The Night Circus- Part One (Primordium): Chapter Seven (Target Practice) - A Short, Undeserved Chapter

This chapter begins neither with Marco nor Celia, but with Marco's now-employer, Chandresh Lefevre.
And how does the loquacious Erin Morgenstern introduce such an illustrious enterpreneur?

With him throwing knives at a dartboard.
Well, not precisely. 
He's throwing knives at a newspaper article pinned to the dartboard, one that was meant to compliment his work as a theatrical producer.

"'M. Chandresh Lefevre continues to push the boundaries of the modern stage, dazzling his audiences with spectacle that is almost transcendent.'"

The reason for the knife-throwing: the "almost".

Now, I tend to be a little perfectionist, but I'm fairly certain that the word "almost" doesn't send most perfectionists throwing knives at newspapers.

This is a short chapter, one that is meant to introduce a new character whose impact on the plot is worthy of its own chapter, but honestly, Chandresh doesn't deserve his own chapter-ette anymore than the other members of the circus do. But we'll get to them...at some point.

But anyway, this chapter gives a brief intro to Chandresh's personality. I'm not going to wax over every little, and besides, there's only a few paragraphs to wax over anyway.
The gist of it is:
 Chandresh is someone who is in the theater business not for the show, but for the audience's reaction to the show. Watching audiences at theaters growing up out of boredom, he has always found them more interestingt han the performers and their routines that he knows by heart. 
It makes sense, I suppose, as he is a theater producer, not a performer, and he should be focused more on what the reactions to the shows are in order to best improve them. 

This tiny chapter then ends with Chandresh retrieving his knife from the dartboard and calling for Marco, who began working for him sometime in the month that has elapsed between this moment and the previous chapter.

Chapter Eight should be out before next Friday. 

Earthlings, if you have any significant reaction to any posts we've made, please do comment. To tailor content to the liking of our audience, we need feedback. Thanks.

The Night Circus- Part One (Primordium): Chapter Six (False Pretenses) - Seances and Premonition

This chapter begins with Prospero the Enchanter retiring from his performances to pursue a 'different' career, or rather one for sixteen-year old Celia: using her as a fake spiritual medium, which is actually pretty clever on his part.

(Right now, the timeline is blessedly linear, which means Celia is three years younger than Marco, something I wasn't aware of before.)

Celia hates the work, of course, because she's not terrible like her father. She finds it strange how her clients are so desperate to communicate with the dead, and why they are so reassured when tables "levitate" and ghost hands "knock" on walls.
Purely because it infuriates her, he often forces her to take on the pseudonym 'Miranda" while they travel, and he "barely lets her eat" to make her look close to death. Yup. Time to add to the Terrible Father checklist.

1. Condescension 

2. Ridiculous Levels of Authority

3. Purposeful Neglect

4. Physical Violence

5. Malnourishment

I've made too many Social Service jokes in too few chapters, but seriously?

Moving on, while resting in New York because Celia's malnourishment became so severe that she fainted while performing, they argue over the upcoming challenge, her mother, and Celia busying herself in preparation.
Expectedly, Hector acts like a dick.

"He lifts a heavy glass paperweight and brings it down on her hand, hard enough to break her wrist with a sharp crack."

His reasoning: "You need the practice."

And we leave the two of them as Hector yells "And for Christ's sake, stop crying," after the weeping and injured Celia.

Gladly the focus switches now to Marco and Isobel.

In a sort of bored mind game, Marco uncovers that Isobel was previously engaged in Barcelona, and in her flight arrived in London.
Despite the significance, Isobel laughs it off and they are interrupted by the man in the grey suit, who comes to cryptically set up the plot, telling Marco he will be going to work for Chandresh Lefevre, who, as was previously stated, will organize the setting for the competition, Le Cirque De Reves, which doesn't yet exist. That might have been the worst run-on sentence I have ever written, so I'm going to leave it in. Enjoy.

Then (sigh), we come back to Hector and Celia, who are remaining in New York.

Hector has mostly stopped caring about Celia's practice schedule, choosing instead to remain upstairs and ignore her, so she reads to pass the time, as well as purposefully breaking and repairing household objects to pass the time.
She becomes very adept at tailoring fabric to suit her, while Marco is still resigned to a monotonous and colorless wardrobe.

One day, she has to kick open the door to the upstairs parlor, as he has charmed the locks, and finds him using magic to make his hand transparent, something he will later find to have consequences.

This chapter ends with Hector snapping at her and slamming the door shut in her face.

Chapter Seven should be up by Monday.

The Night Circus- Part One (Primordium): Chapter Five (Le Bateleur) - Audrey's Pity

This chapter begins with a rather lengthy time jump.

The boy is removed from the house he has been raised in just before his nineteenth birthday and moved to a flat overlooking the British Museum.

Everything seems basic and similar to the house, and in the closet he finds a series of suits, white shirts, and identical bowler hats.

Kind of restricting in the fashion sense, but then again, the man wears nothing but grey suits that may or may not be identical, so I suppose it could be worse.

His "challenge", as the man puts it, has not yet begun, but he now studies independently, with no more lengthy and somewhat confusing lectures.

Apparently he has been taught at least a fundamental amount of magic, though it is not referred to as magic, because:

"He practices the things he has been taught, though it is difficult to gauge the effectiveness of his illusions on his own."

And this is where he (I can't really call him the boy anymore) gets a little creepy.

Unrestricted by walls or rules, he begins to wander the streets, and often spends time "observing people". Yeesh.

I guess it isn't unforgivable, considering how little contact he has had with people, but still.

One day, he tries to revisit the house, but finds it abandoned, and on the way back to his flat, he realizes he has lost his notebook.

As it begins to rain, he retraces his steps and sees a woman reading his notebook.

No, this is not Celia, though I wish it was. She's currently traveling with her terrible father, to the best of my knowledge. 

Instead, this is a contender for the novel's most pitiable character: Isobel Martin. As to why she is so pitiable, well...we'll come back to that eventually.

He gently confronts her about the notebook, and they exchange names.

Finally, I can refer to him by the name he uses for the rest of the book.

"Marco Alisdair" is how he introduces himself, a name he took great pains to choose for himself.

He offers to buy her a drink as thanks for finding the notebook, and they find a tiny cafe.

They make small talk, something I'm personally awful at, over glasses of Bordeaux, and Isobel asks him about the symbols written in his notebook.

She appears to know something about the things in the notebook, and when Marco inquires as to why, she tells him that she reads tarot cards, and he asks to see them.

The top card of her deck is Le Bateleur (The Magician), and he smiles at that. As she flips through the deck, she asks about his notebook again.

He offers to show her, and she accepts.

They leave the cafe and he moves Isobel so that her back is pressed against a grey stone wall.

And then they exchange a bit of dialogue that sounds like it was taken from Fifty Shades of Grey.

"'Do you trust me, Miss Martin?' he asks, watching her with the same intense stare from the cafe, only this time his eyes are barely inches from her own.

'Yes,' she says, without hesitation.

'Good,' Marco says, and with a swift movement he lifts his hand and places it firmly over Isobel's eyes."

So he uses his illusions to make her see a snowy forest, she's amazed, so on and so forth. It's a lot less impressive compared to some of the other illusions that Marco and Celia create throughout the book.

And we end the chapter with why I pity Isobel.

"Isobel laughs again, and she is still laughing when he leans closer and kisses her....To passerby on the darkened London street, they look like nothing out of the ordinary, only young lovers kissing in the rain."

For those who like surprises, Chapter Six should be up by next Monday.

[Spoiler Alert]

If my pity wasn't enough of a hint:

Marco and Isobel, despite how adorable they might be, do not last. Being bound to another person in the way Marco is can have some...shall we say, side effects, and unfortunately, Isobel gets caught in the crossfire. But we won't get to that for a while.

Whoops! Already used my typical ending before the spoiler alert...

So here's a gif of Calvin and Hobbes dancing!

The Night Circus- Part One (Primordium): Chapter Four (Magic Lessons)- Who Ya Gonna Call? Social Services!

This chapter has reverted back to following the escapades of Celia Bowen and her terrible father, Hector Bowen.

She grows up traveling with her father from show to show, and her father treats her as "a well-loved small dog", which is pretty good considering how he usually treats her, and later on the same page, there's a prime example of this.

"When he decides she is too tall to be an adorable accessory, he begins abandoning her in dressing rooms or hotels.

She wonders each night if perhaps he will not return, but he always stumbles in at unseemly hours, sometimes petting her gently on the head while she pretends to be asleep, other times ignoring her entirely."

Her lessons are continuing, but are more of tests, decided both randomly and frequently by her father.

Menial tasks like tying her shoes are done by magic, and this is another example of useless magic. I get that the point is to make her skills better, but magically tying your shoes seems like an awfully specific skill that wouldn't help at all in her later life, competition or otherwise.

The only things she knows about the competition are:

 1: She has an opponent

2: It's not like chess

The focus then shifts to the young boy.

He is raised in a London townhouse, in near complete solitude. This is only broken when, once a month, a silent man cuts his hair and, once a year, returns to take his measurements for new clothes.

To avoid ending up like Chuck Noland from Castaway, he reads and writes, copying passages and symbols and, over time, he learns other languages.

Very sporadically, he is taken on little field trips to closed libraries and museums.

His only human company is the man in the grey suit, who brings with him books and lectures.This is very different than Celia's upbringing, and yet it still feels like child abuse.

His magic lessons have not yet begun, and when he asks about it, though it is not referred to as magic, the man responds very cryptically:

"'When you are ready' is the only answer he receives.

He is not deemed ready for some time."

We shift back to Celia and Hector now, and things get worse.

Hector's performances include doves, who are kept in cages and are delivered with the luggage to each new theater.

In his dressing room, a cage full of birds topples to the ground and one breaks its wing.

When Celia asks first if he can fix it, he does not respond, and when she asks if she can fix it, he gives it to her.

She tries, but tearfully admits that she cannot, and he promptly kills it.

He kills a bird in front of his daughter because she cannot fix a bird's broken wing.

I don't think anything needs to be said.

After killing the dove and doing something with the body that we don't know, he breaks her porcelain doll and tells her to fix it instead, remaining unimpressed with her when she shows him the repaired doll the next day.

There then is another reason to hate Hector (as if I needed another).

"'You could have fixed the bird,' Celia says.

'Then you wouldn't have learned anything,' Hector says. 'You need to understand your limitations so you can overcome them. You do want to win, don't you?'"

He killed a bird that he could have healed. In front of his daughter. For learning purposes.

I'm not even going to bother with this one.

Celia throws the fixed doll under a chair in the theater and it stays there when they leave.

Then, blissfuly, we switch back to the boy, who apparently hasn't chosen a name yet, and the man in the grey suit.

The two go on a trip to France that is described as "not precisely a holiday."

The boy is not told previous to their departure about the trip nor does he know its purpose.
But one night, he is sent to a theater to see a magician perform.
Afterward, he is told that it will not be discussed until they return home.
He is brought to another, larger performance, but there is something different about this one. No contraptions are used, no slight of hand or misdirection. The recognizes this as the same things the man in the grey suit sometimes does in his lectures.

Back in London, the man asks the boy (I cannot wait until I can finally start calling them by actual names) what the difference was between the performers.
He answers correctly, and asks if the man knew the performer. 

"'I have known that man for a very long time,' his instructor says.
'Does he teach those things as well, the way you teach me?'
His instructor nods, but does not elaborate."

The boy is confused as to why the audience cannot tell the difference between the performers, because to him, it is inexplicably obvious.

And then comes a quote that my Kindle tells me has been highlighted by 2,860 people:
"'People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see."

2,861.

Meanwhile, things with Hector and Celia are only getting worse. 
This is where the main reason I hate Hector comes in.

"Prospero the Enchanter uses a pocket knife to slit his daughter's fingertips open, one by one, watching wordlessly as she cries until calm enough to heal them, drips of blood slowly creeping backward."

If there's anyone reading this and/or the novel who has managed not to hate Hector, please tell me. Because I'm not sure it's possible,
And then, as though that wasn't bad enough.

"Her father gives her only moments to rest before slicing each of her newly healed fingers again."

Fortunately, before Hector does something worse to Celia, we switch back to the man in the grey suit and the boy.
The man binds the boy using the ring given to him, and is somewhat vague about why.

"'What am I bound to?' the boy asks, frowning at the scar where the ring had been moments before.
'An obligation you already had, and a person you will not meet for some time. The details are not important at this point. This is merely a technicality.'"
For whatever reason, this explanation suffices for the boy, perhaps because he is used to such cryptic answers, but he lies awake that night, wondering who he is bound to.

This chapter ends with Celia, to whom the boy is now officially bound, curling into a ball in the backstage of the theater where her father is performing and crying.

Chapter Five should be up by next Tuesday. The Of Mice and Men mini-review is on the way.

Sorry

Hello earthlings! Audrey here.

I know this blog has only been active for about two weeks now, and in that time I've become very invested in it. 
I've been posting more frequently than the one-post-per-week limit I started with, and in about a week, my life is going to get considerably busier.
Now, I'm not going to go into details. This is the Midnight Harbor, after all, not Audrey's First-World Problems Corner. But a lot of my time is going to be devoted to things that aren't book reviews. I'm going to do the best I can to stick to the limit. The Night Circus review will continue, and sporadically I'll be posting mini-reviews, but until things either settle down enough or until my schedule clears up, I'm canceling the Shatter Me review.
Sorry.

Chapter Four of the Night Circus will be up by Tuesday and an Of Mice and Men mini-review is on the way.