The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Previously published in the Herald magazine.

The plot of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus is not very complicated.  Two people are pitted against each other in what is essentially a contest between their instructors - a contest that bears very final consequences on the players themselves. Both instructors have bound their students since they were children in a game the players themselves do not completely understand, and yet are bound to perform in. It is expected they will strive against each other, but of course, what pulls them apart is also what makes each so attractive to the other. It’s a simple enough premise and with Morgenstern’s impressively visual, sensuous language, there really isn’t need for any further complication. Very rarely does a novel – particularly a debut – make you feel the way The Night Circus does: it isn’t a world you want to let go of easily.

The titular circus is a mysterious, magical place where the audience members are active spectators who wind their way through multiple tents experiencing what they believe is simply illusion but of course, it is much more than that: it’s a little bit vaudeville, a little bit Moulin Rouge with just enough of the carnivalesque. For Celia and Marco, Le Cirque des Rêves is a sort of stadium where they compete in magical creativity. Yes, there is magic involved; there is magic and illusion, slow burning romance and passion of every kind to send the book soaring. The Night Circus is enticing and sensuous in so many ways: the circus itself is a feast for all senses – tents that feature ice gardens, mazes made of clouds, living statues or carousel’s of animals that come to life when you ride them – every nuance is catered to total submersion of the senses for each circus visitor and by proxy each reader. But it’s important to want to be a part of this: as Morgenstern writes ‘if you resisted at all it would not work as well … proximity is key for the immersion’. And so it is important for each reader of The Night Circus to want to submit to the charm of the narrative. If you are not willing to suspend your disbelief, if you are not willing to let go of reality, if you are not willing to believe in magic and enchantment and love then don’t read this book: this isn’t the book for you. This book wants your imagination, and it will do wonderful things with it but only if you are willing to hand it over.

This is a charming, evocative story paced beautifully and laid out with perfect intricacies in time and space, reality and illusion. The narrative is often descriptive, with vignettes about various circus attractions interspaced with the life of the circus and Celia and Marco’s relationship. These aren’t just descriptions of the world the narrative exists in; they are much more subtle. These vignettes are their romance and the evolution of their relationship as well as of their own individual personalities in the wondrous circus of dreams.

The Night Circus clearly references Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus, and many moments in Morgenstern’s narrative resonate with the charm of both Carter and Diana Wynne Jones. Of course, within the element of magic there is a deep darkness that shifts under the shiny stars in the sky of the circus, an undertow that pulls at each of the characters minds and souls. There is cruelty in Prospero the enchanter using ‘a pocket knife to slit his daughters fingertips open, one by one, watching wordlessly as she cries until calm enough to heal them, drips of blood slowly creeping backward. … Her father gives her only moments to rest before slicing each of her newly healed fingers again.’ There is a strange, troubled courtship with Marco constructing ‘tiny rooms from scraps of paper. Hallways and doors crafted from pages of books and bits of blueprints, pieces of wallpaper and fragments of letters…chambers that lead into others that Celia has created. Stairs that wind around her halls. Leaving spaces open for her to respond.’ There is also tragedy and humour and so, so much magic – there should be magic in all good stories, no matter what the genre.