So we begin our exquisite spiderweb of complexity, horrible parenting, and massive time-jumps with a bit of second-person babble that has absolutely no effect on the plot or characters, and we learn that Morgenstern, for whatever reason, chose not to give the circus the same name as the title, instead calling it Le Cirque des Reves (The Circus of Dreams). Makes sense, right?
The actual story begins with Hector meeting his daughter Celia, with a letter attached to her giving him full custody, a serious mistake. A magician who uses real magic, Hector realizes his daughter has the same abilities he does and begins training her abusively. After several months, he meets with an old friend, who is eventually referred to as Mr. A. H-, proposing something worthy of all the Douchebag Awards I can find on the Internet.
For decades, the two have been playing the worst game ever. They each choose a student and bind them together using some vague magic, then make them compete. This isn't like Harry Potter, though: there are no impressive duels, no actual villain. It's just two selfish men watching two people who are irreversibly linked, goading them to fight. The ending of each competition, one thing I won't spoil just yet, is unpleasant, to make a vague understatement.
Mr. A. H-, also known as the man in the grey suit, agrees, and acquires a student of his own. He raises the boy, who eventually chooses to call himself Marco Alisdair, un-abusively but without kindness, and moves him to a flat of his own before his nineteenth birthday (and he meets a character who he'll string along for an unfortunate amount of time: his kind-of girlfriend, Isobel Martin). At this point, Celia is sixteen and her father is using her to make money by pretending to be a spiritual medium.
The man in the grey suit employs Marco in the service of Chandresh Lefevre, a perfectionist with a flair for the dramatic. Chandresh holds lavish Midnight Dinners for whatever reason, I guess because he's rich, and at one he shows a very specific group of people his new idea: a circus that opens at midnight and closes at dawn. Yes, this is The Night Circus, though it is instead named Le Cirque Des Reves, and it will be the setting for the competition between Marco and Celia.
We then jump thirteen years forward to meet Bailey Clarke, a boy who is bored with farm life and in love with The Night Circus. One day, his sister Caroline dares him to break in to the Night Circus, as it currently visiting his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. He agrees, and after finding his way inside, is confronted by a red-haired girl, the name of whom is another rare thing I'll decide to keep secret. She leads him out, and gives him a white glove as proof that he made it inside.
Then, we return to find that Hector has faked his own death, because he accidentally turned himself invisible, and is caring even less about what Celia does, retiring to their upstairs parlor.
At a particular Circus Dinner, a subset of the Midnight Dinners, some unplanned entertainment arrives in the form of Tsukiko, a contortionist with a very impressive tattoo and enough crypticness to rival Mr. A. H-. After performing for the group, Chandresh and the others convince Tsukiko to join the circus, and she's actually going to be important later.
One of the members of Circus Incorporated, Mr. Barris, then enlists Herr Frederick Thiessen to make the best damn clock in the whole damn universe, and he does. I'm not gonna explain the clock's intricacies again, but he sends it in and receives enough money to retire for it; however, he chooses to continue making the world's best clocks.
Celia then auditions as the circus's illusionists, showcasing the amazing skill that has come from over a decade of abuse and leading Marco, who is Chandresh's assistant, to have a near-mental breakdown, partly because he just realized she's his stronger opponent in the competition and partly because he really really really wants to jump her bones. Isobel becomes suspicious of this when he tells her about Celia and she consults her tarot cards. Of course, she gets the job. Isobel considers joining the circus as a fortune-teller, which, in the end, will just give her front-row seats to the awkward romantic dance between Marco and Celia.
For the end of Part One, we return to Bailey, who is almost sixteen and whose future is in question. His grandmother wants him to go to Harvard, while his father is adamant that he will take over the farm. His grandmother tells him that she just wants him to have more opportunity, that he should follow his dreams, while his father tells him his opinion doesn't matter. Bailey begins to take long walks, and one day, he looks up from his book, sitting in the oak tree where his sister first dared him to enter the circus, and sees the tents of the circus in the field they had been in before.
To all of us. We've made it 20% through the book (technically 24%, according to my Kindle). Only 60 chapters to go!
