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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780803269071
ISBN: 0803269072
Label: Bison Books
Manufacturer: Bison Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 169
Publication Date: April 01, 2002
Publisher: Bison Books
Studio: Bison Books
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Abalone, Arizona, is a sleepy southwestern town whose chief concerns are boredom and surviving the Great Depression. That is, until the circus of Dr. Lao arrives and immensely and irrevocably changes the lives of everyone drawn to its tents. Expecting a sideshow spectacle, the citizens of Abalone instead confront and learn profound lessons from the mythical made real--a chimera, a Medusa, a talking sphinx, a sea serpent, witches, the Hound of the Hedges, a werewolf, a mermaid, an ancient god, and the elusive, ever-changing Dr. Lao. The circus unfolds, spinning magical, dark strands that ensnare the town's populace: the sea serpent's tale shatters love's illusions; the fortune-teller's shocking pronouncements toll the tedium and secret dread of every person's life; sensual undercurrents pour forth for men and women alike; and the dead walk again. Dazzling and macabre, literary and philosophical, The Circus of Dr. Lao has been acclaimed as a masterpiece of speculative fiction and influenced such writers as Ray Bradbury. This Bison Frontiers of Imagination edition features a new introduction by noted fantasy writer John Marco and striking illustrations by Boris Artzybasheff from the first edition.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
There really is nothing else like this in literature; it is the lone specimen of American homegrown magical realism, long before Borges or Marquez. Yes, it is fantasy; it has unicorns and sea monsters and a medusa. And yes, it is realistic; Abalone, AZ, and its residents are so fully realized in a few short strokes that you can taste the Arizona dust. What is impossible to convey is the cool, objective, ironic narration. Finney's narrative voice is as powerful and distinctive as Jane Austen's. In any case, this is a book that will charm and delight through many readings and re-readings.
Rating: -
Finney's book is a fairy tale classic about the greatest circus in the world and that is the circus of life. You will delight in the wonderful characters that will charm you like the faun or intrique you like the medusa. And the entire circus is managed by the ever mysterious, Dr. Lao. I love the way that Finney takes these fantasy characters and makes them relevant to characters in our every day lives i.e., the money grubber, the chatterbox, etc. A deeper look will reveal our own nature and how we see the world around us. Do we still see the magic? Also read: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah and TO JILL WITH LOVE: Memoirs of a Modern Day MysticandTao Te Ching
Rating: -
Reviewing this book feels vaguely of sacrilege to me. I comfort myself with the idea that most of you won't get the joke. Did you ever get the feeling that people around you lack the ability to think and feel? That most people are animated sacks of protoplasm whose only purpose in the grand scheme of things is keeping money in circulation? Do you hear music when other people hear noise? Feel a sense of wonder when others remain indifferent? I feel like that all the time. If what I have just described is foreign and alarming, forget about this book. It's a confusing racist kid's story about an old Chinaman with a weird Circus.
If you're my sort of misanthrope, reading this book is like discovering fire. Every tent contains a parable. Every wonder an allegory. There isn't a wasted word in the entire 150 pages; it all means something. Even the illustrator Boris Artzybasheff is a mystery. How did the author pick this guy? Who the heck is Boris Artzybasheff? He paints like Stanislav Szukalski, but I never heard of him before. What kind of artist is named "Artsy-whayever" anyway? Is this some kind of joke? Who the heck was Charles G. Finney? Wikipedia tells me he was a soldier adventurer reporter type of fellow; like Kipling crossed with Mencken. He was named after a famed tent revival preacher. His book indicates that he is the exact opposite sort of character. Here was a man who had no illusions about human nature. I'm pretty sure he was also a traveling fellow. Certainly, he knows about hiding mysteries in plain sight.
If you have any understanding, it is possible to have entire conversations with fellow initiates based only on references to the book. There are feelings and thoughts for which there are no words, but which are real and important feelings and thoughts which are evoked by this book. Modern conceptions of heroism and valour are everlastingly colored by what Homer wrote in the Iliad. Similarly, if you read the Circus of Dr. Lao, and I say to you, "I will stand there and watch her swim out into the tide," you will know I refer to the mermaid, and the ineffable feelings of loss and sadness and nostalgia and hope in that scene in the story. And you will know that no matter how well I describe my inexpressible feelings for the mermaid, some clown will ask me what the mermaid eats (seafoods -duh, she's a mermaid, what do you think she eats?).
It's also beautifully evocative of the way people were and talked in the Depression era; sort of like Ring Lardner, another misanthropic storyteller from that era. They made a special effects laden kid's movie out of it starring Tony Randall; don't bother: it's garbage. The prose is crystal clear, and as I said, not a word is wasted. It bubbles with the cruelty and laughter and irony and joy of life. I tell people; if you don't understand this book, you'll probably always be confused by me. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Rating:  -
Here are comments by high-school students in the class I teach:
Charles G. Finney creates in his book, The Circus of Dr. Lao, a story of magic touching the disbelieving townspeople. This book is more of a collection of short stories rather than a novel. There is no one central plot, nor is there one protagonist, and there certainly isn't an antagonist. Finney doesn't add in any divisions in the book such a chapters, nor does he make use of foreshadowing or allusions. The fact that there was no central theme or plot bothered me when I was reading the book. Accepting a book such as this was hard, but once you realize that one should just enjoy the sardonic humor instead of hunting for a plotline, the read becomes a lot more enjoyable.
I could sum up all of the happenings of this book without giving away any of it. Hard to believe, but in The Circus of Dr. Lao, each encounter that a human has with an animal can be described in very few words. It is not the twists in events that make this story interesting, but rather, the vivid descriptions of their actions, of their form, of their words. The rather unique character of Dr. Lao is especially humorous, often switching from the eloquent speech of a sophisticated individual to the stereotypical vernacular of a "chinaman." An interesting and light read, with characters to please minds of all ages.
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I would like to comment on the review by Babytoxie from 2002. I have not seen the movie and thus cannot speak to the differences between it and the book, but I can address some of Babytoxie's criticisms of the novel. To begin with, Babytoxie states that the locals "play no worthwhile part in the story." Without the locals, there hardly is a story. The story lies in the locals' reactions to the animals, which offer a great deal of insight into the minds of these ordinary people as they are confronted with the extraordinary. Far from being "cardboard locals" with no personalities, they present numerous perspectives and characteristics, which their reactions to the mythical creatures and seemingly impossible events of the circus display to the reader. The author's concise and understated description of the locals cuts right to the core of the natures of the characters and, by extension, of humanity as a whole.
This is more of an extended short story than a novel, and it does not fit the standard mold of a novel. While it could probably be extended into a more developed novel, in the process it would lose much of what sets it apart from most books. The book's current format invites readers to explore the characters and the situations presented, draw their own conclusions about them, and search for the underlying message. The message may not be blatant, but neither is it inaccessible. By trying to make this story fit the confines of a standard novel, one cannot help but lose sight of its value as a unique and intriguing tale offering insights into humanity.
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While The Circus of Dr. Lao is certainly a very cleverly-written little book, it has no driving plot or particularly inspiring scene or character. Rather, it is simply a brief glimpse at a strange episode that happens to occur in Average Town, U.S.A., with the range of characters that one might expect to find there - drunken college students, a repressed schoolteacher, a wealthy old man, and many other middling sorts of people. Development-wise, the story just kind-of floats along, and then it ends. But despite this lack of conventional set-up, as the author shows this bizarre occurrence touching the lives of all the characters, the book turns out to be a rather interesting and hilarious examination of human nature. As an actual book, there is no reason to recommend it, because there is no hook, nothing truly attention-grabbing about it. However, I have decided to recommend it just the same, because it is one of those books that make its reader think. With no final resolution or grand declaration of purpose, it is left to the reader to try to figure out what the Hell is going on, and whether the characters are actually going to learn anything from this encounter.
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At first glance, it is easy to see why a reader might dismiss The Circus of Dr. Lao as racist, nonsensical tripe. This book does, after all, focus on the interactions between the largely racist population of a small town (Abalone, Arizona) and a circus of mythical creatures that, it seems, only a Classics professor would love. For some, this may be a hard premise to accept. Well, to each his own opinion. For my part, I thought that this was an excellent book.
Finney's writing is both amusing and insightful: while the townspeople try to figure out what type of creature is in a cage ("It's a man", "No, it's a bear", "It's a Russian"), Finney both illustrates the ... Read More
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I love this book. I love it when Apollonius imparts "For all the good or evil, creation or destruction, your living might have accomplished, you might just as well never have lived at all." What an utterly devastating thing to say to someone. I love the name Woldercan. And I loved the movie with Tony Randall.
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