances in order to get the Phantom blamed for them, and then shooting said Phantom when caught in the act. This kind of character reversal requires more setup than it was given here, and the result is that it was unbelievable and frankly kind of painful to read through. It was, however, interesting to note that this effectively changes Leroux's shooting scene from Raoul defending himself in his bedroom to Raoul attacking his rival in the middle of the opera, again obviously placing the vicomte in the role of antagonist. I waited for several chapters to see when Raoul would make up the story about the bedroom in order to explain the gunshot wound, but he never did and the whole scene therefore seemed kind of redundant (at least, if one assumes that Leroux's novel's events are intact).

 

Raoul is further demonized with a slew of unappealing adjectives such as "wicked" or "crazed". While, again, I think a case could be made for him to have a different personality, Pettengill doesn't make it; as a reader, I'd like to see him do something that shows me that he's crazed and wicked, or see some event that clues me in as to how he might have gotten to be that way. Just telling me that he is without showing me anything just makes me kind of cranky.

 

Also, his name is Raoul de Chagny, not just Raoul Chagny, thank you very much. French nobility and all that.

 

I have to call shenanigans on Erik's assertion that he has "specifically designed" his catgut lasso to leave no marks when strangling someone into unconsciousness. I'm pretty sure that isn't possible, due to the nature of strangling, what with all that blood constriction, and the nature of catgut, which is pretty unforgiving. I really can't see how he could avoid leaving a hell of a mark, even if he strangled the guy out very quickly.

 

Oh, my god, commas! Use them! Please! Page 56 is very sad about its lack of commas!

 

Some interesting hints at a backstory for Erik come in here; while his full origins are never explained, it becomes revealed over the course of the novel that his parents abused him because of his appearance and that he left home voluntarily to escape them, probably at a young age. The by-now-familiar trope of him traveling with a carnival or circus is also mentioned, mostly in order to let us know that he was frequently restrained or imprisoned (hence the weird, gone-for-twenty-chapters claustrophobia).

 

Erik's mask is mentioned in passing as being black and full-faced, both elements that point to influence from the original novel. I'm not sure why the mask on the front cover is white since he apparently never wears a white mask at all over the course of the novel, but some mysteries were never meant to be solved.

 

Erik has A Plan here, and that plan is to run away to New Orleans. Actually, I really like that choice of locale; culture- and language-wise, it's a great choice to transplant a Parisian, giving him a better chance to adapt to the Americas while still being a far cry from life in France. Sadly, we will not actually arrive there for some chapters, still.

 

Sigh. I'm sorry. I know I said that I wanted to see Raoul do things that demonstrated his evil rather than just being told about it, but when I said that, I meant that I wanted to see him do believable, natural-seeming things that demonstrated that he had serious personality defects. Instead, he hits the trifecta of tired cliches used to tell the reader that this guy is a Bad Bad Nobleman. Automatic dismissal of the hero as unworthy/subhuman? Check. Smug, obnoxious elitism? Check. Borderline rape of the heroine? Double-check. If he'd thrown in some animal abuse, we'd have the entire collection.

 

And while I'm on the subject of people doing and saying ridiculous things to try to shortcut to convincing the reader of something, we have yet another case of Erik not really being a bad enough guy to torture people. I mean, yeah, he built that torture chamber in Persia, and then he built another one next to his house, but he just did that to "keep himself occupied". He never intended to use it on anyone. If thoroughly unimpressed expressions could kill, the pages of my copy of the book would have exploded into ash and flame. It is, however, interesting to note that this is the third time we've seen an author specifically go after the torture chamber as an element that they felt they had to soften in order to make the character of Erik "hero" material (the other two that come to mind are Siciliano's 1994 novel and D'Arcy's 1999 novel). Apparently, kidnapping, stalking, and even murder can be smoothed over, but torture is a major sticking point in morality, and we now have a trend of authors that feel that it is necessary to remove it entirely (implying that the character would not be redeemable to hero status if they did not) in order to cast the Phantom as a hero figure.

 

And in keeping with Pettengill's determination to make Erik more sympathetic, his ranting, raving, death threats, and physical violence during the climactic scenes of Leroux's novel are all but entirely glossed over; he barely even remembers them, and he (and the author) brush them off as events that he can't be held accountable for because he was in the throes of "near mental breakdown". Hogwash, I say; the entire point of Erik's redemption is that he was a bad man, and now he has seen the error of his ways through the conduit of Christine's love and acceptance. But then, I'm going to cry a lot about the direction said redemption takes in this novel, so it's probably not too early to give that up as a moot point.

 

Not much else is really added to the story in this recap, which is now drawing to a close; most of it is just reiteration from here on out. However, it is interesting to note that the daroga is mentioned as "the closest thing to a friend" that Erik has, very reminiscent of Kay's treatment of the character. Both works probably draw from the fact that the daroga is obviously somewhat sympathetic to Erik's plight in Leroux's novel; in fact, I suspect that the Persian becomes Erik's best friend by default because he's the only character, aside from Christine, to show any sympathy for the Phantom over the course of the novel (Madame Giry, as a throwaway comedic character, doesn't count). Especially in cases in which the writer is attempting to paint Erik as a more human, sympathetic figure in order to place him in a hero role, the idea of a friend figure, even one as briefly mentioned and thoroughly forgotten as the Persian is in this book, is an easy way to show some socialization and empathy in Erik's character. I would have preferred an actual relationship between the two that could have told us something about their characters beyond their capacity to like one another, but I don't get the things I want.

 

But now, the first of many plot shenanigans is about to unfold. You see, after sending Christine off with Raoul, Erik goes off to mope and fast, mope and fast in his underground cave, whining to himself about the unfairness of life (I presume that he went to visit the daroga before he goes off on this little jag, because the Erik of this chapter doesn't bear much resemblance to the ecstatic, reformed Erik of Leroux's final chapter). And after a few days of mope-fasting, Erik arrives at the conclusion that he's going to kidnap Christine after all, stages his death in order to lure her back to the opera, and knocks her ass out.

 

What? But... but... arrgh! The redemption! The beautiful, relevant, significant, point-of-Leroux's-entire-book redemption! Gone. Sigh. Somehow, Erik has managed to do a 180 from "repenting his sins and finally accepting good in himself and treating others with humanity" to "bitter bitching and moaning followed by lying and kidnapping". That mope-fasting is some dangerous shit.

 

Weirdly enough, and this is the first time any writer has mentioned the idea, Erik has to shave to avoid growing a beard. I have to say I've never envisioned a bearded Erik, probably because the original one had enough trouble with hair not growing on his head at all. It certainly brings home the idea of him as more human and virile, again.

 

Erik claims here to never have felt guilt before his re-kidnapping of Christine; while I initially rejected this as silliness, upon further thought it might be a valid way of approaching the character. His many remorseful scenes wherein he apologizes to Christine and begs her not to hate him could easily be motivated not by true remorse but rather by simple fear that he might lose her regard, and it's conceivable that his release of Christine into Raoul's arms was motivated by a desire to see her happy rather than by any admission of misbehavior on his part. Again, however, I would have liked to see some kind of action that supported this claim.

 

But then there was page 65, with some of the laziest shit I've ever seen a writer try to pull: "I knew when Christine arrived back in town. I won't bother to explain how; suffice it to say that I always knew exactly what was going on when necessary." I realize that the idea of near-omniscient knowledge (within the opera house, though... not necessarily within all of Paris) is an important element in the original character's mystique, but from his point of view, so baldly spelled out, that smacks of not caring enough to think through it. As a reader, I was very peeved. How hard would it have been to come up with an appropriately ingenious method by which Erik gets his news, or even with some kind of vagary to semi-explain it?

 

So Christine is, once again, a kidnapping victim, this time snatched when she keeps her promise to come back to Erik's body when he dies. Sheesh, he uses a lot of chloroform on this poor girl. Not to mention laudanum. It's a wonder she survives long enough to get loaded onto the boat.

 

In closing, this chapter needs to invest in commas. Use them! They are brilliantly versatile!

 

Chapter 6:

 

And off they go on a boat to New Orleans. Luckily, they are unaware that the phrase "ocean-going" failed to be hyphenated in the text, causing me some momentary confusion as I tried to figure out where the ocean was, in fact, going (is it also going to New Orleans)?

 

It's worth noting, while I wallow in annoyance over Erik's about-face and subsequent lack of redemption, that Pettengill's version of the character is presented as a basically good man who, as a result of a long pattern of abuse, had a moment of madness and did things that he then reversed when coming to his senses. As such, he really seems less in need of redemption than the original Erik (who believed himself to be evil, abandoned by God, etc). It's not a perfect bandaid and Pettengill herself will later make a big deal out of making Erik a kind of serial redemption victim, so it all comes out as very muddled, theme-wise.

 

Christine's character remains gratifyingly strong here as she calls Erik on all of his shit (being tricked, manipulated, and kidnapped is not on her general to-do list, particularly when she'd trusted him to give up his stalking ways). Page 42 is a treat to read as she reams him out for it, and it reinforces her as a strong character, which I appreciate seeing after all the limp lily Christines that often result from Webber-based interpretations. Erik's surprise at the situation--he didn't think she was "strong enough" to get so pissed--is entertaining.

 

Then, a snortlaugh leaving cocoa all over my desk. Erik's been using morphine to treat his blueballs? Really? Those must be some epic blueballs, dude.

 

Erik's internal monologues are frustrating throughout most of the ocean voyage. While it is in character for the original Erik to ignore Christine's wishes (there's still a marked feeling that she'll "come around" and that her wish to escape is temporary), it is not in character for him to do so after his redemption at the end of Leroux's novel. We'll take Missing the Point for $200, Alex. Even more hilariously, he has an epiphany onboard and realizes that, oh noes! If she just hates him, kidnapping her to be his love is pointless! Again, this is territory already covered in Leroux's work, and Pettengill seems, bizarrely, to be including the Phantom's release of Christine in with his "moment of madness" that started the whole messy final scene. As a hero, he is not overly endeared to me when he grumps internally that Christine sounds like "a spoiled child" when she demands her freedom. Yeah, how dare she have feelings and wants!

 

Despite all these things that are proving bothersome, I'm still a little bit on board with what Pettengill is trying to do here. I like that Erik is finding out the hard way that this simply isn't going to work; while he wised up and realized that before the point of no return in the original book, it's fun to take a look at how his original plan wouldn't have succeeded if he hadn't given it up.

 

One thing I am not on board with, however, is Erik's acute social anxiety. There should be some element of this present, I agree, in this character that intentionally avoids most of mankind, but the guy shaking in a little ball at the idea of going into a social salon is a far cry from the confident master who sat bare-faced at the managers' table and captivated a huge masquerade ball's attention, intentionally. His whining doesn't make me sympathetic to the hardships of my life; it makes me think this version of him has kind of turned into a pussy. A case could be made, however, that much of the original Erik's confidence came from actually being within the confines of the opera house, a locale in which he was (at least, according to him) the undisputed master of the realm.

 

Once Christine finally gets him into the salon (because she wants to socialize, dammit, and he's already told everyone on board that she's his mad wife, which cuts down on mingling opportunities), Erik confesses that he has never danced before and doesn't know how. I find this somewhat hard to swallow, considering that Pettengill has him self-educating the hell out of himself in pretty much every area. While I appreciate that he apparently feels a bit "deathly" here (though I'm not sure how that goes with his "firm, warm" body from a few chapters ago), the entire scene, in which Erik and Christine dance about for hours in the night, existing in some kind of cocoon of blissful romance, is beyond silly. I wanted Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn to come in and do "I Could Have Danced All Night".

 

I'm very unimpressed by Erik's sudden realization that he "owes her honesty"... followed immediately by telling her all about Raoul's perfidy but failing, somehow, to mention that he almost strangled the boy to death on top of his torture chamber shenanigans. Selective honesty. He owes her selective honesty. It's worthy that Pettengill is not writing off Erik's ability to be his own enemy, and trying to present that his mental problems are a serious sticking point, but it just feels like it's handled a bit poorly.

 

It's interesting to note that Erik is again given a new last name in this novel: Devereaux. While he makes a point of telling us in the beginning that it's an assumed name he uses for his surname when it's necessary for him to have one, he proceeds to refer to himself with it in internal monologues, and other events pretty firmly entrench it as his permanent last name within a few more chapters.

 

The mild grammatical pain continues, creating a grey backdrop of smudged run-on poisoning. "Christine I'm sorry, I..." "I'm sorry Christine, so sorry..." And the ellipsis abuse, the rampant ellipsis abuse! Aiee.

 

Chapter 7:

 

On page 97, much to my confusion and disbelief, Erik has an epiphany and realizes that he loves Christine. ...what? You just now figured that out? True, the original Erik's relationship with Christine was more one of obsession than love, but it always seemed that he believed in his own emotions, even if the reader could tell that many of them were less than sane. The simplicity of his sudden realization doesn't do him any favors when it comes to making him look like he has any idea what's going on.

 

Upon arrival in the United States, Christine's language barrier is mentioned (i.e., she only speaks French); however, there isn't a peep about Erik, who seems to speak English just fine. That's okay with me if there is justification, but there was never any explanation of where he learned English, or why, or how. Even better, Christine apparently magically learns English at some point in the ensuing chapters, but I have no idea when since I didn't have any warning before she was suddenly conversing with the locals.

 

Page 102, on which Erik realizes that love should include selflessness and he would let Christine go and put her on a boat back to France, is meant to be touching and showcase his emotional growth as a character. Sadly, it's almost complete reiteration from the last time he let her go (in Leroux's novel! Remember that?), so it fails to achieve the intended effect for me. Instead, I wonder if Pettengill isn't capable of recognizing redemption when it doesn't have copious amounts of internal monologue backing it up.

 

I wouldn't think that I'd find Christine's torn feelings believable here what with all the kidnapping shenanigans and all, but I find that I do in spite of myself. While Erik's emotional epiphanies over the course of the sea voyage have been pretty silly, Christine's gradual acceptance of her situation and ability to make the best of it convince me that she really is somewhat torn between returning to her fiance and staying here in the new life she's building. Unlike most authors who attempt to use Stockholm Syndrome as an excuse for their heroines' brain-dead choices, this (a month-long voyage with a person who intentionally treats her as well as possible despite her captivity) is a situation in which I would find that condition acceptable as an explanation (though Pettengill does not attempt to use it, partly because it hasn't yet been diagnosed and probably partly because allowing Christine's emotions to be influenced by mental disorder would mar the romance she's trying to create).

 

However, while I believe in her torn feelings, I do not believe in her decision to stay in the Americas with Erik. Her explanation that she has now "seen Erik's sensitive side" sounds ridiculous, particularly when she doesn't elaborate, and her brush-off of Raoul, desperately searching for her in France even now, is too easy and pat. The original Christine had a very strong, Catholic moral center, and I somehow can't see her blowing her fiance off without a shred of explanation and deciding to live in sin with the psychopath who kills people instead, even if he was nice to her and kept her from getting hurt during a storm at sea (which she would never have experienced if he hadn't, you know, kidnapped her. Again). I know Pettengill wants to establish that their connection is too strong to be broken, but she doesn't do it here.

 

Christine tells Erik that things "weren't easy" for her and Raoul after the events of Leroux's novel, but refuses to explain why. I had a minor tantrum because I thought this was going to be another case of lazy author not explicating, but it turned out that she did actually explain. Many chapters later, but it was still something.

 

Oh, my god, stop ellipsing! Yes, ellipses can be used to great stylistic effect, but when you use them ALL THE TIME, guess what? THERE IS NO STYLISTIC EFFECT.

 

Chapter 8:

 

I find it more than a little bit funny that such a point is made of the fact that Raoul and Christine were never married. Combined with the vague explanation and the general setup of this book, it all just screams of the romance novel trope wherein THE HEROINE MUST BE VIRGINAL. It is a commandment. I'm still not sure, yet, if I'm dreading the inevitable Erik/Christine sex scenes... but with three hundred pages still to go, I am sure that I'm dreading the possibility of Raoul appearing as some kind of avenging villain. Luckily, this doesn't really happen until the very end of the book, and isn't as bad as it could have been.

 

It's very interesting to look at Erik's behavior; a very central point to the original character (and to Webber's version of him, as well) is that he is the master of his domain, the opera house. A Phantom without a domain is therefore something of a fish out of water, and I think there's a lot of possibility for interesting exploration there. I'm not sure if Pettengill does it, seesawing between anxious breakdowns at the idea of going to a salon and manful badassery as he tells people off and defends Christine's honor, but the potential is there. Christine is believably traumatized by Erik's ability to disarm and almost strangle a man to death in a few seconds flat, and I appreciate that her fear of him doesn't dissipate instantly after the incident.

 

Chapter 9:

 

Pettengill makes a nod to the psychological significance that the mask holds for Erik here; while it's nice to see it, his ability to discard it so easily sort of devalues it immediately.

 

Interestingly enough, Pettengill provides us a believable explanation for Erik's childish scrawl from the notes in Leroux's novel; many authors have difficulty juxtaposing this quirk with a character that they envision as a sort of genius gentleman, and I've remarked in other works on how it seems to be glossed over or omitted as a result. This Erik, instead, is left-handed, and was apparently severely and repeatedly punished for this as a child because of the left hand's association with the devil (bad luck for a kid who already looks that bad). As a response to this punishment, he stubbornly refused to learn proper handwriting or to use his other hand, resulting in some very terrible handwriting. It's well explained without interrupting the narrative too much, and I really liked the thought put into it.

 

But it's now time for things that I don't like... at all. Out of the blue, Pettengill suddenly begins writing out the dialogue of all the black cast members in her book as a phonetic dialect. This is unfortunate; not because there wouldn't be a certain dialect in late nineteenth-century Louisiana, but because Pettengill fails to write out anyone else's dialogue, even when she makes a big deal in the narrative about their accents. Does Christine ever get written in dialect, despite her French accent? No. Does Villaincourt, Erik's lawyer, ever get written in dialect, despite the fact that a he is described as having a thick, almost impenetrable Southern drawl? No. But when the black servants come in, suddenly it's all "Yassah, this way, suh, wait heah, suh," and hoo boy, that is an actual quote. Ouch. I have no problem with nineteenth-century characters being racist; in fact, I expect them to be as a result of their environment and upbringing (though, of course, Pettengill pulls a Siciliano and makes Erik magically completely unbiased when it comes to race despite the improbability of that mindset), but the inclusion of an altered speech pattern ONLY for the lower-class black people of the novel makes Pettengill look racist rather than her characters, which is not something that most authors are shooting for. I'm sure it's not on purpose and that she's just trying to provide local color, but the manner in which she's chosen to do so is, as I said... unfortunate. It drives me nuts, since it recurs constantly over the course of the novel, as new black characters speak in sub-vocalized sentence fragments while new white characters such as Erik's chess-playing friend are written out perfectly normally.

 

And while I'm whining about dialogue, Villaincourt, Erik's lawyer, has consistently over-the-top dialogue that detracts from the proceedings and distracts me by making him seem more like a caricature than an actual character (and since he's going to be somewhat important later in the book, that's not something that should be happening). I just want him to shut up, and the warm fuzzies I'm supposed to get from his acceptance of Erik do not materialize.

 

Erik, still owner of a raging hard-on for Christine, starts talking to her frankly about sex and sort of borderline groping her on a streetcorner, none of which is a good idea. Yes, I'm sure she's heard of these things, but it's still the nineteenth century and her character hinges on purity and innocence besides; you're going to make her head pop off if you don't stop molesting her.

 

Stop with the ellipses. Please. And while we're at it, you finally find a comma and, after all those times your dialogue needed one, you use it to splice a defenseless sentence instead?

 

Chapter 10:

 

I notice a bit of adjective shortage in this book. Everything Erik likes seems to be "silken"; Christine's skin, his new clothes, his new mask, Christine's lips...

 

If my suspension of disbelief when it comes to Erik's and Christine's relationship was already treading water, it sinks completely in this chapter. Erik has an enormous, barely-motivated hissy fit in which he breaks shit, screams at Christine, and then grabs her by the throat, slams her into a wall, and half-throttles her. Her response to this? "He needs patience and understanding!" No. He needs patience and understanding from a psychiatrist. I'm not impressed by Christine's empathy; I think she's enabling herself into a battered woman, and I want to know where the strong, determined Christine of a few chapters ago went. Also, isn't this the same woman who had a hysterical fear-induced meltdown upon seeing Erik half-throttle a strange man just a few chapters ago? But it's all right if he does it to her? I would attempt to make a Christ parallel here since she is definitely a Christ figure in the original book, but Pettengill doesn't use her in that context, and anyway, she's not taking the beating to protect mankind. She's taking it because she's an idiot.

 

Aaaaand then she accepts his sobbingly apologetic proposal of marriage with his handprint still on her throat. NICE. Sorry, I misspoke; she's enabling herself into a battered wife.

 

As they say on the interwebs, FFS. AND all of this is perpetrated amongst comma splices, omitted commas, grammatical stumbles and more of that infuriating black dialectal drawl from the servants.

 

Chapter 11:

 

But who cares what I think? Erik and Christine are getting married! Yay! Whee! He's off to buy her an engagement right! Apparently, he "knows gemstones". Oh, Erik, is there anything you don't magically know?

 

As a chronological aside, Erik and Christine are getting married in 1882, which is not too far off the mark if this is all happening shortly after the original novel's approximate date of 1881. Erik reveals that he was born in 1834, which makes him forty-eight years old, which is a pretty decent age for the character (I prefer a bit older because of my tentative extrapolated timeline in the original novel, but forty-eight is acceptable).

 

Now, I know you two are engaged now (for some psychotic reason) and that this is New Orleans, temple of sin, but seriously. Stop making out in public in the swankiest of swanky restaurants; that's still not appropriate. I have difficulty believing that Christine is okay with all the mad sexy groping that is going on in this scene. Yes, Erik is a sexual force (and, in Pettengill's version, a literally sexual being), but this woman is a paragon of purity who is with a dude that she first saw as a father and then loved on an intellectual basis only because of the ugly factor getting in the way. I would be okay with this if he were employing some of that sexual, genitive aura that he uses to such great effect in Leroux's novel, but he isn't; he's just going at her like a horny (virginal, but horny) bear. If you want to convince me of the Phantom's sexy Webber-style romance, give me some "Music of the Night" style seduction. Don't drop him down to the level of horny frat boy with all this "I must have her! My boner is too great to be contained!" horseshit.

 

Erik tries to ask Christine why she didn't run from him in his murderous rage the other day, but she blithely asserts (through the crushed remains of her windpipe, I assume) that she knew that he would never hurt her. Even Erik is confused by her stupidity.

 

Erik descends into the depths of the overly-emo again when he starts whining internally and musing that an acceptable appearance is "the most basic human need". Yeah, I know you're angsty because you're ugly, but don't go dragging the rest of hapless humanity into this; I beg to differ. An acceptable appearance is possibly the most basic social need, but even that is up for debate. You could have been born autistic, pal.

 

The schmaltz of Erik's running stream of consciousness during the wedding is enough to drown the unsuspecting reader. I struggled through it to note that Christine has dark hair, again indicative of heavy influence from the Webber production (I don't see much in the way of influence from the 1925, 1962, or 1989 films here).

 

As a side note, it's been mentioned several times in the book that Christine hasn't sung since the events of Leroux's novel, which understandably causes her former teacher and mentor some distress. However, no one ever explains why she isn't singing, and it's difficult to come up with any kind of plausible statement that her refusal to do so would be making. I can only assume that singing reminds her of the trauma of the events of Leroux's novel, though since she's now marrying the architect of said trauma I'm not sure how much that really applies. A passion for her art was a big part of the original Christine's character, and as a singer she has to know that her voice is atrophying the more she doesn't use it.

 

And now it's time for the wedding night. Oh, lord. Erik asserts that he will "make this a night Christine would always remember". One hopes that he does better than his previous fumbly groping so she doesn't remember it with the usual virginal fear and pain. Upon taking off his shirt, there's a shocker--apparently he's all hot and stuff, and Christine is all turned on by his shirtlessness. SexPhantom rides again. Apparently she particularly likes the "tight muscles of [his] abdomen", leading me to wonder when in his busy schedule Erik has time to bust out some crunches. Maybe he hits the gym with Eric from Phantom of the Mall... that kid can sure pump some iron.

 

Okay, so they're married. So the story is over, right? What the hell are we supposed to do for 250 more pages?

 

Oh, god, my question is answered, and the answer is that we're going to have an impotence crisis. Erik can't get it up on his wedding night, despite having had a near-constant boner for like a year for this woman! Clearly, the solution to this problem is for him to flee his marriage bed, leaving his wife confused and in tears, and get drunk at a local bar while referring to himself as a "jackass" and moaning that by now his little wifey should have been "good and properly laid". Anachronism makes the pain stop, you see (his pain. Not mine).

 

This book's grammatical problems are actually increasing as we go on, I think. Semicolon misuse twice in a row on page 155, sentences begin rampantly changing tense in the middle of a thought, and on page 156, Erik's muscles are "taught with desire". That poor, abused spell-checker.

 

Chapter 12:

 

Le sigh. It's lovely for him, I'm sure, that Christine is the perfect mate because of her "total lack of concern" over his face. Unfortunately, it makes no sense to me as a reader because the original Christine certainly did have some concern over his face, even after she started pitying him instead of being terrified.

 

Oh, good, the impotence crisis is over now and they're humping like bunnies (strangely experienced-seeming bunnies, for a pair of nineteenth-century virgins). The prose of the sex scenes seriously needs help; I do not need to hear about how Erik is "literally" drowning in his desire. Dude, gross. Not a mental image we were going for. Unfortunately, I really don't see a lot of believable growth in Christine that should be present to get her from "pure Nordic angel" to "New Orleans sex bomb" so quickly. I would love to see the idea fleshed out, because I think the consequences of Christine's choosing the sexual relationship should be explored, but all I get from Pettengill is a simple "and then she is". Blah.

 

Now, Erik gets mugged by some guys. Pettengill tries to tell us something about how his new soft life with Christine has dulled his once-hardened violent reflexes or something, but he still pretty much goes down like a bitch. A bitch with modern speech patterns such as "they worked me over good". Argh. But the reason for this seemingly out of place interlude is that it's set up so that Erik can haplessly fall at the doorstep of, and be cared by, none other than... Marie Laveau! The voodoo queen of New Orleans! OF COURSE. In point of fact, Marie Laveau died in 1881, but her daughter, also named Marie, was also very active in the voodoo community and the two are often confused in historical accounts, so I have to assume that that's what's going on here (perhaps Pettengill is even intentionally playing this confusion up in order to preserve an aura of mystery). Why is it important that Erik meet up with Marie Laveau? Well, there's the fact that Pettengill wants to involve the occult trappings that Leroux slapped onto his character to increase his mystery (not an unworthy goal), and then there's also the fact that we still have 250 pages to go and we have to have something for these characters to do.

 

Another bucket of Please Pity Erik ice cream is brought out when he talks about how he has never celebrated Christmas before. Oh noes!

 

Chapter 13:

 

I'm confused as to why Christine apparently only attends mass "occasionally". Leroux and Webber both present her as extremely devout--in fact, she pretty much has to be, in order to have the level of faith required to believe that she's being contacted by an actual angel. I would say that her faith has possibly been shaken by the trauma of that deception, but there's no peep about Christine's spiritual growth anywhere in this novel, so I end up with no idea.

 

And while we're talking about God, extended internal musings are now going on in which Erik details how he "rethought" his atheism upon Christine entering his life. Leaving aside the fact that the original character definitely wasn't an atheist (not happy with a God he perceived as a distant, cruel mastermind, sure, but not an atheist), the whole thing is very lazy in terms of Erik's characterization; he's being Christianized as shorthand to show the reader that he's becoming a "good guy", while the flip side of that is that his previous atheism is obviously tied to being a not-so-good guy. Religious theory aside, it's frustrating as a reader not to see any actual growth in Erik; again, it's sort of just presented as an informational bulletin for us--Now Erik Is Christian, Yay--and not worked into the story in a satisfying way. The Phantom story is loaded with religious symbolism and overtones that can and should be used very effectively, but while I appreciate the idea here that Christine (again, the original novel's Christ figure) started to effect his reformation simply by existing, I don't see any actual character development. It just happens, and things that just happen make for a boring book.

 

Now, I need to share with you a passage from pages 203 to 204, in which Christine presents Erik with the Christmas gift of securing permission for him to play the local church's pipe organ:

 

"Yes! Yes! It had been the music all along! It was glorious, wondrous music that kept me alive until the day I was delivered by God into Christine's waiting embrace!... Deeper and deeper I fell into music's welcoming and loving embrace until I knew nothing else. I was home again. Music had always been like a lover to me, caressing me as I loved it in turn. Now that relationship took on a whole new meaning as I combined my immense love for Christine with my lifelong love of music, melding them together into an ecstatic euphoria that went beyond words or thought. I don't know how long I played... suddenly I was crying, overcome with the joy of what I had just experienced. Christine's arms came around me from behind. I swung around and buried my face in her breast, crying like a baby."

 

Someone get me a boat made of crackers before I drown in all this cheese.

 

(And all this comma splicing isn't helping, either. Is the comma really that hard? It's not rocket science.)

 

Chapter 14:

 

Erik decides he wants to be a chess master at some point here, and, frustrated with the fact that Christine's chess-playing skills aren't up to par enough to challenge him, makes friends with a local chess champion and begins playing regular games with him. It seems unnecessarily social for this character, at least to me, but it is a plausible desire on his part and a good way to ease the Phantom into a little bit more social contact without going overboard, so I really have nothing to complain about.

 

Meanwhile, Christine finds Erik's lasso (hidden in a sock drawer behind the porn, or something) and, despite her previous horrified fear of the thing, demands that Erik use it, show her how it works, and let her handle it. She gets unaccountably turned on when he lassos a bedpost with it, and then there is sex. This version of Christine really likes violence... except when she doesn't, of course.

 

The major plot point of this chapter is that Erik has a serious heart attack. It's not a surprise since his heart condition was established earlier, and it's all handled fairly realistically, though Erik's ability to survive like twenty-five heart attacks in this novel, without the benefit of modern medicine, stretches credulity just a little bit.

 

Chapter 15:

 

When Mardi Gras rolls around, Pettengill's descriptive skills really shine; she obviously has a love for New Orleans and its historical culture, and it's obvious in her carefully-painted pictures of events like the Comus Ball and Rex Parade. The descriptions of the festivities themselves are also well-researched and immersive, making this one of the most engaging chapters in the novel. The use of modern language, however, continues to pop up now and then and make me sigh, particularly when people are "partying".

 

Christine finally discusses the dissolution of her relationship with Raoul (short answer: she just wasn't feelin' it); while his easy brush-off again seems like he's getting kind of a raw deal as a character, I like that Pettengill isn't shying away from the original novel's idea of sexual, adult love vs. childish, innocent love. It would have been even more interesting if she had addressed the topsy-turvy contradiction of which of the two men represents which love (i.e., Erik represents sexuality and stepping outside of her comfort zone, but also clinging to her childhood memories of her father, while Raoul represents a love born out of an innocent, undemanding time, but also a life that would involve making adult decisions and leaving the influence of her father forever). But, at this point, I'm happy to take what I can get in this book.

 

Speaking of, how the hell is this book still going on? We still have 200 pages to go and nothing is happening! 200 pages is a lot to fill when your central romance is already resolved and all you've got left is a possible relationship with a voodoo queen and some chest pains.

 

And speaking of voodoo, off Erik goes to begin a long-running campaign of making nightly visits to Laveau's voodoo rituals. Somehow, despite the presence of effigies and violent imagery that even I, a voodoo dunce, can interpret, Erik (master of the black arts, remember) apparently has no idea what this voodoo ritual is intended to do to the person in question, and has no moral qualms with the setup despite the fact that he finds torture in all forms abhorrent (remember, that torture chamber was just to alleviate his boredom!). I'm not convinced, since Pettengill's desire to present him as interested in and versed in the occult doesn't jibe with his apparent naivete.

 

The voodoo rituals are obviously another source of interest for the author, since she describes them well and lavishes a lot of pages on making sure we see them as focal points in the chapters to come. However, while Erik's refusal to participate in the orgies that usually follow said rituals is meant to keep him sympathetic as a stand-up gentleman, the fact that he's going out, getting drunk, participating in these rituals, letting strange women grind on him even if he refuses to have sex, and then lying to his wife about it all (he tells her he "takes walks" at night) kind of counterbalances that attempt in a big way. Don't get me wrong; I'm very glad to see that Pettengill isn't trying to present life with Erik as being all bunnies and sunshine, but I do feel that the whole mess is a pretty contrived way to show that Erik's nature hasn't changed too much.

 

The long, hooded red robe that Erik takes to wearing when participating in the rituals is very evocative of the old Red Death idea from Leroux's novel, a conceit which made me smile and which probably delights the character.

 

Chapter 16:

 

Erik's argument that his ensuing descent into drunken sottery is unlike him because he "had never resorted to the bottle or anything else for that matter" confuses me, what with all that morphine use we were talking about in the first chapter.

 

More late-night voodoo rituals, more lying to Christine, more drunkenness, more "oh noes, Erik is falling into his old ways!" Sadly, none of this is presented with enough variety or character depth to make me care about it, and at this point I'm just slogging desperately through the novel to get to the end.

 

Chapter 17:

 

It should be noted that this entire story has been told in first-person past tense, with Erik narrating the previous events of his life; however, he also digresses into asides now and then that are in present tense, leading me to believe that he's telling this story to someone in some fashion or another. I spent a lot of time wondering who he was telling his life story to and why, since it obviously isn't Christine; I harbored some vain hope that we would be returning to Leroux's roots and that he would be relating his story to the Persian before he died or something, but this did not turn out to be the case.

 

As Erik gets more and more dastardly and more and more scuzzball-like in this chapter, Pettengill relies heavily on flashbacks to his mistreatment in childhood to ensure that her audience continues to view him sympathetically, particularly when he assaults some men and ends up in jail, where his claustrophobia miraculously returns so that he can have a large-scale episode. While the abuse carried out on him in childhood does in fact induce sympathy, I still don't have enough of it to think that he shouldn't be in jail, or to even begin to excuse his reprehensible behavior by saying that he was abused and his actions are therefore not his fault.

 

Chapter 18:

 

Le sigh. Naturally, Erik's behavior finally catches up with him when some local thugs, having discovered his true identity as a fairly upstanding member of New Orleans society, threaten to expose his nightly activites to his wife and associates if he doesn't aid them in a crime spree. Naturally, this comes right when Erik was planning to quit voodoo forever, forever I tell you! Naturally, he can't have anyone telling his wife what he's been up to (and he can't tell her and ask for forgiveness, because that's just crazy talk, asking the loving Christ figure for forgiveness), so instead he embarks on the She Can Never Know jag that so often induces hero figures to do bad things. Like pretty much every other time I've seen it in literature or the movies, it's tiresome and I think he needs to grow some balls.

 

So Erik's new moral compass, Pettengill makes a point of telling us, can no longer include murder; he can't kill anyone, which means, of course, that he'll be doing whatever the lowlifes say because god forbid he injured or killed one of them. Instead, he will be participating in their crime ring (which does, in fact, involve killing people). Strangely, he will not be threatening and scaring the bejeezus out of the man until AFTER he's done his bidding, despite the fact that that's kind of the Phantom's M.O.

 

And apparently Erik's new morals are pretty loose anyway, because while he can't kill the man outright, he apparently can maneuver him into falling off the dock and then dispassionately watch as he drowns not a few feet away from him. Nice convenient interpretation of morals, there, dude. Oh, well. At least with that major antagonist out of the way and Erik's little plan to get himself out of the voodoo world a success, the book is over now, right?

 

Chapter 19:

 

What the hell, how can there still be nine chapters plus an epilogue to go?

 

Erik has mental problems. This is no surprise to anyone with a passing acquaintance with the story. While I like Erik's ability to regress into childhood when confronted with unacceptable stimuli--this device has been used effectively in a lot of previous versions, notably the 1983 Markowitz/Schell film--I am really not a fan of the split personality conceit that Pettengill has been trying to cultivate throughout the latter half of the novel. The idea she's trying to present is that Erik has a "darker half" that does bad things and tries to seize control of his destiny, but the execution is clumsy, vague, and difficult to follow, all of which makes it less than effective as an explanation of his behavior. It ends up just being a really annoying thing that happens sometimes, where Erik starts musing about "the evil voice" that is always trying to make him do things.

 

Chapter 20:

 

He explains all of this "the voice" business to Christine eventually, too. For a nineteenth-century lady who has been repeatedly abused and neglected over the last few months, she's very understanding of his multiple personality defense. It doesn't really matter, because, you see, turns out she's preggers! Omg yay! Any concern over genetics or the baby's future are quickly glossed over (unlike the 1989 Vale Allen novel, which explored them in-depth) so everyone can move on to the land of sparkly sunlit happiness at the impending miracle of life.

 

Are we done now? NO? No. A house is on fire! And Erik must run into the flames to save the woman and child inside! What the fucking hell is going on here?

 

Chapter 21:

 

It's SuperErik! Here he comes to save the day! Leaps through burning wreckage! Saves hapless women! Snubs firefighters who don't do enough! Sets himself on fire! It's just ludicrious, seriously. We haven't seen any kind of impulse toward selflessness come out of Erik, period, unless it relates to Christine (you know, his pregnant wife that is on the doorstep screaming at him not to go inside), and it kind of seems like now would be the time he'd be MORE inclined not to go risking his safety or hers. I fail to see how the morals of a man ho had no problem watching another man drown in front of him without lifting a finger to help also include a compulsion to override firefighters and leap into certain doom to save people he doesn't know. But, oh, hell, off he goes, and burns his fingers so badly that he may never play the piano again (no, I am not kidding)!

 

Also, just a little realism check, but if the room is so full of flames that it looks blue, I doubt very much that the girl in said room has much hope of even being conscious, much less screaming energetically for help and coming through the entire ordeal completely unscathed.

 

But wait--there's more! Erik realizes, after figuring out that a recurring dream he had apparently referenced the fire, that when Marie Laveau told him he was "special" she was referring to his heretofore unknown power as a precognitive! He has dreams--OF THE FUTURE! Considering that everything in the novel, including the voodoo ceremonies, has been pretty much stated to have perfectly mundane origins, the leap into science fiction did not go well for me.

 

And, in case this chapter wasn't making enough of a mess yet, let me just put out a PSA for everybody out there who likes to read or write: "breath" is not the same word as "breathe". They are not interchangeable. They are different forms of the word, with different pronunciations. Thank you and good night.

 

Chapter 22:

 

So, would anyone like to guess what Psychic Erik's recurring dream about a little girl who looks like Christine reaching out for them but inevitably being lost in the distance means? Anybody? I know it's subtle. Maybe its companion dream in which Erik drowns in Christine's blood will help?

 

Christine finally sings again here. Leaving aside the fact that nobody, opera singer with celestial voice or not, sounds "just as heavenly" after not singing for years (those muscles atrophy, the cords stop working the same way, and, to put it nicely, you sound like shit until you get some serious practice back under your belt), I would really have liked Christine's return to singing to mean something. After all this time and my theorizing over why she was abstaining, the fact that she just up and does it one day in order to make Erik happy sort of removes the significance that the whole business could have had. The idea of singing as being a transcendent, spiritual (even frightening) experience for her, clearly outlined in Leroux's novel, no longer applies since she apparently has no motivation beyond her husband's desires--and, incidentally, her character, already very badly undercut by this point, does not benefit from yet another example of having no particular drives or desires of her own.

 

Oh, look. Christine has had a miscarriage. This is very tragic, and also TOTALLY unexpected thanks to the careful subtlety with which Pettengill crafted her foreshadowing. The dead child--who, of course, Erik names Angelina, because originality is for suckers--is used as a vehicle by which Erik can finally be redeemed... again. For the third time? The fourth? I'm losing track. At any rate, he pours his heart out to the dead girl and leaves the horrible detritus of his past broken in the snow next to her tomb, or something, which would all have been much more poignant and interesting if it weren't massively redundant by this point. When you have to redeem a character more than once or twice, I start to think he's not redeemable, you know?

 

Chapter 23:

 

Wait, we're not done yet? Sweet baby Mary. Christine's near-catatonic withdrawal at the death of her baby is tragic, and I am not immune to it, but my stamina is not endless. I am not involved enough with the character to overcome the endless, meandering way that this book is apparently plotted. Erik is very sad that his wife is sad, everyone is very sad, yes yes.

 

Chapter 24:

 

No, seriously. I really want to care about the drama as Erik tries to reach his badly withdrawn Christine, but it's simply not well-written enough to evoke those emotions in me. And leaving commas out of sentences that require them will not change that.

 

Chapter 25:

 

Christine, when she finally comes back around, begins referring to Erik as her "angel", in a non-ironic, completely serious "romantic" sort of a way. I think this is a bad choice; not only is it somewhat trite in Phantom literature, which tends to overuse the "angel" label well past the point where it is relevant to the characters, but Christine was devastated to discover Erik's mortality in the original novel. Why would she use the name that represented his great and painful manipulation of her (not to mention the fact that, as a Catholic, it's somewhat blasphemous)? I think many an author falls into the trap of referencing the traditionally "good" connotations of the word, while not thinking too much about how it's actually used in the characters' interactions.

 

And then there was an omitted comma on page 360. And 361. And a grammatical error on 363. And a typo on 363, too. I'm dying, here! I know this isn't traditionally published, but doesn't that make it all the more critical that the author and her team carefully proofread everything?

 

Chapter 26:

 

This chapter has nothing of note in it. But we're still truckin'. The end is in sight!

 

Chapter 27:

 

Oh, my god, please, Erik. Stop having almost-fatal heart attacks and just keel over already, would you? Do us a favor? It's not that it's badly written, per se, but it just goes on and on and ON AND ON AND ON, and some of us have things to do. Also, as you are discovering at the moment, Erik, I don't think fifty-two still qualifies as "the prime of your life" in the nineteenth-century.

 

Chapter 28:

 

My question is answered when it is revealed that Erik has been writing this whole account as a sort of autobiography, since he knows that he's currently dying and doesn't have much time left to tell anyone anything. The rambling nature of the narrative is therefore perfectly in-character for the circumstances, but, unfortunately, that still doesn't make it very good reading material.

 

Epilogue:

 

Oh, thank god, we're finally here.

 

I am so bored by this point that I can't begin to take an interest in this epilogue, written by Christine as she mulls over having just read her husband's account. While I appreciate that Pettengill is trying to clarify some of Christine's motivations here, because they sorely need it, she does it in a massive stream of story reiteration rather than having included any clues in the narrative, and it's really, really hard to pay attention to. The entire exercise is five pages of largely pointless recap of the book we've just read, this time in the form of paragraphs that are over a page long. Wall of Text hits Anne's reading tolerance for 2374569 damage; Anne's reading tolerance dies.

 

And now, holy shit, look who's here--it's Raoul! I confess that I didn't see this coming, and that I wouldn't have expected Pettengill to bring him in so late in the game. I was momentarily afraid that there was going to be some kind of "and then she went off with Raoul and had her cake and ate it too" business, but, luckily, that didn't happen. What did happen was that Raoul, in keeping with his characterization from the beginning of the book, ranted a bit about Christine's silly life choices (which, to be fair, I agree were mostly pretty ill-advised) before she informed him that she loved Erik and would hear no ill-word against him and then punted him back out, never to appear again. What really makes me sad about this is not that Raoul is being any more admirable than Erik here (he's not; they're kind of both douchebags in this version), but that, rather than exploring the poignant and conflicted balance between innocent love and sensual love that Leroux presented in his novel, Pettengill has simply taken a side, declared sensual love the winner, and in no uncertain terms made it clear that she expects the reader to naturally agree with her. And many a reader will, I'm sure, which is perfectly fine; however, the simplification leaves me sad for what might have been, and I can't quite get behind just bringing Raoul's character in to abuse him for a point that she'd already made. It's more redundancy, a problem this book suffers from throughout.

 

I found that this book shared more than a few parallel ideas with Suzy McKee Charnas' 1996 short story "Beauty and the Opera", which I have not yet seen as a major source for any other interpretations.  Both versions involve Christine remaining with the Phantom while Raoul moves on and marries elsewhere; both versions also involve Erik dying within a few years, and both have a highly sexual element present.  Most importantly, both stories share a common theme in that they present the idea that a handful of passionate years are of more value than a large number of lifeless ones, choosing passion (as represented by the Phantom) over safety (as represented by Raoul).  I won't say that this book is anywhere approaching as well-done as the short story, but it is striving for many of the same points, and it wouldn't be too far-fetched to draw a connecting line between the two.

 

In the end, oddly enough, I have to admit that Pettengill made me care about her fucked-up protagonists. I did want to know what their damage was, and I did want to know what happened to them at times. The problem was that they really weren't Christine and Erik; they were some other protagonists wearing their faces, and while that makes for all right pleasure reading, it does not make for a fabulous Phantom story interpretation. The book squeaked by with a passing grade because Pettengill has her moments, and does manage some real emotion in some of them, but the majority of it was something of a trial, and I don't think I'd ever pick it back up and go through it again just for those few glimmers of light.