Check out the really ugly cover image below.  You will come to know and love (to hate) it, because it's the only cover I've got for the next ten or so short stories, all of which are published in the same anthology (and nowhere else).  My apologies would be with you, except that I'm reading the damn thing, so shut up.

 

This review took forever to write, because I had such an almighty hard time caring about the story at all.

 

"The Opera of the Phantom" by Edward Wellen, 1989

From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg, 1989

Grade: C

 

My biggest whine about this story is not that it sucks, per se.  It's just very, very average.  Ho-hum and boring.  There were a few interesting twists, but pretty much it's just C material (I almost elevated it to a C+, probably solely because of my unhealthy love for an old dead dude from Providence).  I bitch a lot about how hard it is to write a good short story; this is an example of the vast majority of short stories, which are, to be kind about it, mostly bathroom reading.  Not bad bathroom reading.  Just bathroom reading completely without the ability to impress me.

 

Like many versions, this little packaged prequel attempts to give a little more depth to the character of Erik by describing more of his background.  It sets its beginning in the year 1871, a decade before the events of Leroux's novel, at which point the Franco-Prussian war is raging and the opera cellars are being used a storage area for the army.  Erik meets a young boy named Victor (who spent the rest of the story confusing my brain by constantly making me think of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame every time someone said his name, which is a similar story, but goddammit not the same, and okay, so it's not the author's fault I make that connection, but it annoyed the crap out of me) who is hunting the opera catacombs for rats with an eye to selling them for their meat.  It's obvious that Erik sees something of himself in the boy; Wellen practically bludgeons us with the idea.  My ongoing frustration with this author mostly has to do with this regrettable tendency toward obviousness.  He tells rather than showing, and he does it ALL THE FREAKING TIME.  It wears on the mind.

 

There are, of course, good things.  I promise there are.  One of them involves the repetitive image of the rats in the cellars of the opera house; they are, of course, a metaphor for Erik himself as they hide underground and are shunned as disgusting by the surface world.  Interestingly enough, where most horror versions (including Leroux's original) make the rats a nasty but ultimately inconsequential facet of the underground kingdom, Wellen makes of them obedient servants of Erik's, underground denizens that follow their master's lead.  Even more interesting is that Erik's power over the rats comes through music, as he plays for them like a sort of pied piper and bends them to his will; as always, Erik's ultimate power is in his music, through which he controls life and death (in the case of the rats, most literally).

 

Initially, I thought that Wellen was doing a great job with Erik's brooding, fractured nature.  He confuses and occasionally frightens the boy Victor with his wild mood swings and unpredictable behavior.  A little sliver of Greek mythology comes to light when Erik demands to be referred to as Pluto and quotes the sibyl from Virgil's Aeniad, of course highlighting his status as a king of the underworld, while also being a very typical example of the genius depression that Erik's character is usually prone to.  

 

Additionally, when asked about the war above, the Phantom displays shocking ignorance of the participants and conflict; far from being an example of his intellect being less than stellar, rather it is a pointed revelation of Erik's complete lack of care for anything that happens in the society above.  He has no interest in the struggles of a society that has cast him out, and no worry for anything that happens outside the confines of his domain, the opera house.  Unfortunately, simply letting Erik state that he didn't care and letting Victor ponder on this fact wasn't enough for Wellen; he actually sat us down and had the narrator explain to us as readers that Erik doesn't care about what happens in society.  In the narrative.  It made me cry inside; the point was there and I applauded it, but the incredibly heavy-handed treatment of it all was depressing.

 

Around this point I begin to have issues with Wellen's interpretation of the character.  When Erik sends Victor away, saying that he is too much of a danger to his precious anonymity, I wrote a congratulatory little note about how well he had handled the idea that Erik would drive away his one companion; that is, that the safety of isolation was more important to this societal outcast than the pleasure of companionship.  Alas, Wellen could not let well enough alone.  Rather than leaving it at that and reinforcing the character's solitary nature, Wellen chooses for Erik to send Victor away to the countryside with a foster family for his own good, and makes it generally clear that he is far more concerned with Victor's wellbeing in sending him away than with his own.  While it makes a certain amount of sense for Erik to want to live vicariously through the boy, giving him the opportunities he was denied, the emotional bond is just a little too quick and pat to make much sense, especially in light of Erik's already obviously entrenched mental problems.  There are a lot of holes in this theory, setting aside for the moment the glaring character inconsistency that allows the mentally damaged Erik to maintain an unwavering fatherly role for this kid over a period of several years despite his own inability to maintain a consistent role for himself from day to day; for example, as part of Wellen's campaign to make sure we know that Erik sees himself in Victor, Erik sends him off to a country farming family like his own for safekeeping, with no particular attention paid to the fact that Erik found living there so intolerable when he was a child that he ran away at the age of ten.  Additionally, Erik is taken completely by surprise at the unscrupulous behavior of said farm folk when he visits them, but his own flashbacks to his childhood show it to be full of abuse and neglect.  Wellen is attempting to give Erik a sense of naivete that can be damaged in order to push him into the madness of being the Phantom, but in light of the background he has applied to the character, it just doesn't make very much sense.

 

My quibbles with his motivation aside, several details were glossed over, all of which of course immediately irritated my detail-oriented brain.  For one thing, Erik sends several gold francs to the farmers for Victor's upkeep, schooling, etc. each year, but as this predates the opera house being active, I would have liked some kind of explanation of where, exactly, Erik gets his money.  Alas, despite the fact that he sends money to Victor, carries money on his person, and muses about how money is occasionally tight, I have no idea where said money comes from.  Which irks me.  One sentence of explanation wouldn't have been too much to ask, would it?

 

But never mind that.  Wherever Erik gets his money from, it's not going to be sufficient to put this kid through college (seriously, could we a get a My Kid Goes To bumper sticker for Erik's boat here?  I feel like he's going to trade in the romantic punt for a sensible soccer dinghy), so he decides to compose an opera in order to bring in some royalties.  He bases it upon a gypsy legend; one of the more interesting things Wellen throws in is a mention that Erik spent some of his youth traveling with gypsies, but he never really elucidates on them, and it winds up feeling like a tacked-on excuse for Erik to use a gypsy theme for his opera.  I would have loved to see it fleshed out into a real background conceit, but it never went anywhere, which, like most of this story, saddened me with its mediocrity.  The lyrics of said opera are nicely evocative and seem to capture the Phantom's most treasured concepts--secrecy and stealth as well as honor.  It's worth it to stray off into a quick look at Leroux's Phantom's morals here; Erik may be a demented madman, but he does have a peculiar kind of morality, in that he only kills those that actively stand in his way, and always declares his intentions and issues warnings before taking action.  In his mind, he is an honorable creature, one who has been wronged by the capricious and cruel upper echelon of society (in Erik's case, equivalent to pretty much all of society); therefore, Wellen's use of a heavy theme of honor in the fabricated opera is appropriate and intriguing, encouraging the reader to explore another dimension of Erik.  Of course, then he goes and ruins it at the end.  But I'm getting ahead of myself again.  

 

Erik's bizarrely out of place combination of naivete and tenderness continues apace as he waxes philosophical about his good deed by Victor, using it as a kind of light to comfort him in the darkness of his isolation.  It's actually a good concept, which I would have enjoyed much more if it had seemed more like a singular behavior for him and not something he might conceivably do all the damn time.  Soft-hearted Erik shouldn't have survived into adulthood and I just couldn't get past the annoyance of it all.  He's extremely young-seeming--from the way he sticks his tongue out in concentration when he writes, to the mention of him eating and drinking with enjoyment, something that is never added in Leroux because it damages the supernatural aura of the character, to the confident anticipation of success that he really ought to know better than to harbor--yet by the timeline the author has established, he should be into his forties at least and have lived a very bitter, isolated life.  Additionally, the fact that Erik is often unsure of things, or at least admits to being unsure of things, utterly destroys most of the aura of mystery and omnipotence that is so central to the half-mythical figure of the Phantom; while this can be done really well, I think, for an author seeking to delve into Erik's personality, on top of all the niggling little annoyances already perpetrated by this author it was sort of the icing on a painfully sagging cake.  It is interesting, however, that Erik only weeps over his opera's poignancy; his musical creations are far more emotionally "real" to him than any actual persons.

 

The rats continue to be an awesome feature.  They are Erik's sole, enraptured audience, and he exhorts them to sing with him; they are the only other true "owners" of the opera house, banished to its bowels like him for their socially unacceptable nature but far more a permanent feature than the patrons and performers that come and go above.

 

One line from the final aria of his opera strikes an especially poignant chord when his protagonist sings, "Beauty must die/When, beneath it, lies a lie."  Leaving aside the fact that most of the opera lyrics are god-awful (terrible scansion and token rhyme, in much oversimplified language), this particular line is a small moment of foreshadowing to the sordid business to come next year with Christine and her betrayal of both Erik's trust and his musical ambition.  Other small details are equally pleasing--when Erik refers to himself as the Eye of Circe, for example, evoking his all-powerful, omnipotent and seductive presence, or when the "childish" handwriting from the original is preserved, lending authenticity to the story of the Phantom's spotty upbringing.

 

Another move that adds to the "youngness" of the Phantom's character--which is disturbing, really, again considering that the character is only a year younger than he will be in the events of Leroux's novel--is his decision to set out from the opera house and visit Victor, ostensibly to give him the opera so he can collect the royalties, but in reality mostly, I suspect, because Erik wants to see him.  While Leroux's Phantom does indeed leave the opera house on occasion (the scene at Christine's father's tomb comes to mind, of course), it is never with such blindingly naive a goal or such lack of foresight.  The effect is something of a downgrading of his metaphorical status; he seems to be more an errant prince of his domain than its king, enjoying some of the privileges but employing little of the power or wisdom required to effectively rule.

 

A minor side episode occurs when a noble by the name of Younceville mistreats Erik along the side of the road during the journey.  The aside is intended to illustrate the class divide which causes the aristocracy to mistreat and look down upon the peasantry, and in a further sense the divide with society that Erik represents, as all men are effectively an aristocracy when compared to him.  It feels tacked-on, however; I loved that the concept was introduced, but the lack of development made it simplistic and annoying, as though the author wanted to make the statement but didn't bother to back it up.  Making the statement is all well and good, but unless something is done with it it just becomes another in the endless procession of obvious points Wellen throws at his audience.  Aristocracy = bad.  Proletariat = abused.  Ho hum.  Please note that Younceville abuses his horses as well, which is like a giant flashing sign that says BAD GUY without bothering to give us any actual details.

 

Also, Wellen commits the cardinal sin of confusing homonyms, mistaking "rest" for "wrest".  For this alone, he should hang his head in shame.

 

The weird disconnect between Erik's childhood and his perceptions as a grown man is strongest here, where he arrives at the cottage to which he sent Victor.  His recently jogged memories of his childhood involve fear and abuse, and he has already stated that his old life is dead to him; yet, he experiences a strange, misplaced nostalgia when visiting this cottage that apparently resembles his birth home so much.  I didn't buy it.  The unhappy, uncomfortable kind of nostalgia, maybe, but a longing for a simpler time?  Bitch, please.

 

Victor's death, which, of course, we have as readers been able to see from a million miles away, is a good moment of symbolism; not only is it equivalent to the death of the Phantom's hopes and dreams and fathering/creation instinct, which he had lavished only on the boy and on his music, but the family's betrayal is a reiteration of his own family's betrayal of him, and a microcosm of society's betrayal as a whole.  It could have worked brilliantly had it happened sooner in Erik's life, or on less of a background of abuse, or even with just a little more development time to create such an attachment to the boy; as it was, I admired the idea, but felt the execution was clumsy and disappointing.  A better metaphor comes soon afterward, when the family ties Erik up and throws him to the pigs to dispose of their problem; Erik recognizes his own instant revulsion of the pigs' faces as being the same as society's revulsion of his, and the pigpen as a whole is a further metaphor for Erik's life, which has been spent penned in the muck--first in the cages of his sideshow days, then in the opera house, which while under his sway is still the only safe haven he has.  Again, however, the metaphor is spoilt by Wellen's insistence on explaining it precisely in Erik's own voice, as though we as readers are too dumb to be trusted to figure it out on our own.  It was already obvious from the situation; explaining it on top of that was unnecessary and counterproductive.

 

Erik is also able to command the pigs verbally, much as he is the rats; this power over the animal kingdom is one of the few supernatural elements we will see from Erik until the very end.  Wellen has a very human take on the Phantom, which will later confuse the living hell out of me.

 

A not-so-subtle comment on the requirements of being a man is included as Erik muses that while lying prone his only food for the pigs, but when standing erect they recognize him as a man and thus superior to them.  It's an interesting moment, placing Erik firmly as one with mankind rather than with the animals, but once again it is over-explained and just left a bad taste in my mouth from all the unnecessary explication.  The farmers, in throwing him to the pigs, have declared him less than a man, a declaration he refutes when he rises to his feet.  He kills them, of course, but the sense of honor remains intact--after all, he is enacting justice, rather than mere vengeance.  Intriguingly, he keeps the gold he finds in their cottage, despite his recognition that it would be more honorable to rid himself of it; on the one hand, I enjoyed the implication that Erik is rejecting society's notion of honor because it has already declared him outside its scope, but on the other hand was too busy being cranky about how even this point was overexplicated to get too excited.

 

Back at the opera house, the Phantom's opera is stolen by the managers, who having seen no composer and no claimant for the piece have decided to tighten it up and pass it off as their own.  The Phantom is quite understandably enraged--not only is it a betrayal of his trust (which, really, he shouldn't be placing all willy-nilly but I think I've beaten that horse to death by now anyway), but it is a very real usurpation attempt in the small kingdom that is the opera house.  He treats it as an encroachment on his domain, and plots revenge accordingly.

 

Where previously Erik has invited comparisons between himself and Death, partially as homage to the tragic underworld figure he sees himself as, he now begins to add the trappings of the demonic in a bid to frighten the opera house into submission, a course which closely aligns with Leroux's character treatment.  It also leads to the most bizarre part of this story, the introduction of the positively Lovecraftian principle of "semantic phase", the ability of the correct sounds to impose their will upon the universe.  It's a really, really cool combination of the two mythoses, and I would have been far happier if that had been the entirety of the story; its late introduction left me confused and slightly upset, as though the author had led me to believe I was reading one story and then yanked the rug out from under me to abruptly place me in a new one.

 

The theory of semantic phase as presented here states that the correct concatenation of sounds (in Erik's case, one assumes through music) can effect the physical world, in particular the living body, which will automatically obey the commands of the sound at a fundamental, uncontrollable level.  By mastering just the right combination of sounds to force the human body into response, Erik takes his revenge upon the opera managers and the dastardly Younceville by warping their bodies horrifically with his aural mastery.  In this case, the revenge of Erik upon the society that has cast him out by causing an equivalent amount of bodily deformation to that which they revile him for was not overly commented on, and was thus more potent a spectacle.  The very idea of semantic phase invites a larger metaphor, comparing the principle of mind and sound controlling the body against its wishes with society's hive mind controlling and condemning Erik without his realizing it.

 

However, I have to point out again that this entire semantic phase episode is incredibly Lovecraftian.  I seem to recall several stories in the Cthulhu mythos involving eldritch sounds or musics that, when unwisely dabbled in, resulted in deformations, summonings, or madness.  The fact that Erik's use of the principle clearly drives him mad even as he is not physically affected, and the fact that the mere suggestion of it is tiring, only reinforce this image.  It is a sudden dive from the very human, very grounded Phantom Wellen has been pushing the entire time into complete supernatural insanity.  While it is an interesting take on the eternal question of natural vs. supernatural in Erik's nature, a fusion that makes him neither man nor monster but magician, it is also completely out of place for the character that Wellen has established thus far.  It also makes little sense when projected to the events of the novel; I suspect that had Erik had the power to destroy and deform peoples' bodies with sound, he would have made rather short work of poor Raoul.

 

The painting that Erik always hides behind to spy on the managers is of Circe and her swine, a cute metaphor for Erik and the swine, or denizens, of his opera house, most of whom are unaware that he controls their behavior from the shadows.  

 

Erik finally "conquers" the opera house through his eldritch sorceries, and everyone presumably settles down until the events of the next year begin the story as Leroux told it (though really, with Christine not even on the radar yet, the teacher/mentor/student relationship they have and the presumable background are suffering quite a bit).  All in all, the story left me dissatisfied and cranky, not from a real lack of writing ability, but from a frustrating tendency to tell the reader everything as though they were short on mental faculties, and a bizarre shifting of the story from genre to genre with little rhyme, no reason, and an ultimately disappointing result.  Ten points for Lovecraft, but it definitely couldn't save the rest of Wellen's story for me.

 

Most writers suffer from the Show Vs. Tell debate.  Too much Tell, not enough Show. Wellen somehow manages to do both all the time, leaving me shouting, NO MORE TELL.  YOU ARE ALREADY SHOWING.  IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO TELL ALSO.  SHOW > TELL.  And then I have to go lie down with a cup of cocoa and try to console myself by believing that somewhere, literature is being made.

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