Does Daniel O’Mahony have
some sort of obsession with French literature?
I mean his second Doctor Who novel features heavily themes and
influences from the likes of Victor Hugo and Gaston Leroux. His portrayal of Dodo is essentially Fantine
from Les Miserables mixed with
Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre
Dame, the story is set in an alternate universe where the French Revolution
never ended and so many of the chapters are titled in reference to the
literature of the French Revolution and direct translations of the titles, Les Miserables and Le Fantome de L’Opera.
There is references to several French works and O’Mahony uses a lot of
French tropes in the way of his storytelling with a heavy handed message about
revolutionary spirit and your standard troupe of actors. Oh and randomly throw in quite a few
references to William Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream. There’s
also this really weird send up to The
Prisoner with the titular “man in the velvet mask” being Monsieur le
6. He is not a number, he is a man. This is basically a weird mix of stylings
which really makes the story have a tone which is very mixed as it doesn’t know
where to take the story. The novel
outside of the elephant in the room which I will get to later, is much lighter
in tone than Falls the Shadow. This is a really good thing as I don’t think
it would really fit the era of the show where it was in 1966. He does get the actual tone of the show down
pretty well for a lot of its flaws.
The portrayal of the
First Doctor is a very real portrayal of the dying man near the end of his
life. The events of The Daleks’ Master Plan, The Celestial Toymaker and The Savages are taking their toll on his
body. He can feel his first regeneration
coming up and while ready to embrace it, is very scared as he doesn’t know what
it is going to be like. O’Mahony also
does really well at making Hartnell have that air around him of not really
taking a lot of things seriously and still enjoying himself as he meddles in
history. The titular man in the velvet
mask is also a really fun character as he is an allegory for quite a lot of the
characters in the story who also wear different types of masks to hide their
true identities. The theme of masks is a
very strong one throughout the story from the start where O’Mahony introduces
us to the Marquis de Sade who is a red herring as to who the villain is and the
twists. De Sade is not a good character,
but he is really the man trying to keep himself alive while the Revolution is
burning all around him. He is a survivor
who is wearing a mask to keep himself safe which is great. The rest of the characters are all pretty one
note as they consist of guards, who are obviously boring, and the theater
troupe Dodo hooks up with. The theater
troupe as featured are at least a little bit interesting as they are all
wearing masks as a way to survive which is great. There is a standout with the character based
off the Phantom of the Opera which is a really interesting angle for a beauty
underneath story. The other character
who really stands out is Dalville, which means we have to get to that elephant
in the room.
Now remember the warning
I put at the beginning of the review, yeah this is your final chance to look
away as we are going to get into the nitty gritty of the story. Dodo and Dalville develop a relationship and
in the end of the story they have sex.
Now I don’t have a problem with Doctor Who including sex in its plots
and I especially approve of what O’Mahony is trying to do with the sex. He’s trying to show Dodo having a sacrifice,
which is contracting alien syphilis because the villain Minski has a virus
which resembles syphilis. The problem is
that this is Dodo who we are talking about who just doesn’t understand and is
trying to act out. This becomes a
downfall after of course O’Mahony does so well at getting Dodo a good character
for this novel. It really isn’t something
that is easy considering Dodo was a Susan clone. It is also exceedingly cruel to Dodo who
while not a character I like, does not deserve this.
To summarize, The Man in the Velvet Mask is an
incredibly easy read to get through with a really good tone with some pretty
odd plotting. The biggest flaw is the
implications it has for Dodo and the characters really being stock archetypes
which really doesn’t work very well and almost has a tone that does not have a
lot of stability. 50/100
No comments:
Post a Comment