The Night Circus, part 3

I finally met Erin Morgenstern tonight!  She was quite amazing, and reminded myself of me, in the way that I would be equally baffled as to the craziness that such a lovely book inspires.  She is humble, kind, funny, and seems like the kind of person I would love to be friends with, the kind that would love an adventure around the city, wandering about finding hidden treasures and perhaps a new coffee house.  She gave me some excellent advice about writing, advice that I plan to implement as soon as possible.

Love her.  You should love her, too.

The window-scape that brought her here.

Reveur - a dreamer

The Night Circus, pt. 2

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, was the first book I reviewed for Random House.  It is an amazing book, and my review was very favorable.  Yesterday, I got a box from Random House, full of treasures.

There was an autographed copy of The Night Circus; a small autographed poster, number 280 of 500; a tiny chocolate mouse; and a note from Erin, thanking me for being one of the first reveurs!

I love being a book reviewer – the perks are awesome, and being a fan of a new author and watching her life change is simply amazing.  I hope I get to meet Miss Erin one day, and tell her how I pretty much want to be just like her.

You should follow her blog, and buy the book.  You won’t be sorry.

Just Because Your Vampires Sparkle Doesn’t Mean You Wrote a Good Book

It seems I’m writing early today…indeed, it’s almost 9:30 on a Saturday morning.  However, this needs to be addressed.

While on Facebook (doesn’t every good story start that way?), I saw Barnes and Noble’s status, asking their fans who they considered to be the best father in literature.

I scrolled through all the answers, wondering what I would say if I thought about it, and also what other people think.

Atticus Finch, from To Kill a Mockingbird.  Mr. Weasley, from the Harry Potter book series.  God, from the Bible.  And some fellow from that terrible Twilight series.  A Pa Ingalls here and there, or a Mr. Bennett.  But that’s it.  No more.

Yes, To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the best books of all time.  It’s nice that so many people have read it.

But to me, this shows the sad state of literary consumption prevalent in America today.  Harry Potter?  Twilight?  These are the books we draw inspiration from?  No, dear fellow readers, this is fundamentally incorrect and should be remedied at once.  Sparkly vampires and wand-yielding wizards, as entertaining as they may be, are not literature.  Sorry.

But to remedy this problem we would have to fix the current education system – and as we know, our current government wants nothing to do with that project.  It’s up to us – the writers – to start composing quality materials and stop the half-assed writing.

Of course, there will always be writers who write books just so they can become the next JK Rowling or Stephanie Meyer.  That’s unfortunate.  But then there will always be people like Chuck Palahniuk, Erin Morgenstern, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Téa Obreht, who have genuine talent, and whose books will stand the test of time long after the wizards die and the vampires are reduced to dust.  Those are the good ones; the ones born with words spilling out of them, the ones who write because they have to, not because they want a multi-million dollar franchise.  These are the ones.

Here’s hoping I can measure up one day.  I’ll always try.

The Night Circus

“The circus arrives without warning.”

So begins The Night Circus, a gripping tale with a window into a magical circus, set in the early 20th century.  The reader is thrown straightaway into a story unlike any on the market today.  A world-renowned magician and an old associate decide to bring up a competition long dead, where they each choose a student, train him or her, and set them against each other.  The loser is the one first driven mad by the building pressure to win; the winner is the survivor.

The venue for this competition is this night circus, called Le Cirque des Reves, or the Circus of Dreams.  From the outside, this dream circus reveals nothing out of the ordinary; on the contrary, it much resembles any normal circus.  On the inside, however, all bets are off.  The food is the best and freshest; the pathways and tents seemingly go on forever; the tents themselves hold truly magical exhibits, from a wishing tree lit with real wishes, an illusionist who can turn handkerchiefs into doves, a tent whose hundreds of bottles hold hundreds of memories, and a cloud tent, where one can climb, float, and fall, all without fear of injury.

What no one counted on, however, were the two competitors falling in love.  If the entire first half of the book was about the circus itself, introducing characters, situations, scenes, the second half brings these now familiar aspects together into a delightful cacophony of what happens when love interrupts our plans.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book; not only is it brilliantly written, each character personalized and described so they came alive  in my head, but it also made me feel – I wanted to visit this circus of dreams, to walk the pathways, see myself reflected in the hall of mirrors and let go of my past regrets and sadness at the Pool of Tears.  Erin Morgenstern masterfully concocted a world both realistic and magical.  The Night Circus is Morgenstern’s first book; if this is what we can expect from her, I look forward to the many other pieces of literary art that are certain to come.