Category: Historical Fiction

Holmes Meets the Phantom–Again

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews11 Comments

I’ve been on a Phantom of the Opera kick lately–I mean, more so than the ongoing attachment I’ve had to the story for the last eight years.  I wrote a post about different versions, and learned about a new-to-me book, The Canary Trainer by Nicholas Meyer–thank you, Swamp Adder!

Now how I could resist the Phantom of the Opera meets Sherlock Holmes, written by the director of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan?  Especially after rereading the flawed but enjoyable Angel of the Opera by Sam Siciliano, another Holmes-meets-the-Phantom story.  It may not be quite fair to compare them (especially since The Canary Trainer was published a year earlier) but it’s also unavoidable.  TCT was better than AotO…and worse, contradictory though that might sound.

The big problem with AotO was that it completely maligned Watson.  TCT at least did better in that regard, and that does make a big difference.  Watson was back in his proper place as Holmes’ closest friend.  Holmes regards Watson’s writing about him with outward disdain and secret but obvious pride–as it should be.  The book opens very well, with Watson visiting Holmes and discussing past cases, finally teasing a new story out of him.  Here we go into a book-length flashback, told from Holmes’ point of view.  I think I would have preferred a story that kept Watson’s POV, but this worked well enough–and better than bringing in a superfluous new narrator.

The story is from Holmes’ “lost years,” the time between Moriarty going off a cliff and Holmes’ return from the dead.  Apparently Meyer has written other books set in this time period, including one that brings Holmes and Freud together.  I haven’t read the others, and though they’re alluded to occasionally, I don’t think it’s necessary in order to read this one.  The story, as you’ve probably guessed, has Holmes deciding to go to Paris.  He’s incognito, since everyone presumes him dead, and has to find other, non-detective work.  He chances to hear that the Paris Opera is hiring a new violinist, and applies for the job.  Once at the Opera, he finds mysterious happenings involving the Phantom.  He also encounters Irene Adler, who is singing at the Opera.  She recognizes Holmes and asks him to help her new friend, Christine Daae–the “canary” who has a mysterious trainer.

And so it goes from there, with a falling chandelier, an inept viscount, a soprano in distress and a crazy man in a mask.  Like Siciliano, Meyer doesn’t make major plot changes.  Holmes is investigating the story we all know, and if nothing is greatly improved, nothing is done badly either, plot-wise.

You might say the same for Holmes.  He was reasonably well-drawn, nothing extraordinary.  If there’s anything reading other writers tackle Holmes has done for me, it’s made me appreciate Doyle’s ability to give Holmes clues and let him draw conclusions.  No one else seems to be able to do that to any great extent, although in one scene Holmes does figure out Raoul’s entire life circumstances just by looking at him.  But it was one moment, instead of a perpetual state.  I won’t say that the absence of deductive reasoning was acute enough to have the character actually off-track, but he wasn’t strikingly on-track either.  He also seemed to struggle a bit in his investigations.  I think he was more accurate to the original and more likable than Siciliano’s Holmes, but also less capable–and not as likable or as capable as Doyle’s Holmes.

We don’t see a whole lot of Christine and Raoul, and they were pretty standard when we did see them.  Raoul is immature and incompetent, Christine is hopelessly innocent and naive.  They both fulfilled their roles without doing much more than that–although Christine did get to score one point on Holmes.  She’s talking about her Angel of Music, and Holmes says he seems very angry for an angel.  To which Christine returns, “Haven’t you ever heard of avenging angels?”  Touche, Miss Daae.  But on the whole, she was pretty much sweet and stupid.  Looking at the basic plotline of Phantom, Christine has to be either very stupid or very clever, either a victim or the one who’s manipulating the whole thing.  I’d love to see a version where Christine is manipulative (think about it–who comes out ahead quite frequently?), but so far everyone’s been choosing to make her stupid or at least confused (though I think Webber is open for interpretation).

Anyway, now we come to the key question: the portrayal of the Phantom.  Usually, he’s a deeply complex character: tragic, sympathetic, terrifying, sometimes romantic, brilliant…certainly the most interesting one in the story.  That’s the later versions; in Leroux, he’s much more a monster.  Everyone else has been working on reforming him ever since.  Except Meyer.  The Canary Trainer is the first and only version I’ve found where the Phantom is actually less sympathetic than in Leroux (so…points for originality?)  This is the first time he’s gone the opposite direction and felt more like a character from a monster flick, stranger, crazier, and less sympathetic.  If you’ve read Leroux, you’ll know that making him crazier is really saying something.

This is the first time the body count has actually gone up.  In Leroux, one person is killed by the chandelier; in The Canary Trainer, it’s almost 30.  Four men who were drugged in Leroux to get them out of the Phantom’s way end up killed here.  You can make the point that the Phantom is a murderer regardless of how many people he kills, but I think there’s still little doubt that Meyer was deliberately creating a more villainous Phantom.  I don’t quite know what to make of that.  In a way I do applaud his decision to do something different.  But…there’s a reason everyone else made the Phantom more sympathetic.  He’s more interesting that way.

That may kind of sum up the book.  There’s nothing really wrong with it.  It’s not flawed in the same ways that Angel of the Opera is flawed, nor is it flawed in other serious ways.  But it didn’t do anything all that interesting either.  Holmes and the Phantom were both stripped of what makes them fascinating (Holmes’ deductive ability and the Phantom’s complexity), and in the end you get a book that is not bad–better than some versions–but not great either.  I don’t hate it, and I don’t love it.  I think it comes out about even with Angel of the Opera, but that’s because it’s neither as good in some ways nor as bad in others.  I’m glad to have read it; I’m endlessly intrigued by what people make of the Phantom story.  But I do think Nicholas Meyer accomplished something much more impressive with The Wrath of Khan.

Author’s Site: http://nmeyer.pxl.net/

Other reviews:
Here, There and Everywhere
A Bluestocking’s Place
Anyone else?

Viewing the World Through Wolf Eyes

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews8 Comments

I’ve been making some good progress on my Dusty Bookshelf Challenge recently, and tackled another one: White Fang by Jack London, the opposite number to The Call of the Wild, which I read for my Classics challenge last year.

Background about the dustiness:

How long has it been on my shelf? Since summer, 2011, I forget exactly when.  Call it six or eight months.

I almost never buy unread books, so how did I get it? I bought it absurdly cheap at an estate sale, along with a copy of Call of the Wild.

Now that I’ve read it, am I keeping it? No.  I wanted to read Jack London’s two most famous books, and I’m glad I have–but this is the end of the road for Mr. London and me.  I don’t see myself as likely to read this a second time.

White Fang is in the same mold as The Call of the Wild—the story of a dog in the harsh Klondike.  White Fang takes the story in the opposite direction; instead of house pet to wolf, White Fang is a wolf who becomes a house pet.  Though it’s still an immensely grim, sometimes disturbing book, I think that trajectory gave it much more hope, and made me like the book better on the whole.

White Fang starts out as a wild wolf cub, and I really enjoyed his growth as he learns about the world.  London did an excellent job showing the world from a wolf’s point of view.  Many books are from an animal’s perspective, but they mostly personify the animal.  Other than simple things like a talking mouse having a weakness for cheese, most animal characters tend to be humans in animal form, as far as their mind and view on the world works.  White Fang really looks at the world differently, understands things differently, learns differently.  I don’t know anything about animal psychology, but London has created a convincing picture of how a wolf thinks.  White Fang lives by the maxim of “eat or be eaten” and all other animals are classified accordingly.  He sees humans as “gods,” their power demonstrated by the size and solidity of their dwellings.

White Fang leaves the wild when his mother, half-wolf and half-dog, returns to the Indian tribe who had domesticated her.  White Fang’s first master is an Indian, who is stern and hard but usually just.  White Fang is a solitary creature who doesn’t get on with other dogs.  His world is a hard one, but this portion still felt less disturbing than similar passages in The Call of the Wild, because White Fang seems to be suited for this world.  It’s hard, but he knows how to cope, and even to thrive.

Unfortunately, about halfway through the book, White Fang passes out of the hands of his Indian master and over to a white man, the “mad god.”  This is by far the most disturbing part of the book, as the mad god is cruel and horrible, forcing White Fang into dog-fighting.

It’s a bit of a spoiler, but such a relief of one I’ll give it away anyway—White Fang is eventually rescued from the mad god by the “love god,” the first master who shows him kindness and wins his undying loyalty in return.  The whole book takes a far more positive turn at that point, and ends more happily than The Call of the Wild.

I was curious about London’s two best-known novels, and they’re both good books for what they are.  They’re really not my type of book though, too harsh and grim for me, positive ending notwithstanding.  I’m glad to have read them both, but I don’t see myself as likely to read more London in the future.

Other reviews:
My Literary Leanings
Old Books By Dead Guys
Read in a Single Sitting
Anyone else?

Persuaded to Read More Austen

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews9 Comments

Somehow–and I don’t really know how–I went all the way through a BA in English without being assigned any Jane Austen.  I’ve been trying to rectify that gap in my reading history, first with Pride and Prejudice and then Sense and Sensibility.  I picked up S&S because it was the most familiar title after P&P, and I did like it well enough though I wasn’t enamored.  Then several more Austen-familiar friends told me I had to read Persuasion–so I recently gave it a go.

Persuasion came in for me somewhere in between, not as good as Pride and Prejudice but better than Sense and Sensibility.  I learned my lesson from S&S and watched a movie version (1995) first, to help me get some grounding on who all the characters were.  This may have slanted my impressions somewhat, although mostly I think it was helpful.  Austen employs a large cast of characters related to each other in complicated ways, and it helped coming into it with some idea of how everyone fit together.

I had a little trouble with Austen’s language–some of her sentences are extraordinarily convoluted, so that I had to go back to the beginning and try again to follow their thread.  Like I’ve found with other authors, though, the more I read the easier it gets, so this was mostly only a difficulty in the beginning of the book.

This is largely a character-driven story, making it a little hard to give a plot description.  In a way, it’s a Cinderella story, about a Cinderella who mislaid her prince.  When Anne Elliot was 19, she was engaged to Captain Wentworth, splendid in every way except for a lack of fortune.  Lady Russell, a dear family friend, persuaded Anne to break off the match.  Eight years later, Anne is still single, disregarded and a bit downtrodden by her horrid father and two sisters.  You can even cast Lady Russell as the Fairy Godmother (if a slightly misguided one) who sees Anne’s value and wants to help her.  Such is the situation when Captain Wentworth comes back into Anne’s life and social circle, and then the question becomes whether she still loves him and, even more in doubt, whether he still loves her.

That sounds fairly straight-forward, but there are subplot romances, a couple other suitors for Anne, and a lot of going about making social calls in one place or another.

I enjoyed the characters–Anne is a complex, sympathetic heroine.  She’s under less societal threats than Elizabeth Bennett, whose whole family would collapse if the daughters didn’t marry well (or at least, her mother thought so).  Anne has Lady Russell as her refuge, and maybe that’s just as well.  Her desire to marry Captain Wentworth really seems to be about him, not societal pressures (which is not at all to criticize Lizzie’s attachment to Mr. Darcy, just observing context!)

And while I don’t want to give too much away–let’s just say that there is a final romantic conclusion, as seems to be usual in Austen, and she actually gave us more dialogue for a change!  Instead of narration along the lines of “and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do” (which has me wishing to know what Mr. Darcy said), we actually get a quite beautiful declaration-of-love letter, and some real talking.  Probably still less than most authors would have done (sigh) but more than seems to be Austen’s norm.

One thing that struck me in this book was the question of servants.  I came to this book directly after watching Downton Abbey, which shows the life upstairs and the life downstairs with equal care and interest (and my favorite character is Anna, the head housemaid).  Persuasion is strictly the life upstairs.

Anne’s father is a baron of some sort.  He’s fallen on financially difficult times, but he is still determined to keep up the proper status.  He must have servants.  Anne’s snobbish elder sister cannot possibly be cooking or cleaning or probably even doing her own hair.  But servants aren’t mentioned at all!  They’re not even walk-on characters.  Finally halfway through the book, that snob sister decides not to hold a dinner party in Bath, because they have less servants at their lodgings than they used to have at their manor house, and that would be embarrassing.

Coming right off of Downton Abbey, I wondered a great deal about these completely disregarded people who really must be there but aren’t noticed by anyone.  It almost feels like a modern book where you wouldn’t bother to mention that a character has a refrigerator.  Of course they have one.  Of course Austen’s characters have servants.  Why say more about them?

That was my own particular quirky reaction to the novel.  On the whole, I did enjoy it, and it was nice to meet another cast of Austen characters–once I worked out who was who!

Other reviews:
Fyrefly’s Book Blog
It’s All About Books
Becky’s Book Reviews
And no doubt many, many others.  Suggestions?

Investigating the Mystery of the Phantom of the Opera

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews2 Comments

My January post about the Phantom of the Opera inspired me to buy and reread Sam Siciliano’s Angel of the Opera.  I last read it six or seven years ago, but I find my feeling toward it was much the same this time–and it’s an odd, odd feeling.  When I look at the disparate elements of the book, I dislike far too much.  And yet somehow, taken as a whole, I enjoyed the book.  Baffling!

It may be the premise.  Sherlock Holmes meets the Phantom of the Opera; I love both of them in their original forms, so it’s hard to resist a cross-over.  People I tell about this seem to have trouble picturing the two stories coming together, but it actually makes a certain amount of sense.  The premise is that the managers of the Opera are deeply distressed by this Ghost business (as they are in every version), and decide to hire a very famous London detective to come investigate–Mr. Holmes.  Holmes arrives in Paris and goes exploring through the Opera in an effort to work out the mystery of the Phantom.  Siciliano also makes much of Holmes’ love of music (which is an element in Arthur Conan Doyle) and that ties things together in an extra way too.

If only that clever emphasis on Holmes’ love of music had been part of a broader, equally clever portrayal of Holmes.  But there’s where we begin to have problems.  This book begins very, very badly.  Watson has been booted from the scene and we have a new and original narrator, Holmes’ cousin, Henry Vernier.  The second sentence of the book reads, “My purpose at the time was to reveal the real Sherlock Holmes as corrective to the ridiculous fictional creation of John Watson.”

Ouch.  I mean, really, ouch.  Henry goes on in this way for a couple of pages, maligning poor Dr. Watson and discounting Watson and Holmes’ friendship, then peppers the rest of the book with occasional caustic references to Watson and his writing, both from Henry and, even more painfully, from Holmes.  It’s always a chancy business trying to write another author’s characters, and frankly, if you’re going to attempt it, you had better approach the original with a great deal of respect, bordering on reverence.  It’s hard to believe that Siciliano even likes Doyle’s stories.

The particularly stupid part is that I don’t think all this added anything or was at all necessary.  Henry is pointless as an original character.  He fills exactly the same role as Watson, right down to being a doctor, and I nearly forgot at times that he wasn’t Watson.  Other than a fear of heights and occasional musing about whether he ought to marry a girl he’s been courting, he has very little personality to add.  And Holmes is almost Holmes, but not quite.  Siciliano plays around a bit, and not to Holmes’ advantage.  His attitudes towards women and religion are mucked about with, and his deduction skills are not shown to any great advantage.  He doesn’t do much of the “I saw a telltale clue and drew 14 conclusions from it” that Holmes is so well-known for.  He does figure out a lot about the Phantom, but it all seems like fairly obvious details–although I admit, Holmes doesn’t have my advantage of familiarity with some 14 versions of the story to help him along.  Anyway, the whole thing ultimately comes off like Siciliano realized he couldn’t quite write Doyle’s Holmes, or that Doyle’s Holmes didn’t quite fit his novel, and decided he’d better come up with an excuse for the differences.

He does better with the Phantom side of things. This is plainly based on Leroux, not Webber–Raoul’s brother is in the story (delightfully awful), Meg Giry has dark hair, several minor characters from Leroux are at least mentioned, and there’s just an overall atmosphere of Leroux.  That actually may be my favorite part.  Siciliano brings the Opera, with all its confusing passages and dark cellars, to life in a wonderful, fascinating way.  It really may be the atmosphere that carries this book more than anything else.

The Phantom characters were better handled than the Holmes ones too.  Siciliano wrote what is probably the most annoying Raoul I’ve ever seen (which is saying something) and his Christine is a nice mix of well-meaning and flighty childishness.  The managers, Carlotta and Madame Giry are well-portrayed.  And I thought he did well with the Phantom (although we don’t see him as more than a shadow until two-thirds into the book).  He’s dark, complex, a musical genius, and I actually really enjoyed Holmes’ insight into the Phantom.  And points for getting his name right–Erik.  Such a simple thing that is so rarely done correctly.  Siciliano does slip on one character–like Watson, he maligns the poor Persian, who was the most heroic figure in Leroux but here is dark and villianous and (metaphorically) drenched in blood.

The plot is all right.  Holmes and Henry poke around on the edges of the plotline of The Phantom of the Opera, trying to unravel the mystery.  Siciliano doesn’t really add much, but neither does he do any harm to it.

So–decent plot, well-done Phantom characters, excellent atmosphere, poorly-done Holmes, pointless original narrator.  And there is one more original character who absolutely gives me fits.  There’s a mostly-irrelevant prologue, where Holmes and Henry are tying up an unrelated case, and in the midst of it they get a telegram about the Paris Opera situation.  The main point, though, seems to be to introduce Susan Lowell.  She lives in Wales, is half-British and half-Indian, and is despised by society for her mixed-race status.  She’s all alone in the world.  She’s very beautiful, but for a variety of reasons has always thought that she was very ugly.  And she’s completely brilliant musically.  Is this obvious enough yet?  It gets better.  She’s blind.

Well now.  A novel with a musically-brilliant deformed man features a completely superflous musically-brilliant blind girl.  I wonder where that could possibly be going?  Honestly, I am all in favor of the Phantom getting over Christine, and if that means writing a new character to suit, fine, no problem, go to it.  But at least be a bit more subtle about it!  I also think it oversimplifies to assume that falling in love with a blind girl would solve all of the Phantom’s problems.  I’m convinced that Erik’s problem is not really that he’s ugly–it’s that he knows he’s ugly, and is convinced of his own unworthiness as a consequence.

But that is a long and complex discussion.  Suffice to say here, this book would be better off and far less obvious without the prologue or the epilogue–even if that meant leaving off a basically happy ending.

So where do I wind up in the end?  I don’t know.  I like some parts of this book.  I dislike a lot of very key parts.  And I enjoy it overall.  Draw your own conclusions from that.  I hear there’s another Holmes-meets-the-Phantom book out there, and I am definitely going to check that out to see if it does any better!

Author’s Site: http://samsiciliano.net/

Other reviews:
Better Holmes and Gardens (I love that title!)
My Den
Anyone else?

Caught Between a Great Brain and a Money-Loving Heart

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Juvenile, Reviews6 Comments

On the subject of funny kids books about boys, another favorite besides Gordon Korman is The Great Brain series by John D. Fitzgerald.  Based loosely on Fitzgerald’s childhood, the books are set in a small town in Utah in the 1890s.  The Great Brain of the title is John’s older brother Tom, who has a brilliant intellect and a “money-loving heart.”

There are seven books in the series, each a string of vignettes.  John narrates in first-person about the adventures of his brother Tom, who always has a scheme going to swindle someone–including John, who never seems to learn that it’s impossible to win a wager against Tom.

Tom is very clever, and it’s always fun to see what scheme he’ll come up with next.  I’ve never been a big reader of mysteries but I like figuring things out, and guessing at what plot Tom is devising, or how he’ll solve some problem, always makes for good puzzles.  Tom is a great character in that he never becomes TOO unlikable.  He’s immensely proud of his Great Brain, and he loves to get money out of people.  He doesn’t cheat, though–he finds ways to trick them, usually exploiting their own gullibility or greed.  He also uses his Great Brain to help people, sometimes saving lives or dramatically changing lives for the better.  He usually gets something for it too…but that’s always the question, of whether he’s acting from compassion or from greed!  Usually I get the sense it’s a little of both.  He’s also not above being humbled at times when greed or pride leads him into a serious mistake.

John is a good character, sweet-natured and modest.  He often refers to his “little brain” in comparison to his brother’s Great Brain.  John is rather eclipsed by Tom, but that aspect of the books seems to work–it’s John’s story about his brother, so it makes sense that he’s giving Tom the center stage.  John’s obvious admiration and love for his brother (no matter how many times Tom swindles him!) also goes a long way to setting Tom up as a likable character.

The stories are mostly light and funny.  They’re not the hilarity of Gordon Korman, but they are very entertaining.  There are some serious ones mixed in too.  Sometimes the situations kids get into have real peril, as when two boys get lost in a network of caves, or when one boy loses his leg to an infection and contemplates killing himself.  The Great Brain series is another example of how deep children’s books can be, addressing very serious issues and subject matter, while being child-appropriate.

And fun, of course.  Even though the stories are sometimes serious and Tom is out to swindle others to satisfy his money-loving heart, these still come across as sweet stories about family, set in a small town in a quieter time.  Well-worth the read.

Other reviews:
The Five Borough Book Review
Books 4 Your Kids
There must be more…tell me about yours?