The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- Shalini Prasad
- Jan 22, 2018
- 3 min read
It is always fun when someone else recommends a book to you. You haven’t done any research on the book or may not even have heard about the author. That is precisely why I love recommendations. You have very little expectations on the book (depends on the person recommending) that you are all the more surprised when it blows you away. One such book that came my way was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
Synopsis:
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it… It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway – a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love – a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.
True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.
Review:
Creating a new world within the one we live in is not everyone’s cup of tea, but that cannot be said about Erin. The world that is the circus, the magic involved in bringing it to life every night, the characters, everything was breathtaking. The best part about this book was the way everything was described. Erin has done a great job in making the reader feel like they are actually visiting this magical circus. You can feel the crowd moving around you, you can smell the waft of caramel in the air. It definitely took me back many years when I had visited circuses as a child, making me wonder if each one of them had such magic within its workings.
Although the story is broken into incidents that pan over the years, it all ties together wonderfully in the end. It’s a universal truth that the two main characters in a story will fall in love with each other. Even with that knowledge, we can still enjoy the way in which the characters meet and fall in love. The competition between them, although threatening to tear them apart, also acts as a catalyst to their romance. The writing and structure of the story were simply the best I have seen in a while.
The concept of the rêveurs brings to heart all the pop culture things that we as a community fall in love with, like the fans of Harry Potter (Potterheads), the fans of Sherlock (Sherlockians), and many more. I can totally understand the craze for the circus and why the rêveurs have the need to follow it around the world. If I had the means, I would too. Throughout history, magic has always been something that is in the person’s blood, something they are born into. Erin’s approach where magic can be thought to an ordinary human child is new and makes one feel hopeful. Like, if I didn’t get my letter to Hogwarts, I can be home-schooled to be a witch 😛
Rating: 5/5
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