Customer Reviews

The Night Circus

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was recommended to me by Amazon. After looking at the 5 or 6 ratings/reviews that raved about this book I bought it instantly. I feel somewhat torn in my overall opinion of the book. It was without a doubt a very unique idea and that is part of the reasons that i did like this book. The author does a fabulous job creating the circus and does in fact make you wish that it would come and visit your town! However, I found it increasingly frustrating as the book goes on. The dates for each chapter in the book seem to jump all over the place and I found it quite annoying to try and follow. This combined with so many questions surrounding the actual competition and some of the characters made it difficult for me to stay interested at certain points in the book. Sometimes when i picked it up i really enjoyed it and other times I could have set it right back down. I didn't particularly care for the ending.. I guess i was expecting more, but I absolutely adored the first chapter "Anticipation". After reading the entire book this is still my favourite part and the one thing keeping me from donating the book to the local library. I don't dislike the book but, but I don't think I will read it again (well, maybe the first chapter!! )

I do wish I had enjoyed it as much as everyone else on here seems to have.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is certainly creating some buzz lately. So, I was excited to receive a copy and see what all the talk was about.

"The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.

Le Cirque des Réves
(The Circus of Dreams)
Opens at Nightfall
Closes at Dawn."

But what visitors don't know is that the circus is a venue for a game. A game between two enigmatic magicians (although they are much more than simple magicians) of indeterminate age and otherworldly skills. Each has chosen a player and trained them for many years. And now that the circus is open, the game begins. The young players, Celia and Marco, are not even sure of the rules, how a winner will be dictated or what the playing should even consist of. And so we follow the circus, the game and the lives of everyone touched by the magic.

Where Morgenstern absolutely excels is in imagination. She has conjured up fanciful, magical places and times. Her prose are rich and lush, painting very vivid images. I often found myself rereading these passages and imagining what one of the attractions would be like. For the attractions at the Cirque des Réves are unlike any other. Each tent contains an unfathomable wonder that you may have only dreamed of.

I loved the following imagery - books as both vehicle and voyage.

"When she opens her eyes, they are standing on the quarterdeck of a ship in the middle of the ocean. Only the ship is made of books, it's sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink. They stand silently together as the ship drifts toward the endless horizon."

Where the book fell from a five to a four for me was in the pacing and character development. The first half of the book moved a little too slow for me. I did end up putting it down for a few days. When I picked it back up, the second half moved much faster, with more action and consequences happening.

Although Celia and Marco are the main protagonists, there are many, many others integral to The Night Circus. Celia and Marco remained for me attractions - I never became truly invested in their love story or struggles, despite the fairy tale feeling of it all. I found myself drawn to many of the other players, especially Bailey. His character is more tangible and I was able to believe him in him more. This could simply reflect the pragmatic nature of this reader.

The Night Circus is a intriguing, inventive foray into a magical world that, deep down, every one of us wishes existed. A very strong debut novel. And a bit of a magical time for Morgenstern - movie rights to The Night Circus have been sold to Summit Entertainment - who also brought you the Twilight movies. It will interesting to see what movie magic can do to reproduce The Night Circus.

Beautiful imagery cannot make up for lack of plot. The story plods along infuriatingly slow and in the end, not much happens. I liked the descriptions of the Circus, but even they got tedious after a while. The much ballyhooed romance described in the dust jacket amounts to a handful of meetings (maybe three or four)and the magic challenge is no more than the two opponents creating pretty things.

Don't believe the hype.

I'm afraid I don't quite agree with most of the reviewers here. Granted, the book's concept is magical and the circus does seem compelling at first. But I got tired of the slow pace of developments, and the jumping around of the timeline, and ultimately the writing style (which seemed designed to describe things beautifully but not actually reveal much).

Somewhere around the middle of this book I realized I didn't really care what happened to the two main characters, and I lost interest in making the effort to piece together what was really going on. The whole premise that was ruling their lives seemed a bit pathetic and I ended up feeling that the ending didn't really matter to me.

From the first few pages of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, I was sucked in. Initially, I was hesitant to read it because I had read mixed reviews on the novel, but I was at the local library one day returning my copy before my rental expired and the librarian asked if I had read it and what did I think of it? Like me, she had heard mixed reviews. Naturally, I had get the book and read it immediately.

The Night Circus is a story about just that ' a circus that comes into town mysteriously, and is open from dusk until dawn. Not only is it about this traveling circus, but it's also about two young magicians, Celia and Marco, both of whom are chosen to compete in a to-the-death duel with one another.

I think what most people didn't like about this novel is that it was slowly paced, but I really liked that about it. The story starts when Marco and Celia are just children and goes through the course of two decades, which couldn't be rushed. Erin Morgenstern is a fantastic writer and each sentence flows into the next with such beautiful imagery and descriptions. Certain spots will have you cringing slightly from the horror, but this book is far from being a horror book. It's magical, fantastical, and just one of the best books I've read.

One thing I really enjoyed about the novel was that it was like two stories in one. We have Celia and Marco's story, and then we also have the story of Bailey, a young boy whose first encounter with the circus was on a dare. It was refreshing to read about him as the story went on, ultimately to have the two stories collide with one another.

My only qualm with the novel is that I didn't quite understand the point of the game ' was it just entertainment for two older magicians? It also was slightly confusing as the book jumps around, which is understandable because the book spans decades, but at times it was just slightly confusing. Once I got into the novel, it wasn't so bad to figure out what was going on.

All qualms aside, I still really enjoyed this book and it was a pleasant change from some of the current offerings. The funny thing is that the whole time I was reading it I thought to myself that it would make an amazing movie, and I just learned that the movie rights were purchased. I look forward to it as well as to reading more of what Erin Morgenstern comes up with in the future.

"The Night Circus" is a rare book -- it is fiction, it is fantasy, it is fairy tale, it is a circus tale, and it is a magical romance. Erin Morgenstern's debut novel is one of those rare stories that simply grabs your imagination and refuses to let go -- full of haunting magical experiences and eccentric characters, but also in need of some editorial trimming at times.

In the vein of "The Prestige," there are two children in the blossoming time of the Gilded Age, and only room for one of them. Celia is a born magician -- she is left at Le Cirque des Reves with Prospero the Entertainer, a place of strange people and even stranger magics.

And Prospero conspires to create the greatest magical battle in history by pitting young Celia against her only rival, Marco. Like Celia, Marco was a child of great power, abandoned because of it and groomed by a weird man. You can probably guess where this magical concatenation of Shakespeare and magic is going: the two kids fall in love, and try to be together despite the destined battle they have been groomed for.

Erin Morgenstern is undeniably a richly talented writer -- she crams this story full of eerie happenings, odd characters, drifting smoky magic, and fairy-tale atmosphere that happens to be set in the middle of a strange, almost dangerous circus. Perhaps "The Night Circus'" biggest flaw is that it needs a little editorial pruning, in some spots that needed a little less description.

The romance here feels pleasantly organic -- Morgenstern lets them drift together and intertwine in the context of the story, avoiding instant super-passion or big flashy displays. It burns slow and soft as it goes on, and feels all the richer because it avoids "Twilight"-style theatrics and hyperbole. But hanging over it all the time is the creepy, dark threat to the two young magicians.

And the magic is much the same, seeping into the pages like a rich scent. This story is slow, subtle and shimmering, like diamond-studded velvet floating through the air, and the inclusion of steampunky technology (trains, electric lights, industrial factories) merely highlights the magic.

Both Celia and Marco could have used a little more polishing, but they are likable lead characters, and you do want them to find their happily-ever after. But the truly engaging characters are the rich supporting casts -- Tsukiko the contortionist, the twins, a weird clockmaker, and the manipulative mentors of the two young magicians.

Erin Morgenstern casts a spell over the reader, sweeping us into the sensual beauty of the "Night Circus" -- and leaving us craving more stories set in her enchanted world.

...but the 'Prestige' just didn't unfold.

I was so besotted with the early stages of this novel. Through almost a hundred pages. But there is a massive difference between a 'wonderful first novel that so many people enjoy', and a 'great novel', period.

In order to accomplish the latter, a rookie has to not just have a great premise injected with audacity and style and flair...but the ability to...to...

It's the difference between a 'vocalist' and a 'singer'.

There's mastery at work when a début novel is a phenomenal accomplishment. And as good as this effort is, there was something lacking. For me, undeniably lacking.

I'll be honest and say that I suspect that two elements stood in her disfavour: the use of present-tense to tell the tale, and the economical style of prose.

Ms Morgenstern might have gotten away with the latter had she provided more oomph in the paucity of sentences. But I never felt I was in the presence of a great writer.

And the former- Well, I believe that it played against her at times, even though it's perfect for accentuating action, showcasing a rich development.

On top of these two aspects, the third act...sank.

I kept waiting for a magnificent conclusion...but there was no deftness-of-touch when it came to the 'star-crossed lovers' portion of the story, nothing that was heightened sufficiently to match the opening segments, nothing transcendent...which, given all the components, should have been there.

(And I have to add this: I was so taken by the tale initially that I went so far as to send the author a copy of a short screenplay I'd written years back, because her novel resonated with the same tone, a twinned sense of loving wonder.)

This believable magical tale kept me entertained for hours. I didn't give it 5 stars because I initially had problems trying to keep the order of events sorted out. Read and remember the dates at the beginning of each chapter or you are rapidly going to get confused. I know I did! Other than that the novel drew me into a mystical world where fabrics change colour on a whim, birds transform into hats and two lonely people find happiness. The text is rich in imagery and the characters are touchingly real. A lovely read.

The story contained within this book is truly unique and I admit I appreciate it very much on that level. There are not many tales out there about an unusual competition in a quirky circus. It really is quite lovely. There are, however, some problems with the writing behind said story.

There are seemingly two stories occurring at close to the same time before finally completely overlapping one another. This is indicated by the dates which appear under the chapter headers, telling the reader what day, month and year the chapter will be set in as well as the location. This in and of itself should not be a problem, if handled properly, but the time-lines can become somewhat jumbled and at times even inconsistent.

Regarding the characters, most of them are very flat and one-dimensional. With others, it's almost as though the author was trying much too hard to make them mysterious or eccentric, with characters smiling slyly or uttering phrases such as, 'You will know in time.'

There's also the matter of having too many main characters inside of one book. When you write every character as some sort of lead, it then appears as though there is too much going on with having to focus on each one individually. In fact, most of the characters in this novel were leads and not supporting, which makes the fight for dominance a tad overwhelming.

The climax of the book, in contrast, is entirely underwhelming; it's not fully fleshed-out and even though there is an attempt to explain the reasons behind holding the competition (something which the writer needlessly convolutes when it should be something very simple to explain), this reader was left feeling that the point was rather, well...pointless.

The book is also, for a change of pace, written in the third-person narrative style with present tense. This doesn't occur too often in books and there's a reason why -- it's the most difficult to pull off and very few actually can. Aside from the fact that the story changes tense several times throughout the novel, it's also much harder to become immersed in the world the author has created, along with the language sometimes becoming quite limited (see below).

Now we're getting into actual language and structure. This is not the most poorly-written book out there, not by any means, though it suffers in several areas, the first being -- as mentioned in the title of this review -- laziness. There are far too many incomplete sentences, or sentence fragments, scattered throughout this novel. Here are some examples:

'She tells you facts you already knew. Information you might have guessed. Possibilities you cannot fathom.'

'Instead, and he is not entirely certain why, he keeps the subject alive. Bringing it up as often as possible. Pointing out that he could always go and return to the farm after the fact, that four years is not a terribly long time.'

In other instances, sentences are drawn out for far too long, commas separating what should certainly be two separate sentences. At the very least a semi-colon would have been more appropriate, if not an entirely new sentence. Examples:

'It's sort of all jumbled and I don't really like the red bit, when I saw it, it hurt my head.'

'That tree is rooted in the ground, it is a living tree even if it does not have leaves.'

Some of the language is overly repetitive at times as well. A lot of this has to do with the narrative/tense, which I previously mentioned. The dialogue is the worst offender, with each character ending off his/her sentence with 'he/she says' or 'he/she asks'. There are times when five or six pieces of dialogue in a row end in the same way, as displayed here:

'That's the Wishing Tree,' Isobel says. 'It's new.'

'I know it's new,' Marco says. 'Why didn't you tell me about it?'

'I haven't had time to write you,' Isobel says. 'And I wasn't even sure whether or not it was something you had done yourself. It seemed like something you might have made. It's lovely, the way wishes are added to it, by lighting candles with ones that are already lit and adding them to the branches. New wishes ignited by old wishes.'

'It's hers,' Marco says.

If the writer chose a different tense, it would have opened her up to a much wider array of options which can't be done otherwise.

Lastly, in the very last chapter of the book, there is reference to an e-mail address. I could have sworn the entire story took place before the internet. I have no idea how that slipped by the editing room.

To reiterate, the story is lovely, but the writing could use some tweaking.

** 1/2 out of *****

Note: Someone pointed out that it is possible the last chapter takes place in the technological era. This last chapter is one of several throughout the book which is told from a character's perspective (hence the third person narrative) as he tells a story to another man. In the previous chapter, it is stated that he is telling this story as of January, 1903. Being that the chapter indicating the e-mail address is part of a story being told in 1903, this is obviously a glaring error.

I thought this would be a fantastic book after I read all of the reviews. I have less than 100 pages left to go and I am forcing myself to finish- I'd rather just give it away unfinished. I feel like nothing has happened at all. It explains a magical circus. That's about it.