Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 A good tale but difficult to navigate June 15, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I found the narrative style in this work to be a bit like wading through thick mud -- wishing the character would just "get to the point!" It took me months to get three quarters of the way through the book and then I finally gave up. Perhaps I just wasn't in the right frame of mind when I began reading it. Nights at the Circus isn't a bad book -- I know it's one of those "like it or hate it" novels -- I'm certain under the right circumstances it is probably quite fascinating. Who knows, maybe someday I'll pick it up and try again.
 the quintessential angela March 26, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Read this and The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman to get an idea of the depth of Ms. Carter's talent. A lovely, wise and witty masterpiece that will keep you thinking about it long after the book is done.
 You either like it or hate it March 19, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This text is very eccentric. I had to read it for an English class, and there was a mix of different reviews. Some loved it, some hated. I myself could not get through all of it (though I did make it to page 223). I suppose that the best way to tackle this novel is to realize that narrative is a big part of it, as well as is magic realism. The line between fact and fiction almost does not exist here. Logic cannot be applied when reading this novel. What is fact, what is fiction? Try to not distinguish the two while reading it and you may find yourself getting through it much more smoothly than I did.
 Zany, imaginative romp across London and Russia that made me run away with the circus! November 22, 2005
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
I saw "Nights at the Circus" on sale at our college bookstore and was intrigued enough to check it out. As someone who grew up on Todd Browning's 1932 circus horror classic "Freaks," the idea of a novel centered around the foreign-yet-familiar animal trainers, sideshow attractions, and gritty wonders of London at the turn of the 20th century drew me in.
Sophie, or "Fevvers," is billed as "Is she fact or is she fiction?" Tall, commanding, and winged, this half-bird Amazonian captures the interest of Jack, an American newspaper reporter who initially tries to pick apart her story of being half-bird as a sham, but soon is mesmerized by Fevver's eloquent autobiography, macabre adventures working in brothels, and outgoing personality, enough that he joins her circus as a clown and follows them to Russia.
The novel is told from various characters' perspectives, which made it confusing for me the first few pages each time the narrator changed, until I knew who was talking. The novel feels almost schizophrenic at times, rapidly switching points of view and narration at the drop of a hat. The story itself is prone to flights of fancy, including homicidal clowns, bizarre sexual escapades involving a group of Sapphic convicts in the Russian wilderness, a high-ranking politician obsessed with the occult, a freak show brothel, a lesbian relationship between an animal trainer and an abused orphan, and the sex lives of the circus crew. The plot becomes more and more improbable and more fantastic towards the end of the novel, where reality was left behind for once and all.
Overall, an imaginative, enjoyable romp filled with unexpectedly elegant turns of phrase, plenty of (erotic) action, glittering descriptions of upper class life in Russia and the gritty reality of the working poor in London and St. Petersburg, and the timeless thrill of the circus: its exotic animals, collection of ragtag performers, and the illusion of the extraordinary.
Earthily airborne November 1, 2001
11 out of 15 found this review helpful
Only Angela Carter could have devised the coarse golden character of Fevvers, the Cockney miracle around whom this tale spins. Girl takes wing, boy flies after, girl loses and gets wing and boy -- that's mad enough, but it gives not the least taste of the crumbled, intricate, and ultimately wonderful world of this particular circus. Carter's ability to interlace sharp doses of political and intimate realities into the mix not only teaches you lessons unaware, but opens you to a larger definition of what can be. Once upon a time, or somewhere right now, chimpanzees condescend to humans, monstrosities speak with wise prophesy, a pig manages a business better than her owner. So open up another bottle of champagne, and surrender. It will be rough, it will hurt, it will be uproarious. It will ultimately be wonderful. So is this book.
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