The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”
Let me just put it this way: The book is magic. The writing is magic. The plot is about magic. When I said modern literature can hardly measure up to the classics, I didn’t expect to run into this sparkling and mesmerizing prose. The descriptions were immersive, atmospheric and pure enchanting that they encapsulate your emotions at the very point of the book they are placed. This novel will be a piece of luck for anyone with a long plane journey or beach holiday ahead. Yet, if you expect this to be a high-paced, action-packed thrill of a ride, you’ll be sorely disappointed. If you’re not a patient reader, this book might not be for you.
The Night Circus is one of those books that make it especially hard to write a proper review, but I need to get it out there. This book is a tour de force of magical acrobatics. Basically the story begins with two mercurial magicians, masquerading around with arrogance, set their two best pupils, Marco and Celia, against each other in a magical contest. Unbeknownst to Marco and Celia, this is a survival contest in which only one can be left standing, and the mysterious circus is the very colosseum for a miraculous battle of imagination and will. The main problem is that the contestants don’t have the slightest clue about the rules or how victory is determined. The plotline further complicated when the contestants began falling in love with each other.
The author did a marvellous job in describing the wondrous of the circus. Morgenstern’s elaborated descriptions of magical tents and unique performers drawn me into the prose. The plot chain started out fairly loosely that readers see little or no connections between the side characters except for the protagonists. As none of the plot is revealed plainly in one instant, the suspense and confusion will continue to build up. Yet, if you persevere, the author will slowly but steadily weave all the elements together with perfection.
Don’t worry about how long-winded and garrulous some of Morgenstern’s descriptions can be. I guarantee you it weaves this beautiful imagery you’d never forget. There’s only one tiny complaint I have about this book. Morgenstern kind of broke the conventional rule of creative writing: show, don’t tell. The character developments were mainly done in their dialogues. I don’t see this as a huge problem as I focused on the magical literary experiences more than the plotline itself. However, I do see that this can be a turn off for some readers.
All in all, this book is so intricate, so beautiful and so atmospheric. I failed to find better ways to elaborate on how much I appreciate the writing of the story and the outline of how it was intended. Just go read it already.
