Underdressed Christine

[igenlode]

It's just occurred to me that Raoul's response to finding Christine in her dressing-room wearing little more than a dressing-gown over her underwear is "you need to get changed if we're going out"; the Phantom's response in the same situation is "come to me" :-p
I feel that this tells us something about the amount of respect they have for her... although the fandom would probably say that it shows who is the 'real' man!

Comments

[igenlode]

like Christine taking a pair of scissors into the bath to stab herself to death with if Erik should try to rape her there)

O.o That's quite a poke in the eye for E/C shippers...

Not really, as Erik proves himself honourable by not attempting the intrusion -- she just doesn't trust him at the start, unsurprisingly...

bits of characterisation/backstory for people like Raoul and Carlotta

Like what?

For example, in Chapter 8 (or 7, in the public domain translation), there is a description of Carlotta receiving a threatening anonymous letter, concluding in a paragraph saying that if anyone was being persecuted it was Carlotta who was persecuting Christine and not vice versa. In the original text there follow three further paragraphs describing how technically flawless Carlotta's voice was, summarising her somewhat sleazy career history from her start as a Spanish night-club dancer and saying that other women had come up from low origins and had been purified by their art and it must be her soul that was lacking, and then complaining in a first-person authorial insert about how badly Christine was being treated at her instigation. All of which is summarised in the English version as "the celebrated, but heartless and soulless diva" -- about one word per paragraph :-p

Later on in the same chapter, literally a page and a half of description about how wonderful Carlotta's voice was (and an occasion in "Don Juan" where she had to sing the high notes for a fellow-performer who couldn't manage them) and the consequent shock and horror of the 'toad' -- and how even Carolus Fonta, her co-star found himself staring at her mouth in disbelief -- has all been cut, and replaced by the brief statement "Carlotta croaked like a toad". The overall effect is to downplay Carlotta's unquestioned vocal talents and omit her backstory (singing in the salons of her lovers, etc.)

In the same chapter, a couple of sentences of Raoul/Philippe relationship have inexplicably been cut (Philippe blames Christine for making Raoul unhappy and above all Raoul for daring to be unhappy on her account, and blames himself for ever having pleaded her cause with the managers).

In the Perros-Guirec chapter, there are several little asides by the landlady about Raoul that get omitted (again, possibly in the name of streamlining the story, but the effect is to downplay his embarrassment and sense of inadequacy in this return to his childhood haunts). Raoul's fevered speculations while he tries to get to sleep in the inn are cut. And notably, the entire description of Raoul's journey from Lannion and descent at the inn, and of Christine's return from church, is left out altogether, to be replaced by the summary "Perros was reached at last". Big chunks -- apparently pointless little chunks here and there -- as soon as you start doing a direct comparison of the texts in parallel you discover that the English version has been quite extensively abridged, and an awful lot of what is missing turns out to be background character detail. I strongly suspect that's why I found Raoul a much more interesting character when I reread the book in a fresh translation :-(