The Night Circus

A Novel

By: Erin Morgenstern

Narrated by: Jim Dale

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.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

©2011 Erin Morgenstern (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

" The Night Circus made me happy. Playful and intensely imaginative, Erin Morgenstern has created the circus I have always longed for, and she has populated it with dueling love-struck magicians, precocious kittens, hyper-elegant displays of beauty, and complicated clocks. This is a marvelous book." (Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife)

"Self-assured, entertaining debut that blends genres and crosses continents in quest of magic…. Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings." ( Kirkus Reviews)

"Debut author Morgenstern doesn't miss a beat in this smashing tale of greed, fate, and love... a giant, magical story destined for bestsellerdom. This is an electric debut on par with Special Topics in Calamity Physics." ( Publishers Weekly)

Dreamlike Experience to Savor

This story envelops the reader. I cannot think of another book I have so thoroughly relished. With each and every sentence the author invites you to feel, taste and smell the Night Circus.This circus is like nothing else, beyond imagination. Yet I could see myself there, and although the circus is in only black and white, I was immersed in color and texture. Listening to this story is like eating the most amazing meal in the most beautiful placed you can imagine while sitting next to someone with whom you are infatuated. What a wonderful dream, I want to return and feel it all again, so sad when the book ended. And the narration brings it all alive, kudos to both author and narrator.

This novel did not match the hype around it.

Not sure what the hype is about. It was a really detailed book with a lot of descriptions and some were really interesting, some not so much. It just ended up being OK. Not great, not wonderful. Not sure I would read it again though. And I found that disappointing. I think a circus setting is marvelous and the idea of magical people controlling it was interesting too but was never made into anything that wowed me. The storey disintegrated into a love story about two people we really didn't know much about personality wise and didn't care that much about. They were not the most interesting people at the circus but the interesting ones didn't get their stories told at all. Over all it was like a novel trying to pull in trends from other books that were big hits. Steampunk, wizards and magic, forbidden love, etc, etc. It was almost like the writer was trying so hard to hit all the trends that they forgot to write a good story. The descriptions of some of the stuff were interesting but descriptions of settings do not a good novel make unless they make the STORY more interesting. This just didn't grab me. But the narrator was great!

Where's the rest?

This book does not end, it just stops. Nothing is resolved, no questions are answered and there is no sense of closure. It seems more like an interesting dream than a story. There is interesting imagery and things you'd like to find out more about, but nothing is really tied together. Nothing means anything. There is no real story, just the imagery.

Also, the narrator sounds like the guy who narrated the TV show Pushing Daisies. He's quite over the top, which works for this book, but some people will definitely not enjoy listening to him for this long.

Boring

Overall, a pretty boring story. The author tried hardly to give it a grand open, but then continued with lengthy descriptions on trivial stuff. Nothing happened actually.

The reader was good. However, the accent he gave was farmer like, and the girls sounded like old guys.

A Lovely Dark Dream, Beautifully Narrated.

Jim Dale could read me the ingredient list off a ketchup bottle and I would love it, something about the way he narrated, the changes in pitch, tone, accent, and cadence that he glides between so effortlessly is wonderful and gives a story so much more. He truly lifts it off the page and breaths it into life!



That said, This book is far more interesting than ketchup bottle contents in its own right. It’s Intricate, enchanting, and imaginative, quite like the interwoven pieces of an ever expanding and simultaneously repetitive dream. There are moments where you would swear you’ve heard this part before but it’s different, at another time and place and you experience a sort of pleasantly mysteries dezavoo. The story skips around between people, places and times, and will keep you wanting more. You’ll find yourself drawn to certain characters and then being torn away from them and waiting breathlessly for their reappearance while listening to something that for the moment may seem irrelevant but in the end will aide you greatly in understanding the grand final. From the very first page you can feel the underlying edge of darkness and mystery that never relents, but there is a wonderful and ever growing level of beauty to it. I would have given it five stars but I wasn’t entirely happy with the ending, but perhaps I was simply not ready to leave “Le Cirque Du Reve”.

Spellbinding

One of those rarities. Style, substance and execution come together in near perfection. I finished this book a couple of weeks ago. Despite having taken in two more perfectly good "reads" since, the dreamlike memory of The Night Circus lingers and pervades.

Difficult to get through

Is there anything you would change about this book?

This was an odd listen. I found it quite difficult to get into this book and left it for quite a while after the first chapter before listening again. I seemed to spread out listens because I couldn't get entirely into it... Parts of the book were very enjoyable and parts were enigmatic. I couldn't relate particularly well to Celia or Marko and had great difficulty visualizing either of them. I must say that the narrator was excellent and handled various aspects of the book extremely well.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

I felt there were several endings.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Possibly.

Hands down, the best book I've listened to...

... in a very long time. I've recommended it to everyone I know and haven't gotten a single response other than that they loved it - and it doesn't matter whether they like war stories and Westerns (my husband) or Lord of the Rings (my son) or Tuesdays with Morrie (my daughter) or PD James novels (my mom). Now, how can you resist a book that has that kind of following?

Well-written and wonderfully read

Yes, it's a descriptive book, but it's the kind that leaves you feeling, tasting and ultimately, dreaming. The reading is wonderful as well and I have noticed, I preferred listening to it with earphones on, rather than in the car, for instance. Made me "feel" the story better.

I think I'll have to listen to it again. The story is not difficult to understand but I feel as though it is one of those books that with each reading, unveils some details you hadn't noticed before...

Beautiful imagery, slightly weak story

The Night Circus is a beautiful book (in more ways than one if you can get your hands on a physical copy) and contains some incredibly rich imagery. The only problem I have with it is it's pretty obviously a collection of images tied together with a story after the fact. The images are incredibly beautiful. The story serves as a delicate connector to all of the vignettes describing the places and people of the Cirque, but it almost feels like it would work better as a graphic novel than a fully executed work of fiction. Still, it's a great first outing for Erin Morganstern, and her PR machine is incredible to get such a stellar collection of deals for her based on this book.