“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”
Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern’s mesmerizing debut novel, was published somewhat recently in September 2011. The rights to the movie were bought before the book was even published, and let me tell you, this will be some movie. I finally got a chance to read the novel over winter break after my older sister raved about how excellent it was. And I would definitely recommend it, especially if you’re into romance, magic and story-telling.
The Night Circus is about Celia and Marco, two young illusionists chosen and bound by their trainers to duel each other. Naturally, of course, they fall in love. Although that is the main premise, there is still much more to the novel. The duel between the two lovers is more of a challenge, like a game of chess instead of an outright battle. The competitors don’t know much about it, except that their chessboard is the eccentric and magical Le Cirque de Reves (The Circus of Dreams), or the titular Night Circus. While Celia’s story and Marco’s story unfold and overlap, the story of a young boy named Bailey who visits and falls in love with the circus is interspersed so that there are at least two timelines told. Bailey actually ended up being my favorite part of the novel, but I digress.
Something else I want to share that is special about this novel is the narration. There are a few lovely second-person segments that put you right into the story, right at the otherworldly circus (“You think, as you walk away from Le Cirque des Reves and into the creeping dawn, that you felt more awake within the confines of the circus. You are no longer quite certain which side of the fence is the dream.”). But most of the novel is narrated in the third-person, present tense, so the novel reads as if everything is happening as you read it. This narration lends to the imagery, which is spectacular, and it really puts the reader right into the story for a pretty dazzling experience.
I must be honest and warn you that it did take me a little while to get into The Night Circus; I had high expectations going in and I found it to be slow at first. Ultimately, however, I really loved this novel. This book is beautiful. Do not miss out on the magic that is Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus.
Picture source: http://erinmorgenstern.com/the-night-circus/