Текст книги "Under the Big Top: A Season with the Circus"

Автор книги: Bruce Feiler

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In the course of working on this book I came to the conclusion that the circus has joined the ranks of sports and war as one of the leading sources of metaphor in our language. A day would hardly go by when I didn’t read about someone “turning somersaults” for some purpose or another or “keeping eight or ten balls in the air at one time.”

Given this penchant for inspiring metaphor, it comes as no surprise that the circus has inspired many metaphor-laden books. Of the three dozen or so that I read, some were particularly enjoyable. In the area of history, John Culcane’s The American Circus (Holt) is delightful and comprehensive. Others that I found helpful include David Lewis Hammarstrom, Big Top Boss (University of Illinois), A. H. Saxon, P. T. Barnum (Columbia), Earl Chapin May, The Circus from Rome to Ringling (Duffield and Green), and George Chindahl, History of the Circus in America (Caxton). While these books provided important background information, most of the material presented in this book is previously unrecorded. Since much of it comes from first-person recollections by notoriously inaccurate circus personnel, wherever possible I have tried to confirm the dates and information presented.

In addition to formal surveys, hundreds of memoirs by American circus performers have been published in the last two hundred years. I don’t pretend to have read even a substantial sampling of these, but several of the ones I did read stand out as the most charming of all the circus books I examined. I particularly recommend Bill Ballantine’s Wild Tigers and Tame Fleas (Rinehart), Fred Bradna’s The Big Top (Simon and Schuster), and Connie Clausen’s I Love You, Honey, But the Season’s Over (Avon), which not only is the most engaging account I read but also has the best title, and, for me, the most meaning, since it was given to me by a great circus fan, Harrison Sayre of Annapolis, Maryland.

Finally, as much as I love them, books can only hope to intimate and illuminate the immediate sensation of viewing a circus in person. While the American circus is hardly in jeopardy of dying, it is changing in response to the pressures of the times. If this book has rekindled any memories of your own, go see a circus next time one comes to town and in so doing help keep the dream alive.

Author’s Note

This book, like a circus, contains two parallel stories. One centers on the daily life of the show as it proceeds through the season; the other, woven throughout, focuses on the performance as it proceeds through each act. In circus tradition this running order is called the “Program of Arenic Displays.”

About the Author

BRUCE FEILER is the New York Times bestselling author of six books, including Learning to Bow, Walking the Bible, and Abraham. A contributor to National Public Radio, he writes for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Gourmet. A native of Savannah, Georgia, he lives in New York City.

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P RAISE FOR B RUCE F EILER and Under the Big Top

“What a splendid book—funny, insightful, quirky, entertaining, and beautifully written. Bruce Feiler may have been a circus clown, but he’s also a magician with prose.”

–Tim O’Brien, author of In the Lake of the Woods

“Feiler’s unglossed account of the season is complete with animal rights protesters, sin, sex, sawdust, camaraderie, and personal revelation. ‘So now you know,’ the ringmaster tells him after his last performance. And now we know, too.”

–Miami Herald

“Incredible…. Exciting…. Unbelievable…. Your view of the big top will never be the same.”

–Chattanooga Free Press

“What makes Under the Big Top a page-turner is Feiler’s eye for detail and his ability to be part of the action but also outside of it.”

–Detroit Free Press

“As irresistible as cotton candy, as attention grabbing as the death-defying trapeze act.”

–Indianapolis Star

“In the age-old tradition of truth coming from the mouth of a fool, this clown’s rendition of circus life bounds with humanity.”

–Kirkus Reviews

“Feiler, a superb narrator and storyteller with a gentle, ironic sense of humor, also possesses a potent intellect that at moments blazes forth, illuminating everything in its path.”

–Washington Post Book World

“A mud-and sweat-filled, but ultimately loving, portrait of the circus.”

–New York Post

ALSO BY BRUCE FEILER

Learning to Bow:

Inside the Heart of Japan

Looking for Class:

Days and Nights at Oxford and Cambridge

Dreaming Out Loud:

Garth Brooks, Wynonna Judd, Wade Hayes,

and the Changing Face of Nashville

Walking the Bible:

A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses

Abraham:

A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths

Copyright

UNDER THE BIG TOP Copyright © 2007 by Bruce Feiler. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © JULY 2007 ISBN: 9780061856709

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Program of Arenic Displays

Winter Quarters

Chapter 1. A Toe in the Ring

First Half

The Circus on Parade

Chapter 2. Under a Canvas Sky

A Rare Breed of Tiger

Chapter 3. First of May

Facing the Fire

Chapter 4. Outsiders Always Make Mistakes

Swings of Fate

Chapter 5. This Is When They Become Real

Give the Bear a Dog

Chapter 6. Death of a Naïf

The Amazing Art of Hair Suspension

Chapter 7. Please Don't Pet the Elephants

Nights with White Stallions

Chapter 8. A Streak of Blood

Intermission

The Color of Popcorn

Second Half

Chapter 9. The Star of the Show

Triple Whammy

Chapter 10. Without Saying Goodbye

Where Are the Clowns?

Chapter 11. Reborn

Love on the Wire

Chapter 12. At Heaven's Door

An American Dream

Home

Behind the Painted Smiles

Read All About It

Author's Note

About the Author

Praise

Other Books by Bruce Feiler

Copyright

About the Publisher