After ragging so hard on the first few stories in this anthology, it's refreshing to see that they don't all suck massive amounts of waste.  Which sounds really cynical and nasty, but I really liked this story.  Honest.

"Dark Muse" by Daniel Ransom, 1989

From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg

Grade: B

I wanted badly to give this one a higher grade, simply because it's extremely engaging and touching.  However, it fell short in a few key areas, and so I had to be content with the B.  Nevertheless, it was very enjoyable.

The updated premise in this one (which is a rare contemporary, by the way, rather than a period retelling) is turned on its head a few times, changing several key events but somehow managing to keep the original core themes mostly intact.  Hanratty, a lounge piano player with an entertainingly old-detective-movies kind of a name, has been finding compositions left anonymously on his piano, beautifully haunting songs that everyone praises him for.  A few things are notable just from the set-up: for one thing, Hanratty is a pretty nice guy, because while he plays the songs and allows people to assume they are his, he does not have them published and makes no money off of them, despite their obviously great potential.  The second, and more important, point is that the Phantom chooses an intermediary to bring their music to the world (much like Leroux's Phantom uses Christine's voice), but without the sense of entitlement and pride the original takes in his work.  The Phantom's refusal to be recognized as the composer and decision to release the music to the outside world without laying claim to it is almost diametrically opposed to the original Phantom's refusal to let mere mortals even hear his transcendental music, much less release it or disclaim ownership of it (doing so would be unthinkable for a character whose only claim to any purity or beauty of soul lies in his ability to make unparalleled music).

Interestingly, Hanratty is passionately possessive and defensive about the anonymous songs; while some of this can probably be attributed to guilt over the fraud inherent in pretending they're his (or at least, not telling anyone they aren't), the rest seems like almost a curious tribute to the unknown composer.  Hanratty is in a strange position as the effective "Christine" of the story, and unlike the original Christine, he is not a hapless tool or a wondering child but a full-grown man with his own desires and feelings about the music, something Leroux's version does not include.  Here, it makes him a more compelling character, and keeps the reader interested with him as narrator.

I sort of have to quibble with the semi-passage (more of a hole, really) that Hanratty discovers in his dressing room closet; while the device works just fine, it reminded me too immediately of C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Not that the use is derivitave; it's not.  In fact, it has nothing in common with Lewis' book, really, except that the closet happens to function as a "portal between worlds", albeit not a literal, passable portal in the case of Ransom's story.  It's nothing big, and certainly nothing I'm going to knock him for.  I suppose it's just me being whiny and bitchy and picky because it bothers me personally, not because it's a story flaw.  So, yeah, you probably could have just skipped this paragraph entirely and gone on with your lives.

Initially, I was unsure of the exact location of the Phantom character; the anonymously left music seems like a clear indication that it was an outside character, but Hanratty's unrequited infatuation with a young woman who works at the bar and the character of Sullivan, an earnest but rather unimaginitive youth who is also in love with her, seemed to set up the Raoul/Phantom/Christine love triangle at the beginning.  I mused a bit on how Ransom would attempt to make Hanratty compelling as a Phantom character--obviously, without the ability to make music of his own, he lacks the original Phantom's one redeeming or unbeastly trait, but then again he has no disfigurement to damn him in the first place.  But then again, what is the Phantom without a disfigurement or at the very least a sense of disenfranchisement?  It was a puzzle that was finally solved later when it was pointed out that Hanratty is not, in fact, the Phantom, and I was just getting ahead of myself.  Sullivan, however, definitely is the Raoul character, though he is largely peripheral to the action.

Hanratty is a decent musician, and therein lies his greatest tragedy.  He's all right, but he will never be great; he has just enough talent to keep trying, but never enough to achieve anything that could be considered impressive.  He has the will, the passion to compose and play beautiful music, which has led to his lifelong career as a pianist, but he simply cannot create anything worthwhile.  He has the desire but not the skill, and this unfortunate turn of events is constantly brought home to him by the transcendent beauty of the mystery music.  It is a profound tragedy for the casual reader, who is likely to sympathize or recognize the symptoms of being less proficient than one might wish in a field which excites considerable passion for him or her.

Leaving aside the implausibility of a piano bar's basement having a subbasement (I suppose it could be a really old building or something... but who cares?  Let's hear it for suspension of disbelief!) that connects to the sewers, the setting is handled extraordinarily well.  Wherever the sewers or underground "world" is described, it is done so almost exclusively via descriptions of the metals and pipes, using cave-like modifiers and dingy, dank adjectives to paint a grittily realistic (but also frighteningly spectral) picture.  The fact, too, that the underground world must be entered by breaking through walls or seals reinforces the divide, rather than creating a connection the way a door would.

And now we arrive at what most readers of this story consider the biggest point: the Phantom, in this version, is a female.  Now, personally, I think that could be a really interesting examination of the societal oppressions that a female character would go through, which are of course in many arenas markedly different from those a male would encounter; but that's not the case here.  Not that it's a bad thing; I may weep for the lost chance all I want, but it's not by any means badly handled.  It's merely a very personal tragedy, which is relatable enough that I don't mind all the what-ifs.  At any rate, the dynamic of the Phantom writing her songs for one singer alone to sing (she says that she thinks Hanratty has "a very sad voice" and is thus appropriate) is there, but the love plot is not; she views Hanratty as a nice guy, but is almost incapable of romantic thought after the trauma of her past.

It's interesting to note the inversion of roles here: the female Phantom, an innocent victim if ever there was one, nurtures a doomed, destructive love for a very evil man despite the wrong he has done to her.  On the one hand, it's interesting to see the roles reversed so that the innocent "ingenue" is the one pulling the strings instead of the evil mastermind, but on the other hand, I have to ask: why, exactly, is this the reversal Ransom chooses here?  Why, if you're going to reverse the genders in the Phantom story, not go all the way and let the female Phantom be domineering, insane, contorted, while the male is innocent and naive?  Is it something about the way we automatically prefer to assign a gentle role to a female and a dominant one to a male?  There's an entire paper in this aspect of the story, but I only have a finite attention span.  Feel free to have at it in the comments if you're so inclined.

Like most acid-scarred versions of the Phantom, this one lacks the original's resentment toward a society that has shunned him since birth through no fault of his own.  Generally, this irks me, but in place of that hatred toward mankind is a sort of poignant sadness; the loss of the beauty she had had before the acid-scarring gives this particular Phantom an extra layer of sympathy, especially as it is unequivocally not her fault.  In essence, the story replaces the original's supreme villain--that is, societal insensitivity and evil--with a specific, human antagonist.  This brings the story down from the level of allegory, but it nevertheless remains engaging and entertaining enough that I can't fault it too much for not wanting to tackle the sustained metaphor monster in only thirty pages.  We can't all be Suzy McKee Charnas.

The use of the rubber mask from Disney's Cinderella is a very nice touch; not only does it reinforce the somewhat brutal realism of the piece by giving us a very recognizable image upon which to fix, but the juxtaposition of an item that so handily represents happiness and childhood with the nauseating torture and lost innocence beneath it elicits just the right amount of horror-edged pity in the reader.  It's nothing deep, but it doesn't have to be; my gut reaction as a reader was genuine.

From a slightly more academic perspective, the idea of the Phantom living as, essentially, a hobo is a very interesting one.  It runs directly counter to the Phantom's traditional image as a "gentleman" madman, and to Leroux's sumptuous descriptions of his manner and habitation, but it's presented in such realistic detail as to be fully believable, and much more plausible (at least in this day and age) than a hidden warren full of creature comforts would be.  So impressive was the imagery that I actually found myself questioning Leroux's original descriptions--after all, his explanations for the Phantom's quarters and habits are shoddy where they aren't completely omitted, and most of those details are simply dropped for the reader to take on faith--and writing a derivative work that forces the reader to reexamine his conceptions of the original is quite a show of skill.  Hats off to Ransom there.

Bentley's eventual murder is far different from the murders of the original Phantom, in keeping with this gentler, sadder Phantom's personality; it is not a passionate or insane fit, as Leroux's madman's stranglings are usually depicted, but a stab to the back, and a weak one at that.  I would posit that Hanratty's stated intent to leave is the catalyst for Bentley's murder; with the focus of her songwriting gone, the Phantom has nothing further to live for beyond vengeance on Bentley.  Hanratty's adamant insistence as to Bentley's irredeemability (yeah... that's probably not a word) may also play a role, as one would presume that the Phantom has had previous opportunity but has not taken action, probably as a function of her doomed love for the very man who so horrifically scarred her.  In finally killing him, despite being a weaker, gentler version of the character, Ransom's Phantom finally vanquishes her oppressor in a way that Leroux's Erik could never have vanquished the societal oppressions facing him.

Of course, things can't be all good.  There were a few things that made me nitpicky (though not quite cranky, which means I liked it overall): for one thing, I hate it when the realism is broken, and a detective on a murder scene letting some random civilian come view the body and evidence with him... yeah, that doesn't happen.  Also, where on earth did the Phantom get the gun she killed herself with?  It's not like there are a lot of them lying around in the sewers for homeless people to find.  We must assume she probably stole it from Bentley.  And why, when with his dying breath Bentley attempted to identify his murderer, would he scrawl the name of her educational institute down on his notepad instead of... I dunno... her name?  These things are sloppy.  Not terminally I-want-to-bitchslap-the-author-with-a-fish sloppy, but bad form nevertheless.

Ultimately, this story is a breaking down of the original, a reduction from the original symbolism and allegory-riddled tale to a mere story of personal tragedy.  Horror and pity are central to the Phantom character and to the story itself, and extremely palpable--and that's what makes the story work.  It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is, and for today's audience, it's much easier to connect emotionally with the oppression perpetrated by an individual than that enforced by a society as a whole.

There was one little grammar snag on page two, but it seems like it could have been more of a printing error, as the prose is seamless and interesting throughout except for that one spot.  In light of the general writing in the story, I'm inclined to be lenient (so Ransom can breathe a sigh of relief, as he is undoubtedly somewhere hanging on my opinion with BATED BREATH, y'all).

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