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Sentimental Garbage
The Phantom of the Opera with Rebecca Kuang
01:11:59
We kindly ask you to keep box five open for our use
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- [00:00]
David
Hi, everyone, this is David with Azure. Here at Azure, we believe in healthy and abundant living. We are dedicated to supplying healthy, inorganic food for an abundant lifestyle for you and your family at a price that your family can afford. I would love to personally invite you to become a part of the Azure family, where you can create community around healthy food and healthy living.
- [00:26]
Rebecca Kuang
Visit azurestandard.com that's a Z U R.
- [00:29]
Caroline
E standard dot com. Hello, and welcome to Sentimental Garbage, the podcast where we kindly ask you to keep box five vacant for our personal use. My name is Caroline, and if you do not stop things happening, then this thing will not happen. Joining me is the angel of Music herself. It's Rebecca Kuang.
- [00:57]
Rebecca Kuang
Hello. Thanks for having me.
- [01:00]
Caroline
Hello. The angel of Music.
- [01:03]
Rebecca Kuang
Good.
- [01:04]
Caroline
Thank you for introducing me to this work.
- [01:06]
Rebecca Kuang
Did I introduce you to this work?
- [01:08]
Caroline
No, you didn't. Actually. My sister is, like, a mega fan and she's been, like, telling me to get into this for years, and I just avoided it for whatever reason. But if I can sort of briefly share with the listeners, what intrigued me so much about getting you to talk about this specifically is that, like, we met for lunch for, like, the first time in, like, November last year, and you were like, listen, I've been in London a couple of days and all I can think about is the Phantom of the Opera. And I was like, oh, I don't really. Yeah, okay, sure. And then you said something that I've been. I've been chewing over ever since. It really fascinated me. And you said something to the effect of, you know, I've been really blessed with my career. I've been really blessed with my love life. I love my husband. I love my books, my teaching, everything. But I'm so privileged in those things that I feel like it's been a long time since I felt real, raw yearning. And that you sat in the theater and that you felt this kind of. This, like, wave of yearning come upon you that sort of, like, transformed you. Like, I want you to talk about that a little bit because that I've just been chewing over for so long.
- [02:21]
Rebecca Kuang
I think yearning, not quite the word. I think the word is really just raw, horny desire. Because it's not so much that I have a lot of needs that I think people work towards in their 20s met. I'm married to my husband, who I adore, so I don't really struggle in my love life. I'm doing well in my chosen career. So it's not like I have these big dreams and this frustration at not achieving Them. But the feeling I had while watching Phantom was not so much like, oh, I remember what it's like to be an undergrad and want to be a published author. It's the feeling I had when I was in high school or really middle school. And just like one glance at anybody I had a crush on would have me sweating and shaking, right? Like the period when you're just so overwhelmingly horny that it actually interferes with your ability to think and function like a person. It's the kind of horniness that is so beautifully represented in the Twilight Saga. I know we are not talking about it, but I saw Breaking dawn parts one and two again recently, starting at midnight. And I thought, and people make fun of Kristen Stewart's in those performance in those movies so much. But when she's like, when they're on their honeymoon and she escapes to the bathroom and she looks at herself in the mirror and she's like, you can do this. And then she's like having a meltdown because she's about to have sex for the first time. Like watching Phantom made me return to that feeling where there are all these things in the world that I hadn't experienced and I wanted so badly to happen and I just would quiver every time I imagined them happening to me. And Phantom is 2 1/2 hours of quivering about all the possibilities of the angel of Music and the night swallowing you up, versus the handsome rich viscount who can shepherd you into a future of financial security and boring upper class wifedom.
- [04:27]
Caroline
I love that you invoked the Twilight franchise because I found myself thinking a lot about it when I was watching it because as I said, I'm so new to this whole world. But it made me sort of think about Twilight and Gothic romance as a trope generally, as is beloved by young girls, right? We can think about Twilight, we can think about Wuthering Heights. And even when I think about Wuthering Heights, I don't even necessarily think of the Bronte novel. I think of the song like, I think of like Kate Bush, like, like wrapping her arms around herself and sort of the sort of the feeling of like, like ethereal horniness happening in that song, I sort of really fold into as being part of the same experience as Twilight, same experience as Phantom and like Edward Scissors hands as well. It's kind of, it bleeds in there. And this thing of like. And maybe this is why it works so well on young women because like when you have, when you're in like a middle school age and like, you know, they're just having your arm touch the arm of the boy next to you is enough to bring you out in a flop sweat. It's like having sex with someone in a normal way is as gothic and removed from your experience as having sex with a vampire or having sex with a mutilated ghost man who lives in a theater. Do you think that's why young girls are drawn to it so much?
- [05:50]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah, I think it's part of it. The over the top campiness of the gothic spectacle is the only thing that could accurately represent what the stakes feel like when you're that young and you're that horny. Like any lust feels like a, like cataclysmic vampiric sensation. There's no, like, there's no demure, like, I'm a little bit horny tonight, so I'm going to have sex with my husband. It's like any sexual touch, any passion could be the difference between life and death. Like everything is that enormously important. And I really miss the days when things were that enormously important. I mean, we must grow out of them some point so that we can move on with our lives. But. But I miss being like 15 and being, you know, obsessed to distraction by a handsome guy.
- [06:43]
Caroline
It's like, is kind of off topic, but it kind of makes me think of like, I feel like I really want to do a miniseries at some point on hunks and the power that hunks have. Like the power that Paul Mezcal has. Our people, like that I don't necessarily get, but like, I know that people, they just. I just know women who like, they, they are, you know, smart women in their 30s with careers who like short circuit when they talk about him or when they see him because they're like, I just don't understand why I'm not his girlfriend. You know that. And I just love that women hold that in them at all ages. And I find that. I just find it lovely.
- [07:20]
Rebecca Kuang
Okay, this is kind of a deep cut, but it's related, I promise. I was meditating on what it means to like, like be a smart woman who completely loses your mind over a guy when I went to a Manskin concert in Boston. And for anybody who's unfamiliar, Manskin are this wonderful Italian rock band that is sometimes a rap band that became popular for this Eurovision cover of Beggin, which has since gone viral. And I think they're quite talented songwriters and musicians in their own right, but they have that like, raw, sexual rock and roll stardom energy. They're super fun to Watch live. And the frontman, Damiano Davide, I think is his name. He's just crazy on stage. Like, he's prancing around shirtless, and people are screaming and the women are screaming. And I went to this concert at the ripe old age of 27, so I'm kind of past the point where I just scream about men. Right. And I went with my fiance at the time, too, but the whole time, we were both like, oh, my God, I love you, I love you. And then afterwards, I was like, what made it so fun to be head over heels in love with him at that moment? Like, why is that performance so exciting? Because it wasn't. Like, factually, we wanted to go have sex with the band after the stage. In fact, I think if that option had been available to me, I would have been like, no, I like you from afar. I am not actually that interested in you up close. And I think there's this social contract between the crowd and the musicians where you are permitted to kind of let loose and lower all your inhibitions and temporarily inhabit the space in which your passions have overcome your reason, and you're powerless, and you're just absorbed by the raw charisma of the person on stage. And the person on stage also understands that you actually don't want to have sex with him. It's not like the crowd is going to rush him, but rather he's performing this part being this vessel for you to invest all of this uninhibited desire and passion into. And it's this really fun, like, performative circle, this contract that exists between the audience and the performer, and it only lasts as long is the concert, and then you go home and you're exhausted, and then you have a concert hangover the next day. But that kind of, like, really, I want to talk about Dionysus in a little bit. And this is related to Nietzsche, but now I'm getting ahead of myself. But I think this, like, kind of bacchanalian energy that we get at concerts is very much the energy that we get from screaming over Edward Cullen or the Phantom. Like, we're not really saying I would ruin my life for any of these men, but it feels good to have these little outlets in which you could pretend that you were the kind of person who would ruin your own life. Yeah.
- [10:13]
Caroline
And do you think that, like, musical theater, and particularly musical theater from the era with which we were talking about, like, the 80s, where I feel like, you know, this was the Andrew Lloyd Weber's peak time, and just like, I'm sure it didn't feel this way at the time, but if you look back on that era now and it just feels like every single year another enormous musical theater experience that would like, remain famous for 35 years was coming out. Whether it's like Cats or, or Les Mis or whatever it is. Do you think that, like, musical theater offers something in that social contract the same kind of a similar kind of vein to the rock concert? And in what ways is it different? And what ways is it the same?
- [10:55]
Rebecca Kuang
I have been trying to figure out how to articulate this with my friends for a long time. I discovered a while ago that all of my closest friends were either theater kids or almost theater kids, and then ended up doing a different type of activity, like debate, that replicates the weird energy you get from theater. And I think one thing that makes our friendship successful is that we're always being over the top dramatic at each other for no reason. And somebody will just like do ballet hops across the room or like start screaming in monologue to describe somebody getting their morning coffee order wrong. And I think, and I still really can't quite put my finger on it, like why it's fun or why this makes relationships successful when you both have this energy. But there's something about the musical theater energy of just singing at the top of your lungs for no reason or putting on a really dramatic affect that you'll drop in a few seconds. I think really it's just doing things for no reason. And that I think describes a lot of what is happening in the musical and also in the film to a less successful extent, like, things just happen for no reason except that they are cool. And it's really so true. It's like it's an energy that you don't have in a lot of other aspects of your life.
- [12:19]
Caroline
Right?
- [12:19]
Rebecca Kuang
Like in my professional world, like, I must do things for a reason. I must put things on my lecture handout because they make sense. Because there's a pedagogical goal I have to behave in a certain way to convey a certain professional affect. And only in musical theater can you be like, I can't sing. But can you just like, you know, be that part and then expect everybody to applaud?
- [12:45]
Caroline
Like, this reminds me of something else we spoke about in that lunch, which is we were kind of talking about Phantom, talking about musical theater, talking about Hamilton and about how specifically like Hamilton is very much sort of. It's often described as kind of an Obama era musical. And I remember I was, I am a fan of it. But I was such a fan of it when it came out. Like I was listening to soundtrack every day. I was having listening parties with friends. It was so meaningful to me in that moment. And then it sort of like passed into cringe really quickly. And I think that's because, I mean, I'm not saying for me, although is there a little bit of me that doesn't totally volunteer that information about me and Hamilton in a lot of settings, sure. But like, I think there's something about musicals from this era, from the 80s, they are enshrined in pop culture and we just take them for granted as being sort of these stations of the cross of what it is to be into musical theater. But when new things emerge, things like Hamilton, we have this culture, this broadly online culture that picks things apart and is very cold about things that are meant to be experienced in a theater with your not right mind on. Like, you are meant to like feel like, wow, the founding fathers were gangstacks as hell. When you're like in the, in the theater and then you leave the theater and you look online and somebody says that's a dumb thing to say and think that's embarrassing and there's something. The contract gets broken when something new comes along and everybody analyzes who they were when they were in the theater and they bully themselves who they were in the theater. You know what I mean?
- [14:27]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah. I think. Well, part of this is probably that looking for the Internet's reaction to any piece of art is just going to poison your relationship with it. I have a good friend who said that he started enjoying books a lot more when he hadn't read everything that Twitter had to say about the book first. And I feel that way about movies too. Like it doesn't matter if the discourse is right or smart or not. It just makes me approach a film or book or a show with a lot more cynicism and less open mindedness than any piece of art deserves. So. Yeah, well, so it's tough because Twitter was so great for very specific viewing experiences like logging on to see everybody's jokes right after an episode of Succession had streamed was like a peak moment in Internet hive mind existence that I don't think we'll ever get back. And now it's just dumb takes and self aggrandizing takes and the occasional smart take that is just lost in the shuffle and just cringe and annoying by the time you get around to it. And I just, I really don't care like how everybody else is reacting and I Think, as you said, there is something special in the no phones, like two to three hour period where everybody's just in one room and you only have the honest expression on your face. And I really prefer that highly charged in person emotional experience to the cold disengaged, like live tweeting a show while you're streaming it.
- [16:04]
Caroline
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I really want to. I will move on to the show itself in a second. But just to finalize on that thought, like that, that thing of I've really become conscious, particularly in the last few months. I mean, like, I think the Internet, you know, for a long time it's been this drug that we all got hooked on and now everyone's addicted, but nobody's getting high anymore. Like it's just this thing, we're all just like passed out in a crack house with a needle in our arm with the Internet. And now that like everything you Google it has an AI result. And everyone on social media, as you say, is either furious or self aggrandizing and sort of just trying to build their own sort of palace to their own ego. It's just, it's so unfun that I feel like I can feel the like the international phone divorce happening. You know what I mean? I feel like it's become this inert tool that is boring now and I really look forward to that crumbling if ever that crumbles and then experiences like Phantom of the Opera therefore thriving. Because Phantom is cringe and it is free.
- [17:08]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah. And I really don't care what anybody on the Internet has to say about Phantom. It will always be sacred and wonderful to me. And also every time I've been, which is three times in the last three months, which is crazy, it's been completely sold out every single time. So Phantom will outlast.
- [17:27]
Caroline
As you're a mega fan, can you please give me a brief plot summary of Phantom of the Opera with added stresses to the bits that you think are cool?
- [17:35]
Rebecca Kuang
I think it's kind of impossible. I mean, so I told my musical theater friend after I saw it for the first time, like, wow. I was so excited to finally see it because I grew up, I was in the choir when I was in elementary school and me and a group of girls in choir would like listen to CDs after practice. And one of the CDs we listened to was Phantom, but for some reason we only listened to the first half. So I was like, wow, it's been 20 years. I'm so excited to finally have some context for these songs. I've been singing and that I adore. And then I saw the show, and I still don't have context for the songs because it is really, like the barest possible plot that stitches together some really cool songs that are more vibes than anything else. It's. It's almost as nonsensical as Cats. But if we are to go by the book, what happens in Phantom is that there is an opera house. It's recently been sold to new ownership. What they don't understand is that there is a deranged man who calls himself OG in letters, opera ghosts, but who also is known as the Phantom. And he's just like this dude who lives in the. The swamp with lots of candles. And we don't really know how he got to Paris. We don't really know why he's been in the sewers of this opera for so long or why this particular opera. There is, like, the barest explanation given by one of the characters, Madame Giry, at some point, and it makes you more confused. She's just like. There was this man, a genius, deformed. He had constructed a hall of mirrors for Persia. And then we're like, okay, and then what? So we don't really know where the Phantom comes from or what his deal is. We do know, however, that he is obsessed with this ingenue, Christine, who is one of the dancer girls. But he's been giving her secret singing lessons. And it's implied that she goes to her room and he speaks to her from the walls, and she's never seen his face. He's just been teaching her to sing, and that's fine. And he's very invested in her career. So he does stuff to jeopardize current soprano La Carlotta to get Christine bigger and bigger roles. And when the theater management pitches back on this, he just does things like kill people and hang them from the rafters of the stage. So they're getting upset and they're like, we have to do something about this Phantom. And Christine is also very confused because she's like, the Phantom might be my father or he might be my lover. In any case, I'm just really into him. There's also a guy named Raoul who is the new patron of the theater. He's very wealthy, Christine, when they were children, he's in love with her. Of course, Christine is in love with him back, but she's also in love with the Phantom. So it's a very effective love triangle. And then the second half of the musical is just Christine trying To choose between this swamp incel music genius and this normal guy who can't sing that well but is very wealthy. And then she picks the normal guy who is very wealthy but not a musical genius. And the Phantom recedes into the swamp. And that is the story of the Phantom of the Opera.
- [21:03]
Caroline
And like, it's. The thing is, I love the story. I think I really, really like. And actually, I was surprised, so I went to see it on your recommendation just before Christmas. And I. I'm not gonna, you know, go on about this too much because ultimately this is a podcast about loving things. I didn't get it immediately. Like, I. I'm so sorry to say this to you. I just didn't get. And then I sort of spent some time with it. I'll go back to why I didn't get it initially. And then I watched the movie. And then I've spent most of this week re watching bits of the movie and listening to the soundtrack and listen. And watching live performances over the years by various people. And it clicked with me over time, but it did not click with me in the theater because it was, first of all, the first time I had heard most of, like, some of the. Like, it was weird when I heard that opening overture, the oh. I was like, oh, is that what this is from? Is this what that's from? I was like, oh, to me, that's just like generic haunted house music, you know, just like, oh, you're in a Halloween house and you have to feel a bowl of spaghetti in its witch's hair. That's one.
- [22:18]
Rebecca Kuang
That's so sad. I feel so sad for you.
- [22:24]
Caroline
And the thing is, because it is a musical told in the style of opera, I don't know much about opera. I didn't know anything about the plot. I knew vaguely from sort of pop cultural context cues that the Phantom of the Opera lives under the opera house and he's obsessed with as a young singer. But that was all I knew. And so. So as you say, things happen, and the reasons for those things happening aren't always clear. And I am a person who had recently seen Wicked in the theater, who loved Hamilton, who loves a bunch of very talky, very wordy musicals that reward you for listening very closely. And what I missed was that the aim of Phantom is not to listen closely to lyrics, to sort of uncover the meaning and context and all this. It's to sit back and let things wash over you and let images wash over you and to see these incredible images on stage. And even though I was like, so impressed by this incredible imagery and incredible stagecraft, like it itself. I was just so confused because I was sort of. I was tuned into the wrong frequency, I guess, and then it's just kind of like, over the sort of study of it in the last week. And this is what I love about doing this podcast is, like, teaching myself to love things in a really obsessive way that I don't necessarily love on first glance. Like, is really. It's been very rewarding, actually.
- [23:45]
Rebecca Kuang
I'm so glad. I think going into Phantom with any expectation that things will be explained to you is a recipe for not enjoying Phantom again. There is no why for anything. Things just happen because they're cool. So if you just sit there and think, wow, that was really cool, and then feel horny and excited for two hours like that, that is the way to experience Phantom. But, you know, in the beginning when I went and saw it, because that was also my first time seeing it on screen or on the stage, and I thought maybe, like, the story will be kind of sophisticated and really give context to these songs. And I realized within 15 minutes, like, that that was not going to happen. Like, it really is. The story is threadbare. There is no story. It's just some connective material to link these wonderful, wonderful songs. And it's, like, downright hilarious, actually, how little the dialogue tries to clarify. The. Almost deliberately bad. There's this point during Masquerade where Christine's singing about their secret engagement, and Raoul's like, yes, and why is it a secret? And Christine's like, you know, just, like, just say shit. And I'm like, christine, what is your end game here? Like, do you think that you. How long do you think you can keep this a secret? You're wearing an engagement ring around your neck, and, like, do you think you can wait out this Phantom, this man that has been in the sewer for 20 years? So, like. Like, when the. When the musical tries to have a plot explanation for anything, it only makes things more complicated and indecipherable. And I think that's one of its particular charms.
- [25:27]
Caroline
I think. So what I wish I had done is watch the movie first and then seen the musical, because I actually. You haven't. We were texting while I was watching the movie, but you didn't say thing to me about your opinions on the movie, so I'm very curious to know what you thought. But I predict that you think that there were obvious shortcomings in the vocal arrangements, and I'm already countering that with I think the film's shortcomings, which is that the vocals aren't really that amazing and they don't really hit you very well, is actually its strength because it makes the musical far more legible, because you can kind of hear what they're saying.
- [26:08]
Rebecca Kuang
Okay. But I think the film's attempts to explain things further also fail, but not in a funny way. When the show attempts to explain things, it's kind of showing its hand at saying, we don't really care what the explanation is here. We've hardly tried. Enjoy that. And the film is really trying to explain something. And that makes it worse because it also fails. Yeah. I did have some quibbles with the singing ability. I actually like Emmy Rossum a lot. I think she's stunning.
- [26:39]
Caroline
I love her.
- [26:40]
Rebecca Kuang
I think her voice is beautiful. I think, like, people complained that she was too young to be Christine, but Christine strikes me like she should be young. She should be way younger. Yeah. So I thought. I thought she was just gorgeous, and I really liked her performance. We can talk about Gerard Butler. I've discovered some crazy things I can't wait to tell you.
- [26:58]
Caroline
Tell me, because Gerard Butler is the Phantom as a headline for that time period, it makes no sense as a casting choice. I think this was post 300. But to cast him on that basis feels really weird. And there were plenty of. Antonio Banderas had apparently been a front running for it, but just lost out for some reason or another and has played him on stage. So it really just makes no fucking sense. But I hope you're about to tell me why.
- [27:26]
Rebecca Kuang
Okay, so we had been joking about whether he was cast on the strength of his performance in the 300. And we were like, that would be an insane reason to cast him. He was not. But he was cast on the strength of his performance in a film called Dracula 2000, in which he plays Dracula, who is secretly Judas Iscariot, who, after he betrayed Jesus, was cursed to become the world's first vampire. And he can't die because he has not accepted the Lord as his savior.
- [28:04]
Caroline
You know what? I don't hate that as a concept. I think that's really interesting.
- [28:07]
Rebecca Kuang
I think that is insane. I will be watching this film. It was a commercial and critical failure, and I cannot wait.
- [28:16]
Caroline
But clearly Joel Schumacher saw something in it.
- [28:19]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah, I'm watching it. What Joel saw. I want to know the vision. Because on the strength the Phantom of the Opera, the film. I don't see the vision. I will say if I didn't know that it was Gerard Butler, I wouldn't have recognized him behind the mask. I think he makes like a very striking. Just visually like, he works as Phantom because Phantom's supposed to be sexy until you take the mask off. So I like that. I just didn't like his, like, his screaming and grunting. Like, Phantom's supposed to have this angelic voice and he always does on stage. And the current West End Phantom, Dean Chisnel, I think, is especially good. Like, when he hits, like, those long notes, it's just like you could hear a pin drop. Everyone is like, in a rapture. But in the film it's like, shut up. Just let Emmy sing. I don't want to listen to this.
- [29:12]
Caroline
It's like, shut up. Yeah. I was very curious as to like your. Because I was reading a Roger Ebert review of this movie and he seemed to broadly like it. He was weird. Ebert came down the same side as me as being like, I don't know if I like this as a musical, but I think this is an admirable attempt to like, translate it. And. And I actually. I had such a fun time watching the musical and it really sold. I think it really did sold the whole Phantom experience to me. So. But this thing of how sexy slash scary is the Phantom meant to be? Because, you know, there's been many renditions, many sort of like, adaptations of the novel over the years. And he's kind, kind of, for example, in the 1920s version, he's this like Nosferatui looking guy. He's like got half a nose and all that kind of stuff. And then in the 50s version, he's pretty terrifying as well. But, like, you know, the Gerard Butler version and certainly the stage version I saw was like, oh, it's kind of like he's like a fetish mask. It seems like he's a hunk with a face thing. I think that's so, like, how, like, where do you think the sexiness, scariness should fall?
- [30:22]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah, well, I think he is occupying exactly the same subject position as Dracula, where purportedly to everybody else, he's terrifying and dangerous. And you must keep your hand at the level of your eye so you don't accidentally glimpse how ugly he is. But to at least one young woman, in both Dracula and in Phantom, he's like the sexiest thing ever. They can't stop thinking about him. They're hypnotized by him. They're overwhelmed with passion and a fascination that is disguising just plain lust. So Phantom must both be terrifying to all those around him and deeply Deeply sexy to the young woman and all the young girls who are watching. So that's a really hard balance to strike. And I think nobody really does it right. There's a complaint about the film that he's just too sexy. And when he takes his mask off, there's really no reason why he should be ashamed and have been wearing a mask all this time. And I've never sat close enough to the stage in the stage version to really assess how ugly the Phantom is when he has his mask off. But I think, like, he's supposedly. He's supposed to be visibly, immediately sexy. And the scariness, I think, is supposed to emanate from his actions and his affect and, like, the cape twirling and the fireballs and really, the spectacle around him, more than anything, inherently grotesque in his appearance.
- [31:58]
Caroline
It kind of reminded me, though, because in reading around this, there was lots of, like, whether it's people talking about the stage musical or the film, lots of people debating the sexiness, not sexy enough, too sexy things of various performances. And it reminded me slightly of the discourse around Keira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice and whether she was too beautiful to play Lizzie Bennett Bennett. And to which I always kind of thought, like, the problem with Lizzie Bennet wasn't that she was. Wasn't beautiful. It was that she was like a very pretty girl in her neighborhood who didn't have a fortune and neither did any of her sisters. And it felt like it was focusing too much on the wrong aspect, you know? But something I really love about this story and just this collection of beautiful images with great music. Music is opening on that auction, right? Opening on that freaky little auction. They sell off the monkey music box and you hear the masquerade tune and then selling of the chandelier. And there's this kind of early thing, early bits of dialogue in that opening scene about how it's now been electrically lit. Like it's been repaired and now it's been electrically lit. And there's something. I wonder if you respond to this as well as, like, a fantasy author of, like, there's something about, like. Like the old ways have died. And the new way. The new way is clinical and less romantic and less exciting, but it's the way we have. And then this sort of sense of. I think actually the movie does a really brilliant sense of doing this, of, like, lighting up the stage with flames and this idea that, like, this art form, this opera or theater or the ballet or the corps de ballet, whatever it is, that is full of freaks and show people and road people and vagabonds or whatever. People who have just brought together by their art form or by the fact that, like, society doesn't really have a place for them. And the kind of the circus way, I suppose, of superstition and vagaries and stuff, how it's kind of like towards the end of the 19th century, is sort of that people are cleaning house. Like, we have these new buyers coming in. And the sense of, like, well, if you don't honor the ghost of this place, then you're gonna. You know, we're gonna fuck you up. Like, you will get fucked up. Like, tell me how you respond to that old stuff, the whole. The dying of the old way, the emergence of the new way. Shit.
- [34:26]
Rebecca Kuang
Yes. It is about what capitalism has done to art. Phantom of the Opera, and at the end of the day, a Marxist musical. Okay, well, first, I think this is a bit of a stretch of the reading because I don't think the musical or the film at the end of the day is all that interested in the time structure. There's actually zero purpose to the flashback. Like, there is no reason why it starts with the auction, except that it's kind of cool again.
- [35:02]
Caroline
It's cool.
- [35:02]
Rebecca Kuang
It's cool for no reason. And it gets you, that nostalgia. It creates this sense of mystery. Otherwise, that structure does nothing. And they completely drop it. It's not like they come back to the present at the end of the musical. Like, we don't even really know what Raul is up to, or if Christine's still alive or what's happened to the Phantom. Like, they don't care. They'll never tell us. But it does affect me so much. So I've seen it three times. And every time when we have the opening overture and the chandelier flies up and the stage starts reconstructing itself, the beam at the top, it's broken in half at the start, and then it lifts up and becomes one. And then the statues emerge from the ground. The first time I saw that, I burst into tears. And I've teared up every time I watched that because I like anything that is, as you said, restoring the splendor of the past. So that's as far as the time structure goes. I don't think there's anything more to it than that. However, I think the Phantom represents the power of art as pure art. And Raoul represents commerce. And the film, or the musical is a love triangle between the artist and art and commercial success. And you can pursue art on its own, but it will make you grotesque and unattractive to others and indecipherable. So I think this is exactly the position that the most avant garde art, the art that purely exists for art's sake, that has no commercial or even critical interests, that's the space it occupies. That's the space the Phantom is occupying. But if you're an artist, that's not very exciting, because then you're not making a livelihood, you have no stability, and artists are people and they need to live. So you go running into the arms of the Viscount de Chagny, who's incredibly wealthy and incredibly boring and with his managers is doing everything he can to stifle pure artistic genius. But he represents stability and he's a nice boy and he'll fill your days this summertime. So there is something existing on the surface, this tension between the artistic genius and everybody who's trying to shout him down and censor his work, and who don't understand the score that he's written and refused used to sing it and try to change it. And that's all, like, right there in this love triangle. And that's why I find the ending of Phantom so interesting. Because do you think, like, an artist who creates this musical that's a love triangle between art and commerce is going to land on the side of art? And you might think, like, oh, the conclusion ought to be like, no, we should have chased the passion all along. We should have chased the music of the night. And it's strange to me that after all these very compelling arguments why the Knight is so seductive and interesting, it ends in such a trite way where Christine gets her happily ever after, she runs off with Raoul, the Phantom is never heard from again, and I don't love it. And that's why I impose this meta reading on it where the artist is like, here, I've just shown my hand. I've given you really good art. And now the only way this will be commercially successful is if I bow to commerce at the end and wrap it up in a tidy little bow and serve it to you in the most commercial structure possible. So it's kind of making fun of its own tension, because I think it'd be really hard to write an ending for Phantom where Christine's like, no, I've decided to run off into the sewer. I don't think audiences would respond to it as well. You don't get a good final number that way. But, yeah, that's the ending I want. And I like to think that's the Christine I would be. I would be Christine of the Swamp.
- [38:59]
Caroline
That kind of ending. I thought a lot about that ending as well, and about how the kind of, like, the inevitable kind of inertness of Gothic romance, because it doesn't. Because it's there to sort of give a huge feeling and a huge emotion, but, like. Because Gothic romance is all about sort of, you know, candlesticks and darkness and skulls and. You know what I mean? Or whatever, there's no place to live within that. And, like, I think you. You mentioned earlier that, like, it is, like, thin material in terms of story, but because it's thin, it allows you to breathe life into it. Like, you know, it is the. It is the mannequin in the swamp that you can, like, breathe life into yourself. And to me, it. Like. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the movie the Red Shoes, the Powell and Pressburger movie. I think you would fucking love it because it is a series of unbelievably cool images, one after another, that just are threaded together. But it's very much about, like, you know, the story. It's about this ballerina, and she's in this show called the Red Shoes. And the story of the Red Shoes is that you, like the Grimm's fairy tale, the. Like, you put them on and you dance forever, and the world keeps on moving, but you have to keep dancing forever and you miss everything. And it's sort of this thing about women in art, really. It's about artists generally and, like, the. The impossible selections they have to make between, you know, a life and their work. But it's specifically about, like, how women in art because, like, there's. There's just such a limited field with them which. Which their genius has kind of understood in public. Like, it's just like there's. There's only dead ends, it feels like. And I. I really enjoyed looking at Christine through that lens of, like. Like what the. What the Phantom represents to her, which is like being a genius, I guess. Like, being this incredible vocalist. And there's something I found so arresting about when he finally, like, he takes her with his gondolier down. Down under the theater. And he, you know, takes her and he just keeps shouting at her to sing. And she sort of opens her mouth and just keeps these. These noises keep coming out and they're bouncing off. Off of the sewer walls and the echo. And she keeps hearing herself, and she's scared, but she's looking at her own voice bouncing around her and looking at him. And it's like, it's desire for him, for his darkness, but it's desire for herself as well. And how much can she take this puppy to the end with her own artistry?
- [41:30]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah, it's unlimited artistic potential. And that, I think, doubles the sadness of the ending because Raoul doesn't want her to keep singing. Like, he sees the relationship as a rescuing of her from the stage. And this is how the script would have gone, right? Like if you find a patron, you find a husband that you don't have to sing for money anymore. And we can extrapolate by the end, Raoul's like, okay, so you're done. No more opera for you. You can bear my child now. There actually is a sequel called Phantom of the Opera. Love Never Dies.
- [42:04]
Caroline
Oh, yes, Love Never Dies. What's that?
- [42:06]
Rebecca Kuang
Like, I haven't seen it. I'm not sure that there is a way to see it. It takes place on Coney island. And that is why, as much as I know about it. So I read the plot synopsis once, right after I saw Phantom for the first time, and then immediately forgot most of the details because they were so stupid. But they involve Christine's son, who Raoul thinks is his son, but is actually the Phantom son. And then I believe that Meg Giri shoots her.
- [42:40]
Caroline
Oh, right, Little Meg.
- [42:43]
Rebecca Kuang
And that's what I know.
- [42:45]
Caroline
Is this a nice point? I'm sorry if you have another point you want to finish, but like, I would like to ask what the deal with Meg is.
- [42:52]
Rebecca Kuang
I don't know. I really.
- [42:55]
Caroline
She doesn't have a song. She just looks at stuff with a blonde wig on. Like, importantly, a blonde wig. Always, it seems. No Meg, like, what's the fucking deal?
- [43:04]
Rebecca Kuang
Meg's job is to like run out on stage in 30 minute intervals and sing. He's here. The Phantom of the Opera. Like, that's all she does. And it's so charming. I love it. I didn't really understand why it was Meg at the end who lifted up the mask. I think it's so if you're one of the people who really needs to attach a stronger story to the musical, the received explanation is that the Giry's have always had a special connection with the Phantom. That Madame Giry has been supporting him, helping him this whole time, that she can communicate with him. And this is made explicit in the film, it suggested that it was Madame Giry who res. Yeah, I hate that. It makes no sense to me. Like, imagine you rescued a boy from a freak show and you're like, okay, now you can live in the sewer among rats. And I'm like, that's our relationship. And I will say ominous things about you to other people and that's it. So I take it there's just this implied background and Phantom knows Madame Giry. Unclear whether he knows Meg or not. She doesn't seem to really know him. This becomes more explicit in Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, where the Giris are jealous that the Phantom never took an interest in Meg's career the way that he supported Christine's career. So she's like the classic understudy who's just not good enough. And I think you see bits of that in the musical. But my theory is more that Meg is just like an all purpose tool. Like, she's just there when you need her to say something ominous about the Phantom. She's there when you need somebody to ask her stage, hey, what the fuck do you mean about this angel in music? She's there when somebody has to storm in and announce that Christine is back and she's there to pick up the mask. Like, it's great. You save money. You just need one Meg instead of four background characters.
- [45:05]
Caroline
Yes. Yes. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I was just like. I kept waiting for, like, the Meg Cannon to go off and I was like, no, I guess nothing for Meg because you think kind of she's so, like, markedly beautiful. She's so, like, purposefully beautiful. And she's got this like, beautiful white sort of little tutu on. I'm like, oh, she's gonna do something evil. She's telegraphed as being too pure. Is she the true monster in this story? Nope.
- [45:30]
Rebecca Kuang
No.
- [45:32]
Caroline
Lovely Meg.
- [45:32]
Rebecca Kuang
She's just such a supportive friend and I really appreciate that.
- [45:39]
Caroline
I'm curious in terms of, like, I think, like, writing fantasy and, you know, you create worlds that are so intricate and so involved. Like, does this kind of remind you that, like, oh, all you need is like, one cool thing after another? And then something like. I found it, like, breathtakingly reassuring in that way. Like, who cares? Like, the structure of, like, how he has a Batcave under the, like, opera house. It's like all like. Like they turned the stage, a black stage, into a river full of candles and the gondolier and singing and mist and, like, who gives a fuck? That is that, like, it just has that, like. Sorry, that is that. Do you feel like it's going to influence your writing, your obsession with Phantom in that way?
- [46:33]
Rebecca Kuang
Oh, yeah. It has been tremendously, creatively inspiring. I would say nothing in the last five years has has invigorated my writing as much as the experience of seeing Phantom. So this is the moment that got me, because I could anticipate a lot of the other stuff that was gonna happen based on what I knew about the songs. But in the second act, Christine runs off, and then there's a tomb on stage, and it's this enormous Gothic tomb. And we realize, oh, it's her dad's tomb. And she's just run off to go sing a song to her dad. And it's a beautiful song. And I wasn't really paying attention to the lyrics because I was so struck by the imagery of Christine in her gorgeous, like, Red Riding Hood cape in the mist and the fog. And there's just out of nowhere this enormous tomb with red lights. And it has no place in the story. There's no explanation about her dad. There's no backstory. We don't know how he died. We don't know why he has such an enormous tomb. But it's. It looks so cool, and it affected me so much. It affected me so much more as an audience member than, like, any long piece of exposition possibly could that made any sense of the tomb. So I realized as I've progressed in my career and I keep writing novels, I keep moving in this direction that is very spare and cerebral, I think. I like. I like wordplay. I like logic puzzles. I like the. What do people say about Christopher Nolan? Like, the cold rationalism. I contest that, though, as well, because I think his films are incredibly emotional. But I've been moving towards these, like, very intricate puzzle boxes. And that's just what happens when you're obsessed with language games and logic paradoxes and you write novels about that. And I think I had forgotten the power of one crazy, cool image or one very tense relationship and really just the power of horniness. So I am learning to tap into that primordial side where there are no thoughts going on. There's just a tomb and a girl, and it looks really, really cool. And to return to the power of the stunning image rather than the clever trick, and for no other reason than, like, I love writing this emotional high. I think writers all the time reach for emotional memory and write things that will evoke that response. And I get bored with my own writing when it's just about the polish of the prose or moving the plot along in a way that I find very clever. And it's nice to. To sit at the writing desk and just be in this state of passion and horniness. I didn't have that for quite a while because I was so obsessed with making the writing technically good. But now I think I will start from a place of making the writing really sexy and then making it good later.
- [49:57]
Caroline
I love that. I love your books. And my favorite of them is Babbel, which. Which isn't an original thought at all, but, like. Or an original preference. But I'm obsessed with that book. I love it. If you had written that book after seeing Phantom, it would be, like, 10.
- [50:12]
Rebecca Kuang
Times more gothic, I don't think. Well, so when I say the word horny, I don't mean strictly, like, a sexual relationship between any two characters. I think, like, horniness is just this vibe. Like, this really. The word is desire, right? Like wanting passion for something you can't have. And then the. The delightful play of passion that follows. And I do find Babbel a little clinical as far as those emotions are concerned. There are some strong emotions, but they mostly have to do with frustration over coursework and then this broader agony over colonialism. But on the interpersonal level, my editor asked over and over again, like, are any of these people having sex with each other? And do you think you could have them have sex with each other? And I was like, yes, but that is off the page, and I don't really want to explore that. And now I think I would, because I used to find all of that a distraction. And I think Phantom has shown me how it can supercharge everything else that's going on on stage.
- [51:18]
Caroline
I fucking love that. That's so cool. I love the idea that this musical from 1986, an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, can, like, completely reevaluate your approach to your work. And it makes me, like, so happy that I do this podcast at all. Just to hear you say that.
- [51:33]
Rebecca Kuang
Well, I think at the very basic level, I feel this way when I exit the movie theater all the time, too. Like, when a work of art is transportative and it makes you forget who you are for several hours, and you're just so excited or so scared or so angry or so passionate. And then I leave the theater, and I think, oh, my God, like, I want to make somebody feel that way with my own work the same way that I feel right now. And it's this goal that I'm always chasing, because books just can't do that as well as films or musicals can. Like, they don't have sight, they don't have sound. They only have the words. And the reader kind of has to construct the film in their heads, but it's a nice goal to work towards. Like, can you create that affective response with just black and white text? And it's very hard, but you must not lose sight of the goal to do so.
- [52:25]
Caroline
So, yeah, that's wonderful. Something I thought about a lot. I wonder if you were familiar with this meme at all, but it came up a lot when I was thinking about Phantom. It's a meme, you know, those. Like that new kind of, like, TikTok y thing of, like, people outside nightclubs talking to drunk people and trying to get them to say something outrageous like, I love a huck to a girl. And like, there's one of them where it's like kind of like a big guy guy, and he goes up to a hot girl and he says, how much weight would I have to lose for you to date me? And then she looks him up and down and she says, I would date you now. And he doesn't really believe her. He just doesn't think that someone like her could feasibly date someone like him. And that, for some reason, that really was in my head for a lot of the final movement of Phantom. Of. He is so characteristic, convinced that Christine could never love him because of how he looks, that he murders everyone she knows. And she's like, I would. I would be actually good to love you about how you look. But, like, it's because you keep murdering people who I know.
- [53:32]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah, that's tough.
- [53:34]
Caroline
And there's something. There's some kind of incel parable happening in there that I will leave it to others till.
- [53:40]
Rebecca Kuang
Okay, love yourself first. That's the best.
- [53:46]
Caroline
I have written down. Is Madame Giry, the Phantom's Ghislaine Maxwell Discuss.
- [53:55]
Rebecca Kuang
Okay, that's really interesting, because I feel like where the musical is most disjointed is when it's trying to figure out if the Phantom wants to rape Christine or not. And sometimes it's right there. He's like, I have been denied the pleasures of the flesh, but you have to be my bride now and get used to this face, because you're gonna be seeing it all the time. And it's like, no, Phantom, you're such a genius. Don't be a rapist. But at other times.
- [54:26]
Caroline
Don't be a rapist.
- [54:28]
Rebecca Kuang
No, but at other times, those lines feel so forced. You get the sense that the Phantom is not really interested in the flesh and never has been. And he's just kind of saying that because he feels like he ought to say that in the mom. Like the moment is right. To be that creepy. But at all other points, like the.
- [54:48]
Caroline
You sound like his mother apologizing for him.
- [54:49]
Rebecca Kuang
Of course, I'm not apologizing for the Phantom. I'm just saying it doesn't sound like. It doesn't sound like that's what he really wants. Or it sounds like it's coming from the mouth of a different character that we haven't gotten to know at all. Other parts where the Phantom is singing about his obsession with Christine and what he wants from their partnership, it is purely on the level of art. He's like, you are the only person who could bring my art to life. There is. There's this motif that goes away in the second act, sadly, where he says, you're my mask to the world. You are so beautiful. Like, your voice could bring the music that I want to reach people to their ears. And that is so pure. That's beautiful. It's like an artistic partnership that could be amazing. And the first time he brings her to the sewer, he's so uninterested in touching her. She passes out. And he lifts her onto the bed and lets her sleep and then goes and keeps writing. Like, he's really not obsessed with her physically at all. He just wants her to sing. And. Yeah, so there's a tension between those two versions of the Phantom. Unfortunately, we also have Rapist Phantom, who's also in the film, so don't know what to do with that.
- [55:59]
Caroline
Again, I haven't seen it three times, and it hasn't, like, you know, I don't have the relationship with. You do, obviously, but I had this sense of it. And I wonder if you agree that, like, you know, she. She has this experience with him when he appears on stage with her, and it's. I really thought this was very well done in the movie. That thing of, like, he. They have this beautiful duet on stage in front of everybody. It's so sexy. And Emmy Rossum plays that desire so beautifully. And she's, like, shuddering with horniness. Like, she's so, like. And, like, the way her costume is is sort of shot. She almost looks naked at certain points.
- [56:37]
Rebecca Kuang
And Rose sitting there just, like, being cooked for three minutes.
- [56:41]
Caroline
I know. Cucked in front of the fucking French aristocracy. Hello. And then the Phantom's like, oh, right, okay, so you're down. All right. And then he pulls a cord. They drop into a trapdoor. The chandelier flops down. It sets the whole opera house on fire. And then he takes her back into the sewers. And then he just, like, takes the Veil. The. The mask comes off, he flips out at her, and then he, like, plonks a veil on her head. And, like, the way I read that was like, oh, it's supposed to be like. And then she sort of recoils. Is it supposed to be like, oh, she thought she was entering a contract of perfect artistic partnership with maybe some sex attached, and now she's getting wifed in the sewers. And she's like, well, if I'm gonna be wifed, I'm gonna be wife to a Raoul.
- [57:31]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah, that's one way to read it. That's not how I read it, because I never read it as the Phantom is only interested in Christine as a wife and not as artist. I think a different reading is that the veil and his obsession with marriage represent a total possessiveness over the art artist veering on like madness. So. And there are all these stories of, like, artists who are driven mad by their art. And this is sprinkled in the first half where Christine keeps singing like, the Phantom is in my. Or the angel music sings songs in my head. And I was like, oh, like, this is suggesting that if you're consumed by your art to the point of ignoring the material world and ignoring, like, all the normal people around you, like, you might actually really be in trouble. That. That seems really dangerous. And so I think the. I mean, this is just like a reading, because I sound now like an English teacher who's like, oh, the blue curtains represent whatever. But I think I read, like, the marriage proposal as the. The art or the art genius saying, now you solely belong to me. Like, all you will ever think about is art. You'll become an art monster as well. And. And you won't care about anybody else, and you'll be unable to live a life outside of your art, which is incredibly unhealthy.
- [58:53]
Caroline
As you were talking, I just got this whole sense of how you could stage yellowface as Phantom if you wanted to. No, there's a Phantom injection into yellowface, I think could really work.
- [59:05]
Rebecca Kuang
What is it? Athena's ghost driving boat to the sewer. And she's like, you are my white face.
- [59:16]
Caroline
My lovely art wife. Let's write some books together. Sign with Hachette. Okay, this is. This is like, a technical thing. Is the mask also partly a wig.
- [59:38]
Rebecca Kuang
Perhaps?
- [59:39]
Caroline
So.
- [59:42]
Rebecca Kuang
Honestly, I have not thought about that.
- [59:47]
Caroline
Like, does it have hair attachments? Because it's like, in the musical, when it comes off, we see that. It's like, almost like. And I actually really admire how they do this for musicals because like, if you want to play facial disfigurement in a theater, it has to really play to the back of the house. And it's like this shocking bone white kind of thing. And. And you can see tendrils of hair that haven't grown properly. And it's like it's quite well done. And then in the movie, it's like she rips off the mask and it's like there's some facial deformity, but also the hair completely changes. And I'm like, so is there a toupee affix to the mask?
- [60:21]
Rebecca Kuang
Is that toupee perhaps? So again, I have not been close enough to the stage to see this, but when he has the mask on, he does have this kind of nice slicked back look, like he's not bald as Phantom with mask on. And then the mask comes off and it's like tendrils of hair sticking out of his skull. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's some. But, you know, nobody ever. The hair is never seen. The hair is like the logic of the story. It is only there when people are singing.
- [60:58]
Caroline
Quite true. Quite true. I also just wanted to, while we're here, I know this is obviously an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but this is also the musical made Maria Bjornsson, who's the set designer, extremely famous. And I learned this because I was sort of like, you know, I saw this with a friend of mine who's on the West End and she knows designers and she sort of like, the thing that really hit us was the amount, like, I don't like the spectacle of the physical show is just incredible. Like, how many people are simply on stage is incredible. And like, the way they transform the space is incredible. And she sort of text around to set designers and he sort of said that, oh, yeah, this is the show that makes many set designers want to be in the profession at all. And I just. And Maria Bjornsson, she died very young. She died in her early 50s in 2002 and apparently got tremendously wealthy from this show. And apparently Andrew Lloyd Webber is low key pissed that she gets so much of the credit within theater circle circles. But I just wanted to say her name on this podcast because these people should be remembered.
- [62:02]
Rebecca Kuang
That's very cool.
- [62:03]
Caroline
So, Maria Maria Bjornsson, we salute you. Yeah.
- [62:06]
Rebecca Kuang
Beautiful set design. I say this like I know anything about musical theater, but just as a lay audience member, it is captivating.
- [62:16]
Caroline
When that chandelier drops, man, it is. Ain't nothing like it, nothing like it in the rest of theater. Like, if you compare it to Les Mis, which is just like, a bunch of crap on stage. Like, it's. Come on, you know.
- [62:27]
Rebecca Kuang
Okay, I will say Les Mis was the first show I ever saw West End, and I was, like, flabbergasted by it. And the reason why was I'd never seen a musical live before, and I didn't see Les Mis until just a few years ago. And the only musical I had seen in, like, DVD version was the 10th anniversary concert film of Les Mis, where they're all in character, but they don't do any of the staging. They don't have dialogue. They're not running around. They just walk up to microphones and sing their songs. And I thought that every musical was like that. I thought people in costume just walked up to sing. So when Les Mist starts and there's a revolving circle on the stage and people are walking around and there is a cart that people are pulling, I was like, oh, my God. No. It really blew my mind. And then I've. I haven't seen that many musicals since. I've seen Hamilton, and then I've seen Phantom of the Opera three times. But, yeah, it's always magical to me how much you can do with just some props on stage.
- [63:38]
Caroline
Is there anything else that you want to say about Phantom before we sign off on this conversation? I feel like we haven't talked about the music enough. Is there something. Because, like, neither of us are musicians. I'm assuming you're not. So I'm wondering if you have anything to say about the music itself.
- [63:52]
Rebecca Kuang
Not about the music itself. I would like to talk about Nietzsche now.
- [63:57]
Caroline
Oh, yes, yes, yes. You said this earlier on. Go on, carry on.
- [64:00]
Rebecca Kuang
Okay. The Phantom of the Opera, I would argue, is the best modern representation of an argument that Nietzsche makes in his groundbreaking work, the Birth of Tragedy. And I read this for no reason when I was sick with COVID in the summer of 2022. So that was sitting in my head when I watched Phantom. But Nietzsche's argument in the Birth of Tragedy is that there's, like, these two dramatic structures that the Greeks were really good at in the Greek tragedies, and they're the Apollonian and the Dionysian, after the gods Apollo the sun God, and Dionysus, the God of wine. And he's saying in these two minds, the Apollonian is the mode of reason and order and harmony and logic, and the Dionysian is the mode of intoxication and dream and passion. And that's just so on the surface. In Phantom, Raoul is The Apollonian, he wants things to make sense. He represents order. He represents lawfulness. The Apollonian is not associated with money, but you can just assume that the Apollonians have more money. And the Phantom is Dionysus. He's the God of intoxicated, drunken artistic passion. And when he's singing, every lyric in the Music of the Night is an ode to the Bacchanalian spirit. Let your senses overwhelm you, be swept away by the passion. And I think the most interesting thing that Nietzsche says about this dichotomy is that the Apollonian is the mode of dreaming, and the Dionysian represents the world as it really is when you've come to your senses. And this is backwards from how we would typically have it, we would think that the Dionysian is the dream world, is the myth, is the thing that we need to be woken up from. But. But Nietzsche's arguing that the world of order is an illusion that we have to create for ourselves, that things are not so rational or harmonized or orderly as we would want them to be. And we have to cling to this order in order to exist, really, and be functional in our lives. But when we really let everything go, like, the world is just this chaotic, primordial mess of desires and impulses. And so at the end of the day, the Phantom has the tightest grasp on reality. And Raoul's future that he's offering Christine is an illusion and a dream that will shatter eventually.
- [66:42]
Caroline
Very good.
- [66:44]
Rebecca Kuang
I do Galaxy Bright. It was an extemporaneous spiel that I've been thinking about for a long time.
- [66:51]
Caroline
No, it's. Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, like, I haven't read this, but I want. I would like to. But the sense of, like, our perception of Dionysus, Dionysian versus Apollonian, of like, oh, well, one thing is fantasy and dumb, and the other thing is logical. It has continuity and whatever. And it's like, oh, actually, the. The latter is an illusion and the former is the closer we are to truth. Is that. Is that kind of. What, am I summing that up correctly?
- [67:20]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah. So we read it within Phantom. The argument would be, all the wealth of the viscount and French aristocracy, this orderly world that Christine is entering into, all of that will crumble and fade, but at the end of the day.
- [67:37]
Caroline
Yeah, it has crumbled already, you know?
- [67:40]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah. I wish I knew more about exactly when in French history this story is supposed to have happened, so I could make an argument about that. But at the end of the day, all you really have. All that's real is the swamp with the candles.
- [67:57]
Caroline
Word.
- [67:58]
Rebecca Kuang
We're bored in the swamp. And we return to that swamp.
- [68:01]
Caroline
We return to the swamp. Wow. I mean, I can't really say anything that will top that, so maybe there's a good place to leave it. This is. I knew this was gonna be a fucking fascinating conversation. Cause I think you have the most extraordinary mind. But, like, I really, really loved this. This has been so cool.
- [68:19]
Rebecca Kuang
I had so much fun. Thanks for letting me ramble about the best musical history.
- [68:25]
Caroline
Please. History. And what I've loved about talking about this is that, like, so much of, like, so much of the stuff that we cover on this, I suggest to friends because I'm obsessed with it and to sort of to like, learn about somebody else's obsession that I've come so newly to feel. It's like a great. It's a position of great privilege, and I'm appreciative of it. I really am.
- [68:49]
Rebecca Kuang
And this all started with a terrible bowl of risotto that you suggested I order for some reason. And I was like, this is terrible. I have to find something to talk about. Phantom.
- [69:02]
Caroline
I was so embarrassed by that meal. You've never hung out before, and you're, like, suggesting a place that was so, like, reliably good normally. And we just had, like, the set menu that was like, shit dish after shit dish.
- [69:18]
Rebecca Kuang
Like, I don't have a lot of bad meals in London, but that was one.
- [69:23]
Caroline
It was an extraordinarily bad meal. It was so. I was so embarrassed by how bad the meal was. And I remember you said something, and I was like, oh, I really like her. And she, like. The waitress came over and she was like, and you hadn't finished your soup? And she was like, did you not like your soup? And if it were me or indeed many people, you would go like, no, I loved it. I'm just not great. And super hungry. You're incredible. Do you want my firstborn? And what you said was, she's like, no. You said, no, I think it succeeds in its own aims. It's just not my favorite soup. I was obsessed. I, like, told 10 people afterwards, I was like, I'm obsessed with that girl. That's so funny to me. What I said was, like, it succeeds on its own aims. It's just not my favorite soup.
- [70:08]
Rebecca Kuang
No. She asked like, is something wrong with the soup? And I was like, no, the soup is what it's trying to be, but I just don't like it.
- [70:17]
Caroline
Well, I hope we can have lunch again. And I hope it's somewhere. I hope it's not fucking awful. And I don't have to like, think, like, spend the next month having like, intrusive thoughts about, like, remember when you meant that awesome that you really admire? And you suggested the worst meal ever. So let's hope. Let's hope.
- [70:34]
Rebecca Kuang
Well, I'm looking forward to it. I'll pick next time.
- [70:37]
Caroline
Me too. You can pick next time. But you've got a new book coming out, right? Katabasis.
- [70:42]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah, it's coming out in August of this year. We are in the year.
- [70:46]
Caroline
Holy hell. On a scale of 1 to Phantom, how Phantom is it, do you think?
- [70:51]
Rebecca Kuang
It's actually. It's really, really Phantom. And people go to hell, right? People go to hell. But it's just like, it's got that gothic desire that I've wanted to lean into for so long. And it's good that I was turning in like last edits right around when I saw Phantom so I could take that energy and go back and be like, every bit of longing is now ten times more intense. But yeah, yeah, it's my most Phantom like work and I'm very proud of that.
- [71:21]
Caroline
I can't wait for the work to get progressively more Phantom until you're like asked to adapt it for television or something. As inevitably as we must all eventually leave the profession and become TV writers.
- [71:33]
Rebecca Kuang
Did you know that the director of High School Musical is working on a YA Phantom retelling starring Rachel Ziegler? Those are some facts I know from the Internet.
- [71:44]
Caroline
Rachel Ziegler. Why do I know that name?
- [71:46]
Rebecca Kuang
West side Story, Hunger Games, Snow White.
- [71:49]
Caroline
Okay. Wow. Fun.
- [71:52]
Rebecca Kuang
Yeah, I. I don't know what we're gonna get, but I'll eat it. It could be like the cauliflower soup. It could be what it wants to be and it could just not be my thing. But I wish it all the best.
- [72:09]
Caroline
I wish it all the best. Okay, well, thank you so much, Rekha, and let's have lunch soon.
- [72:16]
Rebecca Kuang
I can't wait. Thank you.
- [72:38]
Caroline
Acast Powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.
- [72:45]
David
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- [73:30]
Rebecca Kuang
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