8th Grade Book Review
Book: The Phantom of the Opera
Author: Gaston Leroux
Published: 1911
Genre: Romantic Fiction
Synopsis: The Phantom of the Opera is the tragic tale of a love triangle taking place in the center of France, the Paris Opera House. This book leaves the reader just wanting to read more and more as the story progresses and develops into the classic tale of love, reality, and illulsion that has captured the hearts of readers since 1911.
The Phantom of the Opera is an amazing book because it has such a variety of styles and techniques that the author, Gaston Leroux, uses is foreshadowing. The level of intensity of foreshadowing that Mr. Leroux uses is just incredible because it has extremely strong verbs that catch the eye, but it is still simple enough so that any reader could understand what is going on. One foreshadowing phrase used in The Phantom of the Opera is "...high up above them, an immense night-bird that stared at them with its blazing eyes and seemed to cling to the string of Apollo's lyre."
Although it sort of hard to understand this phrase without reading the book and understanding what is happening at the moment, the phrase just tells us that the "Opera Ghost" was standing at the statue of Apollo and watched how his Christine was basically cheating on him. Anyway, the strong verbs I was talking about in that phrase include "...blazing eyes..." Those kinds of verbs really made the reader feel interested and want to start reading faster until they get to the end. Plus, it has quite a mysterious tone to it which can just grab a reader immediately.
Another technique that really makes this book incredible is the amount of similes used to get the reader to understand the picture or character. One simile useful to development of the heroine, Christine, was when Leroux used the simile "Christine tripped over it as lightly as a swallow." After I read that part I could really picture Christine as a dainty lady who is quite graceful in her movements, but has a certain strength and boldness in her. The similes do help the readers understand and be able to sketch a character from the book.
I can compare The Phantom of the Opera to Dracula pretty well because both are about a story based on myths and legends, but are similar and different in the execution that the author tried to establish. In the Phanton of the Opera Leroux tries to make a work that is understandable to all ages and backgrounds, but still flows evenly, in my opinion. In Dracula, Bram Stoker writes a book that is understandable on a college level and has a much "choppier" plotline going on. Both books have the same interest in technique, such as foreshadowing and similes, but the writing styles are just different. In my opinion, Dracula is written in a much more dramatic way than Phantom, while the Leroux book tries to gives a more casual effect as to make the reader relate to the characters and plotline more easily and efficiently.
The reason that I think this book is qualified as an A-list book is mainly because it is slowly becoming a classic. I mean this story has been around for almost a century. Within that century numerous variations of the story have been developed into plays, films, and who knows what else. The story of the Opera Ghost has been expanded and expanded upon, and told to many generations, which makes it even more of an A-List book due to the fact that it has been able to survive for almost a century and is now considered by the public as indispensible.
Another reason that I think this book has become A-List is the fact that it has captured so many hearts, not to mention the movies made from the idea. This simple telling of a tragic love has caught the valuable attention of the public, and has stayed alive due to the fact that it has good details about life then, now and for as long as humans exist. Everyone will feel love, despair, and cheated on at some point of their lives. And the fact that a book has and will always have ways of life incorporated into it so the reader will always understand makes this a fantastic contender for A-List book qualification.
Rating: 9.5
Although I want to give this book a full ten, I am still aware that the book has many confusing moments for someone who hasn't been to Paris. For example, the statue of Apollo is referenced but I don't know where that is or what it means. Also, a number of French words are included that could confuse the reader, so, in the end, I have to give the book a 9.5.