Well I finished The Phantom of the Opera just in time for Christmas! I really enjoyed the last portion of the book; it was suspenseful and fascinating. Since I haven't seen any of the movies in a very long time, I didn't actually remember what happened, so I was on the edge of my seat toward the end.
One of the things I especially enjoyed, was that at the end of the book there are three chapters which are supposed to be a written narrative of events written by the Persian about his encounters with the opera ghost. Although Gaston Leroux wrote the whole story, he did a fantastic job of changing his narrative style while writing as the Persian which is a difficult thing to do as a writer. The Persian writes with a much less detached and more passionate style than the rest of the book.
To show this, here's a quote from the Persian's portion of the book:
"For we not only saw the water, but WE HEARD IT! ... We heard it flow, we heard it ripple! ... Do you understand that word 'ripple?' ... IT IS A SOUND WHICH YOU HEAR WITH YOUR TONGUE! ... You put your tongue out of your mouth to listen to it better!"
The vocabulary word for today is "mountebank" which is "a person who deceives others, esp. in order to trick them out of their money" (definition from The New Oxford American Dictionary).
Very happy holiday wishes to you and yours! Up next? Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton.
No comments:
Post a Comment