Abbreviated

[igenlode]

After a lot of brutal editing of characters and plot elements, I managed to produce a 500-word synopsis of Arctic Raoul -- having with much labour cut my original attempt down to 800 words, I then discovered that other sites recommended that it should be no more than 500, or even 300 words! (In fact I have cut it so far -- phrases like "after many adventures", "a battle of wills ensues" cover four or five chapters -- that it might now make sense to remove all reference to both Kulla and d'Artois, just as I had already excised Lancard and Philippe... :-O)

Young opera singer CHRISTINE DAAÉ has fled Paris with the assistance of the Vicomte RAOUL DE CHAGNY to escape the sinister attentions of ERIK, who used his talents of deception and illusion to pass himself off as the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Now she is safe in her birth country of Sweden, she resolutely sends Raoul away for his own good, since the gulf between them in rank makes marriage an impossibility.

When the disconsolate Vicomte reappears in Paris to resume his naval duties, Erik attempts to force the secret of Christine's location out of him. And once Raoul's ship sails on a rescue mission to find the missing d'ARTOIS and his Polar expedition, all his efforts to protect Christine prove in vain.

Christine suspects nothing until Erik suddenly emerges from the shadows in her bedroom. He tells her that by this time Raoul is dead; Erik had left a timed explosive to destroy his ship. Then he overpowers her and carries her off to a tiny remote farmstead. A battle of wills ensues, and Christine resorts to a campaign of mute resistance. Her only remaining relationship is with the cow KULLA and her calf, who are free to come and go while she is held captive in the barn.

As time goes on, haunted by Raoul's death she begins to lose her own grasp on reality. Events come to a head when Erik falls ill. When he staggers back from his sickbed she clings to him desperately and consents at last to be his bride. But after he has tended her she wakes the next morning with a clear mind. Exhausted and weak, she manages to clamber astride Kulla, and together they set out in a desperate bid for freedom.

Meanwhile Raoul and a handful of others have survived the shipwreck. After a uncomfortable day and night in the ship's boats they manage to re-board the damaged hulk, but the wind is against them, and the crippled ship is driven further and further north. After many adventures and a second wreck they encounter the missing d'Artois expedition and jointly engineer an escape back to Norway, where Raoul encounters rumours of a sick 'Frenchman'. To his astonishment this turns out to be Christine herself.

United in their joy, together they return to France, where family opposition melts away in the relief of Raoul's survival. But the shadow of Erik still hangs over them, and Christine is determined to track him down before he can return. Finally the two of them manage to locate the site of Christine's captivity.

Erik is still there, cornered and dying. Injured during his attempted pursuit of Christine and believing her dead, he is tormented in body and mind. Christine, stricken, forgives him all, and they are reconciled on his deathbed.

Back in Paris the story of Raoul's gallant leadership of his band of survivors makes him a hero in the public eye, to the great pride of his family and of his young wife.

Comments

[igenlode]

I wrote about Kulla a lot (she is a major character during the period of Christine's captivity, then is instrumental in leading Raoul and Christine back to Erik's hut when they come searching for him), but don't appear to have actually *blogged* about her during the writing process, with the exception of a brief mention of "the calf-kissing episode"!
She appears -- simply as 'the cow', as neither she nor her calf had been named at that point -- in the original plot summaries at some length: https://igenlode.dreamwidth.org/111957.html#cutid1
https://igenlode.dreamwidth.org/112466.html#cutid1