Reviews

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

jaynecm's review

3.0

A winged woman hatched from an egg telling her life story to a journalist for joins the circus to follow her around the world - this story should have captivated me from the beginning. But to me, it seemed to be a delirious, disjointed spiral into madness. Which again, would totally be for me. I am not discounting the possibility that I was just not 'feeling' this book now and a reread may have me singing its praises. 

gmp's review

challenging funny reflective medium-paced

4.25

aw2418's review

adventurous funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.25

kaigairg's review

3.0

My thoughts:

http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_carter_nightsatthecircus.html

hannahmg's review against another edition

dark funny reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

17seanliddy's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

bluestarfish's review against another edition

4.0

The first part of Nights at the Circus is fascinating but also a bit relentless in the speed of narrative and how much of it there is. It really does mimic Fevvers and Lizzie spending all night talking pretty much non-stop to Jack Walser. Fevvers - is the swan lady fact or fiction? At any rate she is fascinating. You can see why Jack would run away to join the circus to find out more/be with her. The second part shows us more about life in the circus through the stories of various artists, acts, and goings on. It's a frenetic place but at least the weirdness is spread around and not cooped up in one hotel room. Fascinating novel.

nowheretopark's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious slow-paced

3.75

suzemo's review

3.0

I don't even know where to start with this book, because it's utterly bonkers.

Fevvers is a woman with wings who, after being raised by prostitutes, becomes a world famous aerialist. Walser is an American journalist who begins by writing an article about her, and ends up running off and joining the circus - originally to discover more about Fevvers, but of course, nothing goes as planned.

Many adventures, nonsensical, silly, serious, violent, loving, amazing, horrifying erotic, political, and fantastical happen. There are princesses, murderous tigresses, strong men, clowns, Archdukes, faberge eggs, crazed American businessmen and everything else in between.

I want to give it 4 stars, and I would just based on the narrator (audio), but I just couldn't get into the book. It felt very wooden in a lot of ways, and I'm not sure that was intentional. Except Liz - she gets 5 stars.

mamimitanaka's review

3.0

No doubt a fun read, full of all sorts of the postmodern magical realist joys that are so capable of sating my literary cravings. I am once again left a bit emotionally cold by Carter's world, though it feels like no fault of her own and more my own biases... there's a constant tone to this book that seems to balance ironical whimsy with a highly conscious sincerity, with the former seemingly being informed by a parodical awareness of traditions from both English literature and magic realism. Sometimes the cheeky tone is a bit much for me, especially since it's pretty much in a single style throughout the book (the prose is nonetheless great, however). Plus the whole "demented carnival" aesthetic is something that I can only handle in small doses, hence it took me awhile to finish this. But while it made this difficult to pick up on a regular basis, there's a lot to love here; there's tons of great setpieces and the feminist undercurrent of the novel adds a lot of dimension; the amount of darkness and depravity in Carter's world would almost seem sadistic if it weren't so tenderly balanced with constant compassion and curiosity, which she's keen on employing towards every character, even the ones she more blatantly pokes fun at for their patriarchal flaws. And Fevvers and Walser are great joint protagonists and I never tired of following their strange adventures. Carter still remains a difficult author to grasp for me, but the act of reading her work is a joy even if I have trouble viscerally understanding some of the deeper ideas she's driving at.