“Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that. There are many kinds of magic, after all.”
The Night Circus – it had captured my heart the moment I laid eyes on the black, white, and silver cover so many years ago, on a 30% off shelf located near the front doors of Chapters. Now, having finished it for the second time, I realize how twisted fate can be, bringing this story back to me in the time I needed it the most, taking me home to a place only thought up in the confines of the 387-page book.
If I had thought I loved it then, bringing it home, opening it, and finishing it overnight, I truly can’t explain the emotion I feel for it today. I can’t explain to you what this book is about, because in doing that I would ruin the story. As true to the title as any book has ever been, The Night Circus is a journey through a magical place, binding many together in a duel that most think will only end in sadness. But with the sadness comes a beauty that surpasses anything imaginable. With vivid description, Erin Morgenstern puts the reader into the Circus; you can smell the caramel and popcorn as you sit in your room at night, a candle flickering on your bed stand only adding to the atmosphere of the multitude of tents featuring Ice Garden’s, a mysterious Labyrinth, living statues, and so much more.
I can honestly say The Night Circus is one of the best works of fiction I have ever read, born from this century, or ones past. Fantasy, romance, magic, I will love this book until the end of time and I will never stop loving the magical black and white, with the splash of red. I hope, should you read this book as well, you find the same magic in the pages as I did. It reinvigorated my love of reading, as I passed the last few days unable to put it down. There is much I love, and many lines I couldn’t stop rereading, but here I leave you with just a few, maybe enough to capture the same magic in you. Happy reading lovelies.
“Why haven’t you asked me how I do my tricks?” Celia asks, once they have reached the point where she is certain he is not simply being polite about the matter.
Friedrick considers the question thoroughly before he responds.
“Because I do not wish to know,” he says. “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.”
“Widge can see the past,” Poppet says suddenly, diverting the conversation. “It’s one of the reasons his stories are always so good.”
“The past is easier,” Widget says. “It’s already there.”
“In the stars?” Bailey asks.
“No,” Widget says. “On people. The past stays on you the way powdered sugar stays on your fingers. Some people can get rid of it but it’s still there, the events and things that pushed you to where you are now. I can…well, read isn’t the right word, but it’s not the right word for what Poppet does with the stars, either.”
| cassie
Streamers of Stardust 