How I discovered The Phantom of the Opera

Today for my countdown to Halloween post, I decided to blog bout a classic of Gothic horror. I blogged about The Phantom of the Opera a few times before, both in French and English. I blogged last year on how I discovered Dracula. So today's post is about how I discovered the most famous novel (and the best novel) of Gaston Leroux. As for Drac, I discovered Erik not through his various cinematic incarnations, or the now far too famous and overrated musical, but directly in the source material. Actually, that may not be quite true: I had also watched a stupid pseudo documentary horror drama featuring David Copperfield, but otherwise my mind was pretty much unspoiled, so to speak. Also, like for Dracula, I read the novel during summertime. I'm not certain which one I read before, I believe it was the Phantom.

The big difference between the other Gothic classics I discovered around that time, is that this one I did not read entirely by my own initiative and against my mother's wish, but through the encouragement of my father. He bought Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, the edition you see pictured here, out of a fascination for the movies he had watched, then decided to share it with his children. I must have been twelve at the time. I was blown away. I loved everything about it: the settings, the characters from the musical and operatic world, as well as the audiences, the tragic protagonist, still utterly evil, the whole mystery regarding his true nature and the unhealthy relationship he had with soprano Christine Daaé. I don't think any adaptation managed to truly picture Erik's duality, repulsive both morally and physically, yet genuinely tragic. Unlike many horror classics, this one had no supernatural source, in fact everything can be rationalised, but the Phantom's genius and skills were enough to give a quasi supernatural feel to the plot. The Phantom of the Opera is not my favourite Gothic horror novel, that would be Dracula, but it has a niche of its own and I'd love to revisit it one day.