I hate you, Frederick Forsyth

By Leigh

The Phantom of Manhattan.

There, I�ve said it. I read a book called The Phantom of Manhattan. Well, it would be more accurate to say, I was mind-raped by a book called The Phantom of Manhattan. This book is AWFUL. Awful. Awful! I�m sorry to repeat myself, but it�ll help you remember better. I won�t bother to summarise the story of Phantom of the Opera. This is a �sequel,� and boy howdy. Not only is this sequel horribly Americanised, it is also painfully guileless. There�s hardly a story at all, but there IS an anti-climactic waste of two hours of my life. Can I have those back, author Frederick Forsyth? Please? Along with my will to live?

Forsyth has mimicked Gaston Leroux�s original narrative structure in The Phantom of the Opera (yes, there was a novel before there was a musical); a pieced-together account of �true events� revealed through various narrators. Unfortunately, Forsyth can�t seem to come up with plausible ways of getting these narrators actually involved in the storyline. In the most disgusting example of this, he resorts to a use of deus-ex-machina that stupefies and numbs the reader. And I mean deus-ex-machina in the most literal sense of the term: I mean God, Himself, in all His Infinite Wisdom, decides He�d better speak up when a priest starts asking questions. Yes; for the first time in millenia, omnipotent God actually speaks! Apparently, he�s a Phantom Phan! �Oh,� I hear you saying, �Maybe the priest was speaking with God in the sense that he was arguing with his own inner consciousness where, deep down inside, he really feels things.� I tried to believe that, too� Until �God�, for the sake of convenience, began revealing vital information the priest apparently had no other way of finding out. Thank you, Frederick Forsyth. You hack.

Characterisation in this little treat is also abominable. Forsyth�s own original characters are nothing more than miserable stereotypes: the eager young journalist; the Irish priest; the evil lackey. The biggest crime in characterisation is, however, poor, poor Erik. Allow me to lament him: Oh! Pauvre Monsieur le Fantome! Not even the biggest fan of O.G. could hope to like this petty, avaricious, gun-toting, stock-brokering farce of a character, who at one point dons a clown suit to wander among unsuspecting people at Coney Island. Thank you, Frederick Forsyth. You�ve managed to kill the Phantom�s mysterious magnetism (the ONLY THING he has going for him) by putting him in A CLOWN SUIT.

As for �plot,� just wait for the grand conclusion. Yep. Christine dies. AND THANK CHRIST � finally, something actually happened in this travesty of a published work! At that point, I would have welcomed a giant meteor crashing into New York to liven things up. (Phantom of the Opera at Armageddon. That novel might at least be mildly entertaining.) Anyway, when Christine dies, she must tell her son the shocking truth about his father � �Sorry, little Pierre, but your daddy is actually that masked �Phantom� you�ve never met before today.� Emo tear. But little Pierre is a trooper! He�s either the most emotionally balanced thirteen year old the world has ever seen, or he�s a stone cold sociopath. When his mother dies, well, he rips the mask off this crazy, disfigured stranger and calmly concludes Whillikers, I�d better leave Raoul, who raised me, to stay in New York with my REAL father!

Thank you, Frederick Forsyth, for teaching us that you can spend thirteen years caring for someone, but in the end it�s his genes that mean the most. When he ought to be bereft, your son will instead be happily making plans to live in the Big Apple, far from you and his native France. It�s the American Dream!

I have yet to relate Forsyth�s most egregious crime: the most offensive thing about this entire book is actually its preface, in which we have a brief lesson from Forsyth about how historical fiction should be written. Thanks Freddy, I�ll be taking your advice� When I�m the whore of Babylon. Forsyth thinks the original Phantom story is �a mess,� you see. Naturally, he has examples to back up his criticism: �Quite early in his narrative [Leroux] refers to the Phantom as Eric but without ever explaining how he learned this.� You�re right. That�s a literary crime! The proper thing to do is MAKE THE INFORMATION COME FROM GOD HIMSELF.

Give me a break, Frederick Forsyth. What kind of incomprehensible gall do you have to criticise the author of an original work you�re writing fanfiction about? Did you even proofread any part of this book? Your mother is a flaming aardvark.

I�m too mad to write a conclusion. Never read this book. Ever.