Week 7 Night Circus

I have previously tried to read The Magicians and found it too slow to finish. The way Alexander conducted interviews in The Night Circus reminded me of the auditioning the students in Magicians. I think maybe if I had been reading Circus rather than listening to it on audio book I might have felt the same way.

The set-up of establishing the rules of the way magic works in a modern recognizable setting seems to take quite a bit a time. Also, scattering between time and location in Circus makes it harder to connect with the rising action. However, it was still fun anyway. I liked the circus setting than the academic setting in Magicians. Like they said several times in the book I do think it upped the stakes by making it so public. I also liked the idea of them being able to travel all over the world.

There was also the separation of Celia and what we believed to be the antagonist for a large part of the book. It wasn’t until Celia and Marco met in Prague that I really felt the story was gaining energy. However, the initial rise of conflict happened for me when Celia first collaborated with Mr. Baris on the carousel, and her father, Prospero the Enchanter, objected.

I think this is the essential moral issue of the story: the choice to trust others and befriend them rather than treating them all as suspects or enemies. Celia befriends Herr Friedrich Thiessen, Tsukiko, Isabel, and the rest of the circus family. She takes this sentiment to the extreme by falling in love with her competitor. And, together, Celia and Marco make sacrifices to do everything in their power to allow the circus to continue apart from their dangerous game, because it meant so much to so many other people.