The credit goes to my friend Teng for finally prodding me into reading this and I am glad she did because it was a glorious experience. Not as glorious as I expected it to be but glorious nonetheless. Thank you, Teng!I’ve heard so much about this novel. I won an ARC last Armchair BEA and before it came in the mail, I hadn’t even heard of it. But once it did, I started noticing it everywhere. In reviews, in bookstores, on shelves that were not my own. I went to the library sale this year and picked up a hardcover copy in very good condition for only 70 cents. It was a deal, yes it was. A good deal. It languished on my shelf for a good long while before I picked it up though. Not because I didn’t want to read it but because there were other books I needed to read for review or checked out from the library.Reading the book is an experience. Heck, just holding it is an experience. It is perhaps the most beautiful book I have had the fortune to hold in my hands. It’s pages, the cover, the construction of the pages into the physical book – these are all so exquisite that reading becomes a sensuous experience. You are feeling the texture of the page on your fingertips as your mind is lost in the wonder of the circus. The Night Circus is the stuff of dreams, you people. The descriptions perhaps do not do it justice because my mind conjured up places that can hardly exist outside the realm of imagination. I could also smell the caramel, taste the popcorn and see the lights of the circus.The novel is exquisitely written – not in the decadent prose characteristic of Franny Billingsley but a clean elegant style that does not waste words. There is a scarcity in the prose and the distinct lack of purple is noted and appreciated. One of my favourite scenes in the book is when Celia comes to audition for the part of the illusionist in the circus. It is narrated so brilliantly that I must have read it at least half a dozen times.Moving on, while I liked this book very much, I did think there were some points to it that could have been better. First of all, I was very frustrated at points in the novel when it seemed the author was deliberately creating a distance between the reader and the protagonists. When I wanted to read about Celia and Marco, the narrative would spend an inordinate amount of time with Bailey and the twins who, though important to the plot, hardly have the prominence that the protagonists have. In fact, this forced distance between the reader and the protagonists made my reaction to their ordeals and to their seemingly tragic love difficult to empathize with. The second person bits were wearying after a while and I simply wanted to know much more about Celia and Marco than I was allowed to.All in all, I liked this novel a lot. It’s gorgeously crafted, well written and envisioned and it’s going to make a marvelous movie whenever it comes out. I loved reading about the circus and all the people who worked in it and I wish that some time in the future, I will be able to visit the tents of the circus and experience for myself the wonder and the lights that lie in them.
