Masque

Masque, Bethany W. Pope – 2016

'This was like one of the fairy tales Christine's father told us when we were still children. A monster, a princess, a castle underground'1

Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, is perhaps the most famous reworking of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, taking the initial premise of a horrifically ugly man falling in love with a beautiful woman, and adding to it an even more heightened Gothic romanticism, as well as the core image of a masked figure in evening-dress, that has now been homaged beyond even the point of cliché. Leroux also added to his story a second male character, a classic hero, who wins Christine's love, instead of the beast, as well as serving as the narrator for the book.


It is also not very good…


OK, that's a little unfair, but Leroux's novel is certainly a mess, part romance, part detective story, part horror novel, all told via a dull and conventional narrator. Only through subsequent retellings – the 1925 Lon Chaney film and Andrew Lloyd Webber's record-breaking musical being the most significant – was the nugget of Gothic gold excavated: the melodramatic love-triangle between the young soprano, Christine, the Vicomte de Chagny, Raoul and Erik, the man in the mask. For a much more complete history of the Phantom's evolution, its worth checking out Lindsay Ellis's excellent recap here and here. The relationship between Phantom and Beauty and the Beast is also fascinatingly complex, as one feeds into the other with each subsequent retelling: Disney's renowned 1991 Beauty and the Beast owes more than a little to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, particularly in the addition of a more traditional romantic lead as a foil, even going so far as to make him the villain. For many fans of the Phantom stage-show it is the Phantom and Christine who are the soul-mates who should end up together, and they see Raoul as the villain for preventing this, however little this chimes with the show's narrative. In Masque, Bethany W. Pope skilfully picks at the threads of this interpretation and from them weaves a novel as deep and complex as any labyrinth beneath the Paris Opera House. 

(Though I'm going to try and review Pope's book objectively, I must lay my cards on the table and declare that am a huge fan (a phan, if you will! - and no, I didn't coin the term: there are people even worse than me…) of the musical, and of the franchise in general.)

It is important to note that Pope takes her cue, not from the more well-known musical, but from Leroux's original novel, and that in the first words of her story, she pulls the narrative away from Raoul's control. Instead, we have a three-person, alternating narrator and it is Christine who begins the story, a Christine of considerably more fire and spirit than any previous version. In Pope's hands the narrative becomes Christine's every bit as much as Erik's and the story is immeasurably richer for it. Throughout Leroux's story his heroine continually clings to Raoul in fear, and in Lloyd Webber's she is the passive prize to be fought over, until the climax in the Phantom's lair, where she makes her only choice of the narrative. Although her choice is courageous, she is immediately let off any consequences arising from that decision. Pope, however, inverts this narrative completely, her Christine actively conspires with her mysterious teacher against the intrusive and egotistical Raoul, and only becomes passive at the very moment of her assertion in the other versions. This passivity haunts her for the rest of the novel, until she powerfully re-asserts herself, divorces Raoul, returns to the stage and reclaims her voice.

Indeed, exploration of the idea of 'having a voice' is one of Masque's central themes. We now often hear the word 'voice' being used to describe a perspective, often in the context of a marginalised voice challenging, or being drowned out by, the dominant, usually patriarchal voice. Pope dexterously blends this modern idea of 'having a voice' with Christine's voice as a singer, by suggesting continually that, whether she is singing or speaking, Raoul only ever hears the tone of Christine's voice and never cares to listen to what she is saying. Pope's Raoul is creature of pure patriarchal entitlement; when he learns she is arranging a Mass for her dead father, his only thought is that 'a dutiful daughter will make a dutiful wife'. He continually, violently asserts his own narrative on Christine's life, stating 'I am certain that, gifted though you are, you have long since grown tired of singing for your supper'2. Our access to Christine's perspective, however, means we are aware that in doing so he is 'planning to utterly, blithely destroy everything that was of any value about myself'3. There is no option for her to simply refuse him, as that would end her career just as quickly.

As for Erik himself, Pope goes further than any interpreter of the story I've come across in conveying the sheer visceral unpleasantness of his deformity, beyond simple ugliness, as she employs constant references to peeling skin, sores and the stench of his body; indeed, when Christine finally sees his uncovered face and vomits, we have been sufficiently prepared that this does not seem like an over-reaction. Although this increases our sympathy for him, Pope also makes him wonderfully free of self-pity, unlike Leroux's wailing and moaning Phantom. This makes the interactions between Christine and Erik initially far more innocent; whereas Lloyd Webber's masked man seems hell-bent on seducing Christine from the start, Pope's simply assumes that that part of life is closed to him, and is simply determined to help Christine in her art. This makes their relationship all the more touching when it finally develops.

Masque is gorgeously written in sumptuous, vivid prose, and Pope channels all three highly distinctive narrative voices perfectly. There are, however, one or two issues; there are a few typos scattered throughout the book, as well as the odd occasion when characters speech suddenly becomes jarringly modern. More problematic thematically though, is that although Pope's Erik seems considerably more sane than many of his counterparts, his body count appears to be higher even than the Robert Englund-starring slasher-movie version. Indeed, this Erik is completely casual about killing, which seems rather at odds with the concept of casting Raoul as the villain; even Christine herself, though she tries to discourage him from killing, does not seem greatly perturbed. In the world of Pope's Masque, and especially in the heads of Erik and Christine, art is everything, and one who does not appreciate this and tries to obscure it will pay the price; here murderer is preferable to misogynist, and in reading Pope's perfectly obnoxious Raoul, its difficult to disagree.

However, the true reason that Raoul becomes the villain of Masque is that he is incapable of change or growth. The end of the musical gains its power from the Phantom finally achieving emotional growth, though it comes with the realisation that he cannot force Christine to love him and must let her go. In Masque, however, Pope grants both Erik and Christine a happy ending, but to reach it, both must finish their own character arc; Erik refuses to spend his life completely hidden, and Christine asserts control over her life and finally looks him in the face.

Although I am sure Phantom novices will enjoy Pope's beautiful writing, this is really a novel for the fans, for people who will appreciate not only the story, but the differences from previous iterations. Masque is a dexterously clever, elegantly executed novel, and easily ranks as one of the finest reinventions of the classic tale.


Phan-fucking-tastic!



Link to Seren publishers where the book can be purchased: https://www.serenbooks.com/productdisplay/masque

1Pope, Bethany W. Masque, Seren, 2016 pp. 156
2pp. 6
3pp. 113