Kathy Hamilton 
Title: The Night Circus
Reason: Too Dull
There are many books that could fall into the ‘too dull to finish’ category. A guide to ornithology, for example, may prove to be too dull to finish, equally an academic journal on asphalt development may send you into a boredom induced coma. My criteria was not to record books like this, ones that you expect to find dull; when reading for pleasure isn’t it slightly masochistic to willingly inflict dullness on yourself? No, my criteria for ‘books too dull to finish’ was that I must have bought, borrowed or come by them in the full expectation of enjoying them. This, in my mind, is why it deserves to be a category- a way to document the tragedy of an unexpectedly boring book!
One of my most recent, and worst, encounters with a book that was too dull to finish was “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern. I was very reluctant to give up on this book because it looked, at first glance, like it would be really good, plus it was so beautiful. I loved the silhouette style art work and the vintage feel to the book. Imagine my dismay, then, when I discovered that a book which received so much hype, so much praise and, yes, had such a beautiful cover could be so, well, yawn-worthy. The blurb was deliberately vague and enticing, it made me conjure up images of mystery and intrigue. I fully anticipated something post-modernist in style, full of deep and meaningful passages on the gravity of man’s addiction to instant gratification. Ok, so I didn’t expect that at all! I did expect it at least to be a fully fledged fairy story though…a fully fledged anything would have been better than what “The Night Circus” turned out to be, which was dull.
Maybe I’m being hyper-critical, but I’ve come to expect something when I part with £7.99 for a new book and page after page of description just doesn’t cut it for me. Scenes set in velvet and silk, a gluttonous feast worth of excess, initially seemed to promise something really exciting. Then nothing happened. Don’t get me wrong, things did happen, but they just got buried by the weight of description in this book, so that I felt like “The Night Circus” was simply an endless barrage of black velvet and white silk. At first I thought the over-heavy description might be an homage to Victorian literature, especially due to the fact that this is a historical novel, and so I tried to power through hoping that eventually the action would begin. Maybe I gave up too soon, and like my last review “The Night Circus” was a slow burner but I have a sneaking suspicion this is not the case and that plot was simply secondary to description in this novel.
Perhaps “The Night Circus” is one of those rare books that would actually be better as a film. Morgenstern clearly has a very vivid and detailed sense of scene and her talents could probably be excellently put to use in a props department. Additionally, were “The Night Circus” a film the description would not absorb action and dialogue in the way it does in the book. However, I think that even as a film it might still suffer from being slightly dull. At the end of the day, unfortunately “The Night Circus” ended up being all dressed up with nowhere to go. I didn’t connect with the characters and I got bored with the endless description and that sealed the deal for me. I guess this is just another warning that sometimes even the most beautiful covers hide a book that is ‘too dull to finish’!
Have you read “The Night Circus”? Did I miss something by giving up too soon (roughly half way)? Did you love or hate this book? What would make your list of books that are “Too Dull to finish?
