conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about York, Times with the genre: Literature & Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'The Phantom of the Opera'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first three paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Phantom of the Opera
  It is a most extraordinary, clever, fantastic tale, original in idea and masterly in treatment. The plot deals with the Opera House in Paris, from the lyre of Apollo on top of its seventeen stories to the lake that lies beneath its five cellars, and tells of the weird occurrences in this vast and mysterious building that have made people believe in the presence of a ghost, and with the kidnapping of the prima donna, the startling culmination of these strange events.
  It is not a ghost story in the ordinary sense. It is that, but is much more, for, while all of the several persons through whose eyes one successively views the scenes of the story believe the mysterious happenings to be due to an apparition, the reader is let clearly into the secret that they are really the work of a human being. Thus the plot possesses double powers of enthrallment ; it plays upon the imagination uncannily and, at the same time, evokes a deeper human interest in the fate of the several persons prominent in it.
  The plot is frankly fantastic, but the skill with which the illusion is established makes it sufficiently credible for all ordinary purposes.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Leroux is no Edgar Allan Poe, and in this case it is well that he is not, for, had he been—starting with such a premise as that of his story-he would have wound up in such an awful literary ossuary that no reader, apart from a degenerate or a lunatic, would have been able to stand the verbal stench.
  I am not saying that it is not an unusual and highly interesting story. In fact, it is one of the all-night kind, where you don't stop reading until the morning milkman rattles the cans at the front stoop.
  Leroux was evidently first inspired by the architectural marvels of the world's greatest opera house, which is the Paris temple of music-drama. This structure, of colossal size and luxurious splendor, has four or five stories underneath the ground, has also a subterranean lake which had to be mastered before the foundations could be secured, and in its time has served not only as an academy of music, but as a fortress, an arsenal, and a refuge for military fugitives.
  Placing his plot back a number of years, Leroux introduces the reader and a new management simultaneously, and lets both reader and management face an uncanny problem—the "opera ghost." This creature, though seldom seen, occupies a box, demands a tremendous indemnity for his personal expenses, exercises a supernatural charlatanism over the mechanical and physical end of the institution, and, when his ogreish demands are refused, destroys property and actually kills innocent people.
  A beautiful and young Swedish singer of celestial voice, Christine Daaé, is beloved by the ghost, whose affection, in its ardor and cruelty, seems to transcend any earthly admiration.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A beautiful and young Swedish singer of celestial voice, Christine Daaé, is beloved by the ghost, whose affection, in its ardor and cruelty, seems to transcend any earthly admiration.
  I am not saying that it is not an unusual and highly interesting story. In fact, it is one of the all-night kind, where you don't stop reading until the morning milkman rattles the cans at the front stoop.
  Leroux was evidently first inspired by the architectural marvels of the world's greatest opera house, which is the Paris temple of music-drama. This structure, of colossal size and luxurious splendor, has four or five stories underneath the ground, has also a subterranean lake which had to be mastered before the foundations could be secured, and in its time has served not only as an academy of music, but as a fortress, an arsenal, and a refuge for military fugitives.
  Placing his plot back a number of years, Leroux introduces the reader and a new management simultaneously, and lets both reader and management face an uncanny problem—the "opera ghost." This creature, though seldom seen, occupies a box, demands a tremendous indemnity for his personal expenses, exercises a supernatural charlatanism over the mechanical and physical end of the institution, and, when his ogreish demands are refused, destroys property and actually kills innocent people.Leroux is no Edgar Allan Poe, and in this case it is well that he is not, for, had he been—starting with such a premise as that of his story-he would have wound up in such an awful literary ossuary that no reader, apart from a degenerate or a lunatic, would have been able to stand the verbal stench.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: In those days, it was still part of the firemen's duty to watch over the safety of the Opera House outside the performances; but this service has since been suppressed. I asked M. Pedro Gailhard the reason, and he replied:
  Like the Persian, I can give no further explanation touching the apparition of this shade. Whereas, in this historic narrative, everything else will be normally explained, however abnormal the course of events may seem, I can not give the reader expressly to understand what the Persian meant by the words, "It is some one much worse than that!" The reader must try to guess for himself, for I promised M. Pedro Gailhard, the former manager of the Opera, to keep his secret regarding the extremely interesting and useful personality of the wandering, cloaked shade which, while condemning itself to live in the cellars of the Opera, rendered such immense services to those who, on gala evenings, for instance, venture to stray away from the stage. I am speaking of state services; and, upon my word of honour, I can say no more. [Leroux's note]
  All the water had to be exhausted, in the building of the Opera. To give an idea of the amount of water that was pumped up, I can tell the reader that it represented the area of the court-yard of the Louvre and a height half as deep again as the towers of Notre Dame. And nevertheless the engineers had to leave a lake. [Leroux's note]
  Inhabitants of the northernmost part of Vietnam. †An official report from Tonkin, received in Paris at the end of July, 1909, relates how the famous pirate chief De Tham was tracked, together with his men, by our soldiers; and how all of them succeeded in escaping, thanks to this trick of the reeds. [Leroux's note] ‡Female member of the family of the sovereign of a Muslim state.
  It is very natural that, at the time when the Persian was writing, he should take so many precautions against any spirit of incredulity on the part of those who were likely to read his narrative. Nowadays, when we have all seen this sort of room, his precautions would be superfluous. [Leroux's note]
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: [Leroux's note]. I asked M. Pedro Gailhard the reason, and he replied:
  Like the Persian, I can give no further explanation touching the apparition of this shade. Whereas, in this historic narrative, everything else will be normally explained, however abnormal the course of events may seem, I can not give the reader expressly to understand what the Persian meant by the words, "It is some one much worse than that!" The reader must try to guess for himself, for I promised M. Pedro Gailhard, the former manager of the Opera, to keep his secret regarding the extremely interesting and useful personality of the wandering, cloaked shade which, while condemning itself to live in the cellars of the Opera, rendered such immense services to those who, on gala evenings, for instance, venture to stray away from the stage. I am speaking of state services; and, upon my word of honour, I can say no more. [Leroux's note]
  All the water had to be exhausted, in the building of the Opera. To give an idea of the amount of water that was pumped up, I can tell the reader that it represented the area of the court-yard of the Louvre and a height half as deep again as the towers of Notre Dame. And nevertheless the engineers had to leave a lake. [Leroux's note]
  Inhabitants of the northernmost part of Vietnam. †An official report from Tonkin, received in Paris at the end of July, 1909, relates how the famous pirate chief De Tham was tracked, together with his men, by our soldiers; and how all of them succeeded in escaping, thanks to this trick of the reeds. [Leroux's note] ‡Female member of the family of the sovereign of a Muslim state.
  It is very natural that, at the time when the Persian was writing, he should take so many precautions against any spirit of incredulity on the part of those who were likely to read his narrative. Nowadays, when we have all seen this sort of room, his precautions would be superfluous.In those days, it was still part of the firemen's duty to watch over the safety of the Opera House outside the performances; but this service has since been suppressed.