Night Circus

Critics

• Book Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern Share

  A beautiful book cover can be quite seductive, much like the dreamlike spectacle of the circus. However, just as the circus is ultimately an illusion designed for frivolous entertainment, so is Erin Morgenstern’s glitzy but ultimately hollow attempt ... (read full critics)

  blogcritics published on Wed, 18 Apr 2012

• 'The Night Circus' by Erin Morgenstern

  So begins Erin Morgenstern's debut novel, The Night Circus, which arrived with more than enough warning, actually — I received an uncorrected proof at least four months before the September publication date. The book has received a mighty marketing p ... (read full critics)

  readingmatters published on Fri, 28 Oct 2011

5 Reviews

• 

  I see what you wanted to do there...

  Some books make you realize why you love reading and others, like "The Night Circus", can kill this appetite. I abandoned this a couple of weeks ago and still can't bring myself to pick up a new book, terrified by the question "What if it is as tedious as this one?"

  I've read my fair share of bad b ... (continue)

  Some books make you realize why you love reading and others, like "The Night Circus", can kill this appetite. I abandoned this a couple of weeks ago and still can't bring myself to pick up a new book, terrified by the question "What if it is as tedious as this one?"

  I've read my fair share of bad books. However, I expected "The Night Circus" to be amazing -it has a circus and wizards, it's set at the end of the XIX Century and it came highly recommended by a friend whose taste I trust. What could go wrong? How could someone mix all those elements and come up with anything short of interesting?

  Well, clearly it can and has been done. To begin with, the author hasn't quite grasped the "show, don't tell" concept. When the (very plain, very boring) characters go somewhere, we are told what this place feels like. We never feel. If they go to a cafe we are told the place was very French. Why? What made it French? Some candles on a table do not a French atmosphere make. We are told someone or somewhere is mysterious, while actually it's just lacking description. The writing style tries hard to be evocative and falls flat on its face. The interesting bits you may have read about on the jacket or other synopsis flop. Here and there the author throws foreign words that are supposed to make the characters look worldly and sophisticated, but it just reads like the idea of Paris or London that a college student may have after spending two weeks in Europe, being ripped off by locals as only clueless tourists can be.

  The same goes for the age the book is set on. We find a date at the beginning of each chapter. Sometimes character remember they're supposed to be fancy and Victorian, and mumble something that is supposed to sound fancy and Victorian, but for the most part we could just as well be reading a story set in 2010.

  All in all "The Night Circus" reminds me of a saying we have in Spain: "Querer y no poder" - it roughly translates as "To want but not be able to" and refers to people or, in this case, books that want to achieve something and fail. It desperately wants to be mysterious, it desperately wants to be magical, it desperately wants to wake up the same kind of feelings a circus show would wake up in a kid, on the age before the Internet. However that seems to be a task way, way out of the reach of its author, and the whole book is just a failed attempt, and a transparent one at that.

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  Adhara said on May 18, 2012 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 

  First and foremost, this is a story of the circus.

  I discovered The Night Circus through its advertising minigame by the same name, and that probably painted my relationship with the book in a peculiar way. The game follows one's view of the circus as a reveur, a recurrent visitor, visiting the var ... (continue)

  First and foremost, this is a story of the circus.

  I discovered The Night Circus through its advertising minigame by the same name, and that probably painted my relationship with the book in a peculiar way. The game follows one's view of the circus as a reveur, a recurrent visitor, visiting the various tents and shows, glimpsing several mysteries that are left unexplained - until you read the book. The writing is very strong, borrowing both from the book itself and the great skill of the guys at Fail Better Games, so I was left dubious when deciding whether to buy the book or not: is it going to be as good? Is it going to degenerate in a sappy romance with magical duels? Is the circus going to lose its magic just because we know its magic?

  The book does not go that way.
  The romance is there, but it does not overwhelm the setting. There is no duel of flashing lights, no rivalry and one-upmanship, no glorious deconstruction of the magic trick. There is the circus, in all its luscious description, and its effect on all the people it touches, from its original creators, its players, its visitors, and even the mysterious masters who first set the challenge in motion.
  To make this even more clear, Morgenstern constantly switches the point of view of the narration, jumping around in time and space so that one minute you're in 1877, then 1902, then 1901 and so on, so forth. It is not easy to keep track of the timeline at times, but it is rewarding.

  There are faults in the book. It is definitely a book of ambience and mood rather than plot and urgency. The character of Isobel needed a bit more fleshing for the role it played, and the ending will feel a bit too easy and a cop out to some, but they're faults I'm willing to overlook for the wonderful experience.

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  Ian Atrus said on Apr 30, 2012 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Full marks to Morgenstern for letting her imagination run wild around the theme of a long standing rivalry between two master illusionists and the lengths they go to to in order to outdo each other. There are parallels with Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell in the choice of subject a ... (continue)

  Full marks to Morgenstern for letting her imagination run wild around the theme of a long standing rivalry between two master illusionists and the lengths they go to to in order to outdo each other. There are parallels with Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell in the choice of subject and period but any resemblance stops there. I remember enjoying the writing as much as the story in Clarke's book but I can't say the same for this one. The adverb 'entirely' turned up on nearly every page - I found that very annoying after a while. There were many other examples of this kind of repitition - the adjectives 'sheer' and 'entire' were overused too. I'd love to know if this bothered anyone else?

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  Top of the pile said on Dec 4, 2011 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Does not live up to the praise it's received

  I would rate this a 2.5 actually. It was filled with wonderful imagery, but that wasn't enough to carry the story. The characters were under developed-- I never got a sense of who they were at all. The love story was especially unconvincing. Why were Marco and Celia in love? I have no clue. Also the ... (continue)

  I would rate this a 2.5 actually. It was filled with wonderful imagery, but that wasn't enough to carry the story. The characters were under developed-- I never got a sense of who they were at all. The love story was especially unconvincing. Why were Marco and Celia in love? I have no clue. Also the game wasn't fully explained, nor was the process of the magic or illusions. It seemed almost easy, but I know it couldn't have been. I wasn't a fan of the narrative style either. It skipped back and forth between time, location, and characters. At times it felt very fragmented with bits and pieces everywhere (like a writer's notebook for example).

  I know this is a matter of taste though. I happen to think characters are more important than the story or setting. I also prefer a clean narrative timeline, which helps me feel like I am experiencing it along with the characters. This is why it felt like half of a book to me.

  SPOILERS BELOW

  Another thing that bothered me was the similarities to Harry Potter and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Like in HP with Harry and Voldemort, one of them was *supposed* to die. But Celia and Marco were not enemies like Harry and Voldemort, they were friends and rivals both, as Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell were. Anytime I read a story that is in any way similar to contemporary books, I get upset because I feel like that is plagiarism. Being inspired by something is one thing, but copying an idea or plot point is not acceptable to me.

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  Moirne Stark said on Oct 10, 2011 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 

  A magical and mysterious novel full of sumptuous visual descriptions. You feel as if you are  experiencing each tent of the circus as you read. The imagery is fantastically detailed.
  Too bad the richness of detail stays mainly on the backdrop and doesn't extend to the characters - they remained one ... (continue)

  A magical and mysterious novel full of sumptuous visual descriptions. You feel as if you are  experiencing each tent of the circus as you read. The imagery is fantastically detailed.
  Too bad the richness of detail stays mainly on the backdrop and doesn't extend to the characters - they remained one dimensional making them hard to care for. (maybe except for Bailey)
  Little drama, some loose ends but all in all a charming read.

   3 and a half stars!

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  Nini said on Oct 4, 2011 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (50)
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• English Books
• Paperback 387 Pages
• ISBN-10: 1846555248
• ISBN-13: 9781846555244
• Publisher: Harvill Secker
• Pub date: Oct 03, 2011
• Dimensions: 232 mm x 155 mm x 32 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Hardcover, Audio CD, Others and eBook

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