Customer Reviews

Dreams of the Solo Trapeze: Offstage with the Cirque du Soleil

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Great Book!!!! I from the moment I started it I just could not put it down. I am not sure what it is about the circus life, the community and the art that is circus which attracts and captivates me so much, but what I was most impressed with in this book was that I feel the book had a good way of capturing and communicating that feeling. And I think that even a non circus junky person unlike myself might also be able to take that away from the book as well. I highly recommend it.

Dreams of the Solo Trapeze is the memoir of one man's amazing journey alongside trapeze artists Olga Sidorova, as he sees firsthand the globe-trotting experience of the Cirque du Soleil. From Amsterdam to Barcelona to London, Montreal and Las Vegas. Witnessing firsthand the demands of art, physical conditioning, high-stakes performance, competition, candor, and love, Dreams of the Solo Trapeze is an enthralling odyssey of human striving and the secret lives of performers in the spotlight. Highly recommended.

This is a brilliant book that gives everyone a look into the daily lives of the performers of Cirque du Soleil. An entertaining and inspiring book. Schreiber writes beautifully and brings the reader into the world of Cirque through vivid descriptions. I couldn't put this book down. This book will delight you whether you are a fan of the circus or not.

I was very excited to read this, because there isn't a lot of material out there on Cirque or the aerial arts. Unfortunately, this book left me with more negative impressions than positive.

Negative points:

1. Numerous factual errors and misspellings in the text. For instance, Schreiber spends a page discussing Olympic gymnasts Nadia Comaneci and Olga Korbut, but completely bungles the fundamental facts about both athletes, down to their ages and the number of medals they won (and in Nadia's case, that's sortakinda a critical error, because there is a lot of attention paid to the fact that she was, and still is, the youngest female gymnast ever to win the all-around, at age 14). Samuel Beckett's name is misspelled, and so on. I'm not going to blame this one on Schreiber as much as I'm going to wonder why his editor(s) didn't fact-check and verify the spellings of proper names. However, it does make one wonder what else could be incorrect in the text.

2. Schreiber's own attitude as an observer. The book is less "backstage at Cirque du Soleil" and more "the author gawks at being backstage at CdS." He never really seems to get over his initial fascination and assessment of the Cirque performers. Even at the end of the book he's still calling the trapeze artists "exotic", and one gets the feeling that he's never really learned to see them as people outside the circus. He also marvels that the Cirque performers are so articulate and can discuss topics outside of circus life...it gives the impression that he was expecting them to be complete morons or something. There was a page about New York, where he wondered if Harlem residents ever visited Central Park South, that was so ridiculous in its judgments that it actually made me laugh.

3. Along with point #2, Schreiber congratulates himself a lot in the text; writing numerous times that he's shown his manuscript to the performers and that, by and large, they love it. I guess the idea is to show that he wasn't exploiting the performers and they were on board with his book project, but after the seventh mention of this, it seemed more like hubris than anything else.

4. Also, Schreiber could have done a better job describing the various acts in Cirque. For instance, someone who is unfamiliar with the aerial arts might have a very hard time ascertaining if Olga Siderova, the book's main focus, was a static, swinging or flying trapeze artist, because Schrieber is never really clear on that.

Positive point:

1. When Schreiber finally sits back, stops the commentary and writes about the Cirque performers, the book becomes fascinating. Schreiber profiles a very diverse cross-section of artists in Saltimbanco, from an old-school performing family with children to a former Olympic gymnast to a ringmaster who was working in a factory before receiving a fateful call from Cirque. His chapters about the life of Olga Siderova, where he describes her courageous journey as a teenage trapeze artist from Siberia to Moscow and beyond, are riveting.

Is the major positive point enough to overcome the negative ones? It wasn't for me, but it might be for others.

an okay book. some interesting characters, some intriguing stories told secondhand, and surely some glimpses into the Cirque. but the author stretches too often to find gripping material. the result, at times, makes for less than compelling reading. hard to say how the author might have punched the content up. by his own admission, his decision to write the book grew out of a chance meeting with one of the Cirque's stars -- a Siberian trapeze artist-- who clearly captivated him from first blush. perhaps his encounters with her would have better served as a magazine feature article. rather, he immediately makes an unplanned committment to himself to build a book around this (admittedly fascinating) woman, only to realize, (or so it seems)that in the end he is not up to the task of unraveling her complex character. consequently we find him falling back on the woman's connections to other Cirque personnel as the basis for extending the book. and once he seems to realize that he's falling short of depth of material needed to compose a truly compelling book, his investigation of the woman and her Cirque chums fall victim to lazy narrative. the narrative gets built largely around the woman and other circus artists traveling around Europe. the travelogue and peppering of their stories make for no particular point or conclusion.

I think what makes this book so hard to put down is that it provides so much detail on a previously unexplored topic, life inside one of the most amazing shows on earth and the performers within. I would not recommend the book unless you've seen the Cirque, because the athletic and artistic skills of the performers cannot be described in a book, and you won't be in sufficient awe of them without having seen them perform.

The fact that the Cirque itself seems so closed to mainstream media makes this book all the more alluring. Schreiber earned the performers trust through genuine friendship and only then do they open up to him. And Mark's developing friendships with the performers makes a good backdrop to learning about the peformers - their backgrounds, versatile and brutal training, and their ecclectic personas.

The story does ramble a bit at time, but returns quickly when it does. A must if you love the Cirque.

The teen I gave this book to loved it. I enjoyed it too. Though I would not ever hang upside down on a trapeze, I rather wish I had given it a whirl when I was of a more limber age. And I enjoyed doing it vicariously. Good fun and hard work, the Cirque du Soleil. A Canadian notion that is an international phenom.

Mark Schreiber takes you backstage, around the world, and into the lives of performing artists so you can feel as though you are part of the glorious, fascinating Cirque family. I was mesmerized! Please Schreiber, write a sequel with more photos! I want to run away to Cirque, and Schreiber explains that feeling. Cirque is the ultimate escape, and the amazing people involved with the production are explored in depth.

If you like true stories, if you would like to be a vicarious voyeur behind the scenes at the Cirque,if you are appreciative of deep understanding about human nature and if you love unexpected humor, you want to read this book. The author has an uncanny ability to tap into a character's psyche, and he does so brilliantly with his respectful description of each member of the troupe. His discoveries of the lives behind the Cirque are as intriguing to the reader as they must have been for him. Mr. Schreiber is successful at sparking the reader's interest, striking a chord of compassion, providing page-turning information and providing frequent and refreshing accents of dry yet chuckle-out-loud humor. He writes with unassuming genius and I have come away from reading this book with a new appreciation for the Cirque and the desire to experience it as a member of the audience one day.

This book tended to ramble, was not particularly well written, and was an overall disappointment.