Review by Choice Review
Just as tragedies demonstrate transcendent achievements in the face of death, so do circus performers demonstrate what skilled humans can achieve often against dangerous obstacles. Similarly, as comedies demonstrate human frailties in the face of life-affirming conclusions, circus clowns demonstrate how people stumble even as they persevere. The history of what we call circus goes back to ancient times. Simon (emer., Skidmore College) has achieved a great deal in this book. Often relating circuses to the ways they have been represented in art, she offers detailed descriptions of the basic elements of circus acts. After a fine introduction covering circus history, she devotes chapters to the elements that make up circus performance. She addresses the conflict that emerged in the 19th century between one-ring circuses and circuses that had three rings of simultaneous performers. Sadly, there is no mention of the role the subsidized Soviet circus had in refining circus art and developing training methods that have been emulated throughout the world. This notwithstanding, this beautifully produced book--with its excellent color reproductions, extensive notes, and useful bibliography--is a must for those interested in popular culture. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates, vo-tech students, graduate students, professionals, general readers. --Robert Sugarman, formerly, Southern Vermont College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Our fascination with the fantastic people and animals doing things most of us simply cannot do is apparently as old as humankind. Simon offers ancient historical evidence, some from thousands of years before the Common Era, of incredible performers, from dancing Egyptian girls to ceramic Mexican acrobats to depictions of ancient Japanese tumblers. Through an engaging narrative and impressive photos, posters, and famous paintings by Lautrec, Degas, and others, Simon conjures the long and captivating history of the circus. Some marvels, such as walking on coals or across a suspended rope and swallowing fire, ran afoul of the early church and its teachings, seeming to encourage marveling at human foolishness or miracles. Simon contrasts the image of the circus as a glittering escape with the reality of hard work, exploitation, dangerous risk-taking, and the lives of outsiders for aerialists, clowns, contortionists, and other performers. Simon traces changing perspectives on the marvels of the circus, including treatment of animals and the display of living curiosities, including conjoined twins. A sweeping look at the ancient fascination with spectacle and how it has evolved over time.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
From the Roman arena to the Pickle Family, Simon (Emerita, English/Skidmore Coll.; Coco Chanel, 2011, etc.) explores the tropes and stylings of the many-headed creature known as the circus. When you come down to it, writes the author, the "body as spectacle is the origin of the circus." She locates that origin, of a performer surrounded by a crowd of spectators, in the Roman arenanot in the gladiator fights or the chariot races but in the light diversion between the carnage: funambulists, tumblers, jugglers and acrobats. The performers eventually branched out, accompanied by dancing turkeys, climbing monkeys and walking dogs, to rites, festivals and fairs, gathering steam and polish as they competed with the theater and opera. As a popular pastime, they would flaunt the wild and subversive, and the clown would emerge from the itinerant troupes of bawdy characters performing pantomimes. Throughout, Simon demonstrates her understanding that circuses are mystical and complex, full of dazzle and escapism, both social and sexualfor who did not want to possess one of those fine bodies on exhibition? In a not-so-surprising turn of events, the upper crust got involved, with nobles taking to the ring and leotard: "The cult of gymnastics, many critics held, was motivated not by a desire to improve health but rather by anxiety over the degeneration of the race, specifically of the wealthy and privileged." As the author travels back and forth from the intimate one-ring European circuses to the three-ring big top, she plucks out certain elements to highlight: the grand entrances of circuses to towns or cities; the individual feats of the human cannonball, equilibrist, contortionist and stunt riders; and the grift and vulgarity that sparked the sanctimony of the moralists. The book also contains dozens of illuminating photographs that complement the text. Simon brings a learned hand to this bright history of the circus, which emblazons as it preserves the magic. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
