“The Night Circus”, by Erin Morgenstern, is a strange book. The premise is that two sorcerors have a proxy duel by training up two children into adulthood and placing them in competition with one another. In this case the venue (and the competition) is a night circus, a place of wonder and magic. But their plans are thrown into chaos when the two competitors fall in love.
If you’re looking for a sense of wonder, this is the book. Morgenstern makes us all “reveurs” with her descriptions of the nocturnal, black and white circus and its many magical tents. We’re given a cast of characters who are easy to love and admire. We’re given a simple, yet effective plot. We’re given everything we could possibly want for a book that simply cannot be forgotten. Except a satisfying ending.
Don’t get me wrong, this is still a good book, worth the read for the imagery alone, if nothing else. But the plot is not so much resolved as transitioned. It goes until it stops, and at least in my case, the denouement is presented to us by people we care less about, wrapping up details that don’t really matter, while giving us only third-hand information about the characters we care most about. Don’t tell me Bailey is happy, show me!
In some ways this book lends support to “Sanderson’s First Law of Magic,” that the more the reader understands about the system of magic the more the writer can use that magic to resolve things within the story. The magic in this novel is described as far as what it looks like, but not how it works. It appears to have no limitations, no real rules, except when the author tells us details that simply must be so in order to forego certain options for resolving the plot. But when the moment of truth arrives I felt no anxiety, no suspense at all over the outcome. When anything is possible…anything is possible. I had no reason to doubt they could fix things.
And that solution was ultimately unsatisfying, partly because we had simply traded one static situation for another, and partly because we are not really allowed to investigate whether or not the new static state is better. It’s just assumed that it is.
But as writing evoking a sense of wonder goes, this is some of the best I’ve seen. The rest can easily be forgiven for the chance to experience the Night Circus in all its glory and the almost carefree progression toward the ultimate end.