The Commune In Kay

The Commune in Kay

I finished Susan Kay’s Phantom just a few months ago. I wanted to highlight Kay’s interpretation of Erik’s Commune experience as there is a lot I think she got right. And a lot she didn’t. 

I agree with Kay that Erik must have been in Paris at the time of the 1871 Paris Commune as the Palais Garnier was nearly a completed structure by this time. If Erik worked on the foundations, he must have been there from the beginning, in 1861. Kay writes that Erik is already living in the cellar when the Commune began. It made the perfect hideout. 

But I disagree with Kay that Erik would have stayed hidden for the entirety of the Commune. I think at the very least he would have come out to watch the fires at the end. I think Erik delights in chaos - which is why he is always creating it. I don’t think he would have cared about the Commune politically, but I think he would have been very much interested in the arson. 

Does Erik have a political worldview? For all the references to the Commune and anarchy that Leroux slipped into his character, Erik doesn’t seem to stand for anything other than himself. Or rather, he represents so much as to be a mess of a character. Leroux associates him with the Commune and with anarchic terrorism (the chandelier, the threat to explode the Opera) yet what Erik seems to desire most is to be part of the bourgeoisie. He crashes a fancy dinner party, he decorates his home with care, he yearns to be seen walking in the park with a pretty wife. These are not the desires of an anarchist. He is everything at once and therefore completely mysterious. Kay’s Erik’s singular focus seems to be his own internal angst. It makes sense that Kerik pretty much ignores the Commune. Except for that one Communard he kills in the cellar. 

Kay didn’t seem to do as much research on the Commune chapters as she did for some of the other sections of her novel. Although, at the time she wrote her story research was much harder; she didn’t have the luxury of the internet and Google translate. But it’s clear she didn’t find this topic interesting or important to her story. See the above excerpt. The Commune didn’t surrender. It was defeated, massacred. Many many people died. I can’t imagine that anyone was over the horror of it in a mere month. The city itself had suffered physical trauma that would take years to rebuild. But Kay moves her story forward quickly. Erik has a soprano to meet. 

I've always associated erik with owl especially barn owls because their faces are kinda uncanny and they look like they're wearing masks so...OWL ERIK????

Me showing my mutuals from one fandom a blorbo from another fandom knowing damn well they dgaf:

The Angel of Music

I find it so hard to picture Edward in a laboratory working. He's so goofy and chaotic. What does he do when Jekyll tries to take over? How did Alice handle his shenanigans?

Shenanigans is a very cute word for coercing her to commit a murder with him, violently attacking anyone who crossed him if he happened to be in a bad mood and performing highly dubious and unethical medical experiments on captured vampires. Jekyll doesn't try to take over because these are all the things Jekyll wants to do and he's repressing that side of himself for most of the AU. Even when Jekyll resurfaces it's not a matter of split personality, it's just Jekyll/Hyde acknowledging that there is a part of him that wants and needs to be a good man sometimes even if it's hard and it doesn't come naturally or easily. Edward Hyde is not "goofy" he's not a playful man and all of his teasing or mischievousness has an edge of genuine spite and mean-spiritedness. It could be considered childish in the way a particularly cruel school yard bully has no seeming concept of empathy for his targets. He has all the capacity for love but that has not stopped him from hurting others and it wouldn't stop him from hurting her if she ever tried to control him. Alice DOESN'T handle his shenanigans, she does not in any way try to control him because she knows the minute she does he could turn on her. This played a huge factor in why they didn't last, because Edward is a dangerous and unpredictable individual who will put his vices, his need for violence, drugs and the indulgence of his sadism before his affection for her. Alice is keenly aware that she could lose his interest just as easily as she gained it and while Edward is kinder to her than her husband it was like playing with a box of fireworks, pretty colors, loud noise, wonderful spectacle but always the danger of fire underneath. She can't ever really feel safe around him even when he's protecting her. The worst part is that he knows exactly how she feels and hates himself for it. He even tries at times to be better, to do as he might have as Jekyll for her but it's just not enough and even he concedes in the end that she will always be safer as a friend with a measure of distance in their lives.

danse macabre

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