The Thin Red Line

Basically I am just an over-grown kid and I love a circus. The Golden Age of the Circus, a richly illustrated oversized book that passed under my scanner yesterday is divided into three sections. The first details the history of the modern circus roughly from 1760 to World War II. The illustrations are fun but the text is a bit dry at times and I confess I didn’t read every word. The second section details the broad types of circus acts from the equestrian rosinback, liberty and voltige turns (acrobatics and dancing atop galloping horses, a troop of horses without riders performing in the ring, and a wild cavalry specialty with daring leaps and stunts, respectively), to the acrobats and tumblers, the equilibristes who walk or dance on the high wire or "tight rope", the aerialists who swing and leap from that "flying trapeeze", the joeys or clowns and the various exotic animal acts, lions and tigers and bears, oh my. The final section talks about the challenges faced by traditional circuses after WWII, about modern circuses from the still kicking Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey to the now ubiquitous Cirque du Soleil.

I have very fond memories of attending the circus as a child, with my mother and once with my Aunt Katherine and Uncle Bob when Ringling Bros. played at the Superdome. My adult interest in circuses and their history dates to reading Spangle, a three volume novel by Gary Jennings, the historical novelist best known for Aztec and for his meticulous and intensive research. For Spangle Jennings reportedly "joined out" with more than a dozen circuses.

The tale follows the adventures of Colonel Zachary Edge and his Troop Sergeant Obie Yount who are mustered out of the Confederate army following the stacking of arms at Appomatox and soon meet up on the road with Florian’s Flourishing Florilegium, a European circus which had been touring the American South and was caught by the Civil War. Zack and Obie are soon persuaded to join out. The reader, along with the former Confederates soon undergo a crash course in all things circus, as the troupe sets sail for Europe where they will perform across Italy, Austria and Bavaria before making their way to Russia and the Czar’s court at St. Petersburg and ultimately to Paris, where they will again be caught up in a war.

I was fascinated by the tales of life on the road in a horse drawn wagon train and the interactions and absurdities of traveling with a full troupe of temperamental artistes and of the intensive training and practice that go into developing the skills displayed in the ring. Jennings is also very generous with explaining how various illusions are created and the little tricks used to make the performance what it is. And knowing all of this back story added a whole new layer to the experience when Joel and I went to see the Ringling Bros show at Seattle Center a few years ago. And thankfully, even knowing a bit of the history and understanding how some of the magic works, the magic still does work and as always I was a big little kid who loved the circus.

Today was kind of a lost day. Ron is still a bit under the weather and I am really tired after working a full week (which I’m not yet used to) and then staying up past 4 am to finish the Mordden book (which I will blog about soon) so we ended up hibernating today, seeing no one and doing more or less nothing. And tomorrow it’s back to work to start my new good. Happy Weekend!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 1st, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Book Reviews, Books, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.