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Title: Silas Marner

Author: George Eliot

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 290

Rating: 3/5

I basically picked this book up because my friend Dave has written a musical based on it and so I wanted to see what the fuss is about. I’ve also never read any Eliot before, and so it seemed like a good excuse to finally get started.

Unfortunately I didn’t particularly enjoy it, and in fact having seen the musical, I think I enjoyed that more than the book. With that said, I also understand the hype, and I do think that Eliot is a very talented writer. She got a little bit screwed over by the times that she lived in, really. And in fact, for a book of its period, I think it’s aged rather well. Let’s put it this way – I enjoyed it way more than I enjoy reading Jane Austen.

So would I recommend it? I don’t think that’s a fair question here because I went into it reading for a different reason than most people would have. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed it and I’m glad that I picked it up, but I don’t think that’s a good call for a general reader. Even if you’re a fan of the classics, you should proceed with caution.

But yeah, I liked the story itself, even if it did take a while to play out, and I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of Raveloe and the development that Marner himself goes through between the start and the end. I still kind of feel as though the story could be condensed and that it would probably work better as a movie (or a musical), but hey ho. I read it.

Learn more about Silas Marner.

Erin Morgenstern – The Night Circus | Review

Title: The Night Circus

Author: Erin Morgenstern

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 506

Rating: 4*/5

Erin Morgenstern – Night Circus

This is going to be a difficult review for me to write because there was a lot I liked here and a lot that I didn’t like. The problem is that the two are intertwined in many ways and so by the end of the book, while I was glad that it was over, I was also glad that I’d read it.

The best parts of the book are undoubtedly Morgenstern’s writing style and her world-building skills. The characters might be one-dimensional and unmemorable (I constantly forgot who was who and now, twelve hours after finishing it, I already can’t remember any of their names), but the actual setting of the story – the night circus – is unforgettable. It’s just a shame that the author didn’t spend more time describing the environment and investigating the different acts and the different tents, because that was what I found interesting – as opposed to the actual story line, which didn’t really exist.

The big problem is that the narrative, such as it is, jumps backwards and forwards through time, and I don’t think there was any need for it. I guess Morgenstern was attempting to write literary fiction, but I feel that a story like this would have been better – and more enjoyable – as more of a linear plot but one which spanned generations. I get that the point here is more to show different snapshots of the story but it didn’t feel deliberate – it felt like it all came together accidentally. Then there were the occasional sections in which the manuscript used second person, which I hate. But a lot of this is personal taste, and so I can’t complain too much.

Erin Morgenstern

And yet despite all of this, I did still enjoy it. I liked the way it made me think, and I thought that little bits of it – like the splashes of red worn by the rêveurs – were fantastic. But no amount of beautifully constructed sentences and stunning imagery can make up for the fact that it felt like nothing much happened. It could have been a third of the length and still done the job, and I’d argue that that’s what it needs. Imagine an illustrated version with all of the crap cut out so that you’re left with a condensed copy that packs a more powerful punch. It might even have earned a five.

Still, I can’t give this a three or below purely because it is a good book – it’s just not as good as I was expecting. People go on and on about it – or at least they did when it was released – and it’s not something I’d recommend going out of your way for. I picked it up in a charity shop and left it on my shelf for a year before reading it. In hindsight, I feel like that was appropriate. And at last, I can move on from the circus.