“The Night Circus” – Erin Morgenstern
I wrote nothing, yesterday. I had just finished
revisiting The Night Circus, and trying to produce anything in the
aftermath seemed futile. It’s one of those stories so brilliantly told that I am
at once inspired and intimidated. All I really wanted to do after closing the
cover was burst into tears and gush about how wonderful it is. Magical.
Alluring. Poignant. Misty. Melancholy. Beautiful. Dreamy. Colourful. Dazzling.
Romantic. Tragic. Sweet. Stark. Fragile. Masterful. Gorgeous. The adjectives
are innumerable. I rarely happen on a novel that I want to read more than once.
This one, I suspect, will become an annual event. It deserves to be read over
and over and over again.
My first run last winter left me breathless and in
awe. This time, though I knew what was to come, I was able to comprehend it
better and that made for a richer experience. It’s like a glass box full of
jewels, glistening and intensely-hued, so mesmerizing that you can’t look away.
You want to lift the lid and inspect every facet, to see how the light plays
off the surface and reflects on your skin while you hold it. She writes with an
elegant simplicity that sets you right in the scene. Her description of a
dining room where the candlelight is “deep and warm and bubbling” just sends
me. There’s a poetry, an artistry, in being able to write like that, to paint
so richly with language and yet not overwhelm the reader with pretentious
stodge.
And the story itself? Where did she come up with this
thing??? A challenge between magician instructors where their students are ignorant and
the circus is the venue. Only one can win, but what happens when the opponents
fall in love? And what happens to the circus when they do? So there’s a
morality tale as well as magic and romance; mysteries abound until pretty well
the last scene – a conversation between one of the challenge instructors and a
boy who can read the past. They speak of magic in terms I completely
understand, so … does it exist or doesn’t it?
If The Night Circus is any indication, it most
certainly does.
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