BOOK REVIEW: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern ★★☆☆☆

SORRY. SPOILERS.

I came across The Night Circus, at my local library, browsing through the YA section. It’s a hyped-up book with a beautiful cover, which I honestly feel, after reading it, was not worth it. Don’t get me wrong; it’s unlike anything I've read before (it does have Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes), but a certain reader, who loves endless descriptions, slow pace, mediocre plot and magical circuses, will adore and give a full 5 stars. Unfortunately, this book didn’t appeal to me, but as I had started it, I had to finish it. It had a great concept, but the characters and plot could have been worked on. And I think my mood prior to reading this was not all there so I apologise if this review sounds like a rant.

With a Victorian backdrop, and multiple viewpoints, told in five parts, set in fifteen locations and spanning from 1873 to 1902, the book starts with the arrival (but before that the creation) of Le Cirque des Rêves, an odd black-and-white striped canvas tent that only open to the public at midnight for one night only, arriving without announcements and warning. Behind the scenes, two young illusionists, Celia Bowen and Marco Alisdair, have been training since childhood to go face to face in an epic duel of imagination and will. Only one can be left standing, and the circus is the stage.

With a blurb like that I was sucked in, however, I don’t really know what was happening with most of the story. You have the main plot, Marco and Celia practising and falling in insta-love, and then the side characters, the big players in the circus and the audience (inevitably you in the second person) attending the circus and I think there’s some sort of a revolution (certain groups of people wearing scarlet scarves) happening at the same time. But that’s about what I could gather from the plot. It’s unique, awe-inspiring, probably intricate is the word I would use, and unworldly to describe the circus acts. But really, the plot wasn’t much and I got my hopes up on a good storyline. This book had a lot to with tone, setting (fifteen locations), and establishing a mood. Adding some filler scenes and a fractured timeline, only made me want to delay reading it.

It starts with the second person, sporadic throughout the book. Morgenstern is inviting you to the circus because your curiosity got the better of you. The majority of the book is written in present tense, third person and it worked for describing imagery, but not so much with the narrative and characters as it seemed to be flat and unrelatable. That’s probably why I wasn’t all too excited to read this book. I usually read fast paced, action books and this one was frustratingly slow. I guess you’re meant to take your time reading it, absorbing the magical circus world and parties of dreamlike wonder and endless descriptions of the tiniest thing ever (usually the colour of dresses, eyes and hair). I mean, Morgenstern writes beautifully, creates a magical circus world with mind-bogglingly elements of ‘vertical cloud maze’ and ‘sea of wispy fluff’, but then again it gets all a bit too much with elegant passages.

I was enticed with the blurb; I was promised unforbidden romance from two rivalling illusionists and a duel of a century. But what I got out of this 400-page + novel was about 80% description of pretty dinner parties, who is wearing what, various circus tents, performances and visual acts of magic. That would have been fine to set the scene for the start of the novel, but it was throughout the novel and in the end, I felt drained and not uplifted. The remaining 20% was dedicated to the duel, the climax that was all too soon deflated because it wasn’t what I was expecting. I wanted something epic (I’m thinking duels in on a Harry Potter scale) but it’s just them making up pretty illusions to impress each other. They were just fascinated with each other's creations from a distance. This book had zero restrictions on what magic can do, or how the illusions even work. Do they just conjure whatever they want out of thin air? Yeah, probably.

The Night Circus had about seventeen characters and five were probably the main characters. I must give Morgenstern a star for Indian and Japanese character diversity. I can’t review each character because you’ll end up reading drivel, plus, it’s hard to keep a track of everybody in this book, with who they were, what they did and their purpose in this tale was confusing. Celia and Marco are probably two flat and boring characters I’d easily forget; just put together for the sake of some plot. Sure, whenever they were in the room, the lights would flicker and the room would grow warm. There was hardly any chemistry. A lukewarm romance that didn’t do much to drive the plot. And may I just add that Marco is, quite frankly, a shitty person. He led his girlfriend Isobel Martin on for years, cheating on her right under her nose with Celia, and then thinks ‘I’ll just erase those memories of us’ and chases after Celia, like a love-struck puppy. Bad Marcus, really bad.

The Night Circus wasn’t a bad book. I think I was just in a bad mood prior to reading this so I may sound a bit grumpy. I could probably see Tim Burton or Guillermo del Toro making The Night Circus into a decent adaption, provided that it improves the plot and has suited actors for the roles. Don’t believe the intense hype – unless you’re the kind of reader who doesn’t mind an anti-climactic, dull love story.

Rating: 2/5
Publishers: Doubleday
Publication date: September 13th 2011
Genre: Fantasy/Romance /YA/ Historical Fiction