The
Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The
Night Circus is essentially a story about love and
magic. In one of the first scenes, we are introduced to the magic – a young
girl, Celia, is sent to her father, Prospero the Enchanter, who finds out about
her natural talent for magic (one of the things that she can do is to shatter
things with her mind when she loses control of her temper). He then meets with
a “man in a gray suit” (who is never named), presumably another magician, and
enters a competition with him (from their conversations we can actually infer
that this is only one in a series of competitions between them, with Prospero
having lost the previous one). The man in the gray suit then goes searching for
a pupil to compete with Celia, finding an orphan called Marco whom he deems
suitable.
The story then follows the lives of Marco and
Celia, who lead very different lives – Marco is kept private from the world,
given an empty house to live in with only his studies to occupy him, while
Celia is shown to the public, often performing her magic for others in order to
earn money, with both aware of each other’s existence but not knowing exactly
who their opponent is. Eventually they are given a venue for their competition:
a “night circus” where both magicians create tents to showcase their magic; for
example, Marco creates the Ice Garden while Celia performs as an impressive
illusionist. Eventually the two discover the identities of their competitor and
they find themselves drawn to each other, falling in love.
One of the most enjoyable things about this
story is the premise: the idea of a competition between the protagonists. For
the majority of the story, although we know the competition is happening, we
are not aware of the rules of the competition, and what must be done to win.
Both Prospero and the man in the gray suit are deliberately cryptic about the
competition, only saying that the competition will go on until one of the two
competitors “cannot continue”. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see how the
competition plays out, and how it affects the lives of Marco, Celia, and the
other occupants of the circus.
Another thing I enjoy is the pacing and
timing of the book. The book moves quite slowly, giving us time to understand
the characters and their actions, and the love story between Celia and Marco does
not actually unfold until the second half of the book, which, likewise, gives
us more time to focus on the individual characters and get to know them. The
secrets regarding the competition are also crucial to the book – the purpose of
the competition is not revealed until near the end, and it crushes the hopes of
Marco and Celia, who at that point want to give up the competition and run away
together, only to find that they cannot. The competition sets up a believable
and difficult barrier to the protagonists’ love, and this is all thanks to the
timing of the book, which is definitely one of the things that make this book
excellent.
[Spoiler]
However, one thing I dislike about the book was the ending. It was a bit of a
cop-out – after coming up with such difficult, challenging obstacles to the
protagonists’ love, the solution seems to have been a bit too easy and not
completely believable. The ending also did not fit the melancholy tone of the
rest of the book; in fact, by the time I got to the ending, I wondered if I was
reading a completely different story, since even the two protagonists seemed to
have been given changes in personality as well.
The
Night Circus is an extremely well-written, intense
book – it has fascinating characters, an
interesting premise and the book flows smoothly, albeit a little slowly. The
only minus is probably the ending, which seems too out-of-place in this book.
Rating: 4.5/5
For ages 15 and above
By TCH
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