This past August and the previous summer, I participated in a choir for a Detroit performance artist, Satori Circus, singing songs from his 30 year catalog of music as well as spoken word pieces that had accompanied his different performances. The choir was held in a historic church on the border of Detroit and Hamtramck. Our "hymnals" which housed our lyrics and notes on the songs were taped inside the pages of an old encyclopedia set. One of our inside jokes for the show was when each of the performers would go up to the pulpit to introduce a song, they would read a random section of text on the opposite page of their encyclopedia. When I went up to the pulpit, the sentence I read was about women in the Khoikhoi tribe who were known for their ample buttocks, a condition known as steatopygia. We rehearsed for the choir a lot, so I said this sentence and this word a lot. So imagine my surprise, when on the very first page of Nights at the Circus to come across the sentence: "The artist had chosen to depict her ascent from behind - bums aloft, you might say; up she goes, in a steatopygous perspective...". I knew that this book and I were going to get along just fine.
The novel is about Fevvers (note: it took me a while to realize that this name was given to her due to its similar sound to "feathers"), an aerialist performer at the end of the 19th century. She is grandiose, bawdy, sometimes vulgar, but with a good heart, and absolutely larger than life. And oh yeah, she has giant wings attached to her back that have been with her since she was a little chick at birth. At least that is the story that she tells the public. But not everyone believes her story and thinks she is a fraud. Enter Jack Walser, an American journalist who has traveled the globe, who spends a long, bizarre, and possibly even magical evening interviewing Fevvers in her dressing room of a London theatre. After this meeting, Walser is roped in, hook, line, and sinker, and pitches to his editor that he join the circus troupe that Fevvers will be touring with, not only to get to the bottom of Fevvers' truth, but to write as an undercover circus performer.
There were so many chapters of this novel that I feel could have stood alone as their own short story. Or the novel seems like it could have been done as a serial. In particular, the different vignettes during Walser's time with the circus in Russia just blew me away. They were so rich with details and were so strange and unique, I just loved them. Dancing tigers, a drunk buffoon leader of the clowns, a troupe of performing apes who certainly seemed much more intelligent than their human counterparts. And while the book was grounded in reality, the reader often had to suspend belief and just accept the fanciful and impossible. The bizarre and incomprehensible. Which I just loved.
And I just adored the character of Fevvers. She is certainly out to get all that she can, selling her unique persona and keeping people guessing whether her wings are real or not, but as the story of her history pans out and the actions of the current storyline unfold, she is much more than just a gold digger. One of the most multi-faceted and unique characters I've read in a long time.
The book lost a little steam for me in the third act, when the circus train derails in the Siberian tundra; the different situations that occur during this part of the novel seem incongruous with the rest of the action of the story. Almost as though they were ideas that the author had identified for inclusion in a novel somewhere and they were kind of forced to fit in this one. But don't get me wrong, they were all as unique, fascinating, and wonderful to read as the first two parts of the book, but just didn't feel like they fit.
So I would highly recommend this book; it was a delightful read. It made me smile and made me say out loud (more than a few times), "Damn, this is what clever, creative writing is all about."
So up next we have The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett. I don't know much about the book except that if follows its female characters throughout the entire span of their lives. And that it is massive (but the print is small!). In mid-January, I'm going on a trip to Cambodia and Thailand and will be spending roughly 3 days of that time on airplanes or in airports, so I think a large book will be just the thing to keep me occupied! Hopefully I can find out between now and then whether or not I like the book; if I'm not a fan, I may have to switch gears for something else and come back to The Old Wives' Tale when I get back. But we'll see!
Happy New Year! 222 to go! xoxox
