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A review by mrjack
The Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth
2.0
Ouch.
The critically reviled sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, entitled LOVE NEVER DIES, premiered on West End in 2010. It draws loose inspiration from this wee novella, itself the product of collaboration between Webber and author Frederick Forsyth. It serves as a sequel to both Webber’s megamusical and (to a lesser extent) Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel. And it’s real bad.
YouTuber Lindsay Ellis described PHANTOM as a uniquely complete story. There is nowhere for it to go after its emotional culmination. And she’s right. THE PHANTOM OF MANHATTAN is a delightful trash fire that sneaks a few remixes in of the original story’s greatest hits.
I don’t know why this novella exists. Its structure doesn’t lend itself well to musical adaptation (and LOVE NEVER DIES utilizes very little of this story). Christine and the phantom (and Raoul, I guess) have minimal screentime. The narrative is dominated by first-person accounts from a variety of narrators, ranging from journalists to Madame Giry to the Phantom to a Persian fanatic steeped in 1990s orientalism. This constant shifts in narrators and the context in which they write (journals, lectures, newspaper articles) warrants constant reintroduction to characters and plot context of which the reader is already aware. It’s incredibly tiresome. It also gives the story a detached air, a far cry from the emotional melodrama of the musical. The climax of the novella is described by a journalist who barely knows anyone involved.
The narrative itself can be positively insane—when it’s not boring. The phantom worships a god of gold and greed who seems to be canonically real. A Catholic priest literally talks to Jesus. Raoul can’t have children because his **** got shot off before the events of the musical. When it’s not bonkers, it’s dull, often for the reasons listed in the previous paragraph.
The book also features a preface in which Forsyth absolutely trashes original PHANTOM author Leroux, which feels mean-spirited. Which is weird, considering the first-person style is partially borrowed from Leroux himself.
Read this one if you dare. It’s my worst read of 2021.
The critically reviled sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, entitled LOVE NEVER DIES, premiered on West End in 2010. It draws loose inspiration from this wee novella, itself the product of collaboration between Webber and author Frederick Forsyth. It serves as a sequel to both Webber’s megamusical and (to a lesser extent) Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel. And it’s real bad.
YouTuber Lindsay Ellis described PHANTOM as a uniquely complete story. There is nowhere for it to go after its emotional culmination. And she’s right. THE PHANTOM OF MANHATTAN is a delightful trash fire that sneaks a few remixes in of the original story’s greatest hits.
I don’t know why this novella exists. Its structure doesn’t lend itself well to musical adaptation (and LOVE NEVER DIES utilizes very little of this story). Christine and the phantom (and Raoul, I guess) have minimal screentime. The narrative is dominated by first-person accounts from a variety of narrators, ranging from journalists to Madame Giry to the Phantom to a Persian fanatic steeped in 1990s orientalism. This constant shifts in narrators and the context in which they write (journals, lectures, newspaper articles) warrants constant reintroduction to characters and plot context of which the reader is already aware. It’s incredibly tiresome. It also gives the story a detached air, a far cry from the emotional melodrama of the musical. The climax of the novella is described by a journalist who barely knows anyone involved.
The narrative itself can be positively insane—when it’s not boring. The phantom worships a god of gold and greed who seems to be canonically real. A Catholic priest literally talks to Jesus. Raoul can’t have children because his **** got shot off before the events of the musical. When it’s not bonkers, it’s dull, often for the reasons listed in the previous paragraph.
The book also features a preface in which Forsyth absolutely trashes original PHANTOM author Leroux, which feels mean-spirited. Which is weird, considering the first-person style is partially borrowed from Leroux himself.
Read this one if you dare. It’s my worst read of 2021.