[Book Review] The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Rating: 3/5

Genre: Novel

Book Review

Most of us probably heard of “The Phantom of the Operas”. It is reproduced over and over again in various form. I first saw it in the broadway musical produced by Andrew Loyd Webber. Then I saw it again, when hollywood made it in the movie form. And, this is my third time. This time is in book, audiobook. 

As in other novel, the book is more elaborated. It contains a lot of details which is left out by musicals or movies. Also some parts, some important parts, are quite different from the musical and movie production. It is interesting. But I find it quite difficult to follow (esp. for non-native speaker), because it contains so many Theatrical terminology. But it  was alright. On the average, I enjoyed it. 

I’ve got the audiobook copy narrated by Barrett Whitener. At the beginning, it sounds a bit dull and uninteresting. But I get used to it pretty soon. He made sounds for male and female. It's pretty funny at the beginning. But again, I get used to it pretty soon.

Table of Contents (and the chapter marks on the audiobook version)

• Prologue
• Chapter I: Is it the Ghost? (11.50)
• Chapter II: The New Margarita (32.35)
• Chapter III: The Mysterious Reason (54.20)
• Chapter IV: Box Five (1.11.00)
• Chapter V: The Enchanted Violin (1.39.40)
• Chapter VI: A Visit to Box Five (2.17.05)
• Chapter VII: Faust and What Followed (2.23.15)
• Chapter VIII: The Mysterious Brougham (2.52.16)
• Chapter IX: At the Masked Ball (3.09.30)
• Chapter X: Forget the Name of the Man's Voice (3.31.45)
• Chapter XI: Above the Trap-Doors (3.42.58)
• Chapter XII: Apollo's Lyre (4.00.00)
• Chapter XIII: A Master-Stroke of the Trap-Door Lover (4.46.39)
• Chapter XIV: The Singular Attitude of a Safety-Pin (5.09.50)
• Chapter XV: Christine! Christine! (5.22.10)
• Chapter XVI: Mme. Giry's Astounding Revelations as to Her Personal Relations with the Opera Ghost??? (5.30.42)
• Chapter XVII: The Safety-Pin Again (5.54.01)
• Chapter XVIII: The Commissary, The Viscount and the Persian (6.06.45)
• Chapter XIX: The Viscount and the Persian (6.17.41)
• Chapter XX: In the Cellars of the Opera (6.30.47)
• Chapter XXI: Interesting and Instructive Vicissitudes of a Persian in the Cellars of the Opera (7.02.05)
• Chapter XXII: In the Torture Chamber (7.31.41)
• Chapter XXIII: The Tortures Begin (7.46.51)
• Chapter XXIV: Barrels!...Barrels!...Any Barrels to Sell?" (8.00.45)
• Chapter XXV: The Scorpion or the Grasshopper: Which? (8.24.02)
• Chapter XXVI: The End of the Ghost's Love Story (8.40.27)
• Epilogue: The Paris Opera House (9.01.55)

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Book or Audiobooks?

Personally, I prefer audiobooks. It's fun, and I can listen when I'm doing something else. It also makes other activities (e.g., jogging) a lot more fun. For more detail about audiobooks, please read [this post].

There is one more reason that may encourage you to go for the audiobook version. You can get it now for FREE. Audible offers you a free trial for 14 days. Even if you get the book and cancel the subscription right away (so that you don't have to pay), you can keep the book. And, don't worry if you lost the audiobook file. Just log into audible.com. You can keep downloading the over and over again.

About the summary: It takes time to finish up a book. And, when you do, sometimes, you want to review what you learn from the book. If you do not make  notes as you read, you might have to go through the book once again. This can be time-consuming when you are dealing with a book. But you can still flip through the book and locate what you are looking for.

However, when the material is an audiobook, it is extremely hard to locate a specific part of content. Most likely you will have to listen to the entire audiobook once again.

This book summary will help solve the pain of having to go through the book all over again.

I am leaving out the details of the books. Most books have interesting examples and case studies, not included here. Reading the original book would be much more entertaining and enlightening. If you like the summary, you may want to get the original from the source below.