A circus without magic

Surely The Circus Train contains the most incredibly sanitized description of the Holocaust ever. A description of two prisoners in the Theresienstadt Ghetto includes this line

the scant diet of watery soup and moldy potatoes making it nearly impossible to stay healthy

Nearly impossible? I wish the author had included a description of the prisoners who did manage to stay healthy on this remarkable diet.

The Circus Train is centered on three characters: Theo, an illusionist; Lena, his polio-crippled daughter; and Alexandre, an orphan with Jewish heritage. Theo is the greatest illusionist ever, Lena is incredibly bright, capable and determined despite her disability; and Alexandre is a brilliant student of Theo.

The setting is interesting: an upscale circus that travels around Europe in the late 1930s by train, performing to only the high and mighty. The train, though, beggars belief: It has ‘plush blue carpets’, hallways, ‘cool marbled tile’, foyers, double oak doors, heavy blue velvet drapes, a library… and is wide enough to have a central hallway with large bedrooms on each side.

In the center, a stunning Ming vase, carved from the finest porcelain, sat on a stone pedestal. The marble floor had been imported from a quarry in Italy, and the space just outside the doors was inlaid with a custom mosaic emblem of Horace’s initials.

Who would conceivably put a Ming vase on a pedestal on a train? In Chapter 2, Lena’s wheelchair bumps the pedestal and brings the Ming to an untimely but entirely predictable end.

Lena’s disability is one of the central themes of the book. It is admirable to have a disabled heroine, but this laudable choice is undercut by the plot: Lena, who had polio as an infant and has never walked, has a doctor who does some ‘research’ and starts a treatment of hot compresses and exercises. Magically, life returns to her atrophied legs and a year later she is walking with braces. The reader will not be surprised that by the end of WWII, she will be walking without even a cane, and even dancing — that’s the kind of book this is. Lifelong physical disabilities can be overcome via a little 1930s research and some encouragement along the lines of ‘Don’t be scared’, ‘give it a shot’!

The writing is plain and unimaginative, despite the setting. White teeth sparkle. Lena bites her lip. Frustrated characters thump their pillows. People have piercing green or blue eyes. There are ‘tiny slivers of hope’. It also includes clunkers like

She bit into her risotto, savouring the creamy flavour.

(How do you bite into a spoonful of something soft and creamy? )

Theo and Alexandre both have deep secrets which are brought out with much drama, but seem underwhelming when exposed. There are a host of additional characters whose purpose seems mostly to allow the author to expand the cast: a black singer with vitiligo; a Jew in the ghetto who collaborates with the Nazis; a Greek ‘witch’ who makes ominous statements.

The novel is not ahistorical. There really were upscale European circuses that continued through WWII. The Theresenstadt ghetto really did have a rich cultural life, since the prisoners were handpicked from famous Jewish artists, musicians and intellectuals. One must therefore conclude that the failures in this book come largely from the writing and the author’s fictionalization of fact.

It was hard to get a handle on this novel. The style and plot led me to think it was meant as a young-adult novel, but nothing in the blurbs or the library description indicated that this was the case. The illusionist as a central figure, and the rather unrealistic plot indicated some sort of magical realism, but the language is definitely unmagical.

Is it a plucky-girl-overcoming-handicaps story? Lena has a remarkably luxurious life with most difficulties smoothed away by a generous application of wealth — despite being a non-performer who contributes nothing to the circus, she eats luxuriously, is clothed elegantly by the circus seamstress, gets personalized treatment from the circus doctor, and even has a carriage of her own. The handicap of polio, as I said above, is removed in a simplistic deus ex machina.

Is the novel about the Holocaust? It is, as I said, startlingly sanitized.

Is it meant to be all about the star-crossed lovers? Will any reader really care whether Lena marries Alexandre or Henry?

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what the novel is meant to be, as a reader can choose from far better examples of any of these genres.