Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (1910)

One of the things that separates this book very much from its film and stage adaptations is the amount of detail Leroux provides about the Opera's cellars. Some of the details almost seem like fantasy, or at least science fiction, even for current readers. A lake under a functional building? Five cellars in a 19th century urban building? A torture chamber? A 'siren' in the lake protect a fancy house stockpiled with gun powder? Trap doors and fake walls and revolving mirrors? It all seems almost impossible, but Leroux writes it like it's a matter of fact. I haven't watched any of the film or theater adaptations in quite a while, but I remember Erik's layer being more of just a creepy basement. Here it's turned into a magnificent symbol of Erik's almost superhuman abilities and knowledge of physics and illusions. Great stuff.

Erik himself is also made much more of a super-villain here than a tragic monster. Of course, we still get the tragedy in his relationship with Christine, but he's also a mastermind of deception and a bit of sadist. When the Persian relates the story of how Erik grew up in the East, we get a great glimpse of how Erik learned this amazing things. Leroux, of course, makes Erik more than a comic book character by telling us exactly why Erik might be so sadistic and angry at the human race. His mother rejected him, refused to give him any affection unless he wore a mask. No wonder he's such a bastard.

I've noticed with a lot of late-19th century and early-20th century fantastic fiction, authors often used this method, shifting points of view to establish a believable narrative. Dracula is a perfect example. Instead of presenting the story of a vampire as a legend, Stoker manages to create a believable account of what it might be like for a group of people to really encounter a vampire. Here Leroux gives us newspaper accounts and different perspectives from people in the opera and makes his narrator almost a secondary source, a reporter convincing us of the existence of the 'ghost'.

I haven't read much steampunk, but I did pick up a copy of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen about a year ago. Steampunk seems to be a cross between fantastic Victorian literature and science fiction, where 19th century settings are exaggerated in their technology (steam engines and dirigibles are very prominent) and the exoticism of people from the east is very exaggerated. The Phantom of the Opera, in a way, is a proto-steampunk book, in that Erik employs amazing technologies that almost seem magical, and the treatment and inclusion of the Persian is somewhat exceptional for literature of the time.

I certainly like the fact that we don't get too much information about Erik early in the novel. I've been thinking about this, watching some of the old Friday the 13th movies. What made those movies so frightening to me is that you rarely actually see the monster except for a few brief moments and then finally at the end, with the climactic battle. I feel like most horror movies these days show their villains in full light, from the beginning of the picture. While this might be more fun for filmmakers, I think it detracts strongly from the horror value of most new horror films.

That being said, at the end of the first Friday the 13th I think you get a similar reveal, where his mother explains everything that happened to him and why she's killing everyone.

You can check out a nice fan page detailing the film adaptations of the novel here.