Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, Genevieve Valentine’s first novel, is a different and ambitious book, with a narrative that stands out for being peculiar and strange.

The Circus Tresaulti is known for its extraordinary members: people who have had various parts of their body – such as their legs, eyes, or even their heart – replaced by gears, scrap metal, and utensils of iron and steel. These pieces are set inside their bodies by the director of the circus – to whom everyone refers simply as “Boss” – to make them more resistant than their original selves, helping their work in the circus. The process is absurdly painful and, in the end, it is not only the physical aspect of the person that has just been modified: what Boss uses in her work is not any known science, but something much more costly, which cages the souls of her subordinates and makes them practically immortal.

The novel has three distinct plotlines: the maturing journey of the young protagonist George; the troubling dynamic between the rest of the troupe; and the threat posed by the “Government Man”, who intends to learn Boss’s gift.

In George’s chapters, a first-person narration, which commonly appears in novels of formation, is appropriately present. The boy watches the circus with innocent fascination at the beginning, marveling at its peculiarities, without noticing the horrors that led it to exist – Boss’s work, for example, instead of frightening him, catches only his curiosity. The first-person narration, then, serves to bring the reader closer to the character’s perspective, making the narrative gain an air of magic and wonder.

When the narrator comments on the circus, they address us readers directly, aiming to present us to the acts as if we were actually there: “You pay your admission to a man who looks like he could knock out a steer.” The narrator accompanies the reader through the tents and positions them correctly in the audience, guiding their gaze and showing exactly what must be observed. As a consequence of that, the narrative prevents the reader from being a passive observer, and also gains a creepy atmosphere: we know that the circus is aware of our presence, making us feel uncomfortable.

Boss is a complex character, treated by her employees almost as an omniscient goddess: she created them, sets what is right and what is wrong, and is always watching them. The discomfort caused by the text’s direct approach to the reader encourages them to understand that, no matter how much George loves the circus, there is something very wrong going on behind the curtains.

While commenting on the circus’s internal conflicts and the plot surrounding the Government Man, Valentine uses an omniscient third-person narrator, as the troupe is made up of very exotic individuals who do not always maintain a harmonious relationship with each other.

The characters that best exemplify this aspect are Bird and Stenos. Bird is a girl who, shortly after being accepted by the circus, fell of the trapeze and was badly injured. Boss fixed her – one of her eyes turned to glass – and put her in another act, which she is to execute along with Stenos – a thief who, seeing in the circus a source of food more reliable than his crimes, decided to be part of it. Although they train together every day and perform the act in tune, they hate each other for coveting the same thing: a pair of mechanical wings.

The wings created by Boss are the forbidden fruit of the circus and its best symbol. One day they took possession of Alec – a kind man, loved by Boss and the whole troupe, who ended every show by flying over the audience – that is, until he collapsed in the air during a performance and died after crashing in the ground. The wings represent the dichotomy of the circus: on the one hand, they enchant people – the feathers even produce musical notes when swayed by the wind – but, on the other, they remind us of the greatest tragedy that struck the place and of the suffering that the circus is built on.

The omniscient narrator is used to make cynical comments about the characters’ true feelings. Regarding this point, Valentine is not subtle at all, putting these observations in parentheses throughout the whole text, sometimes denying the intentions declared by the characters right after they are told, sometimes revealing the error of their actions, pointing at the errors of their plans. Although obvious, this style is undeniably efficient in immersing the reader into a cruel and merciless world where the people are always wrong or lying.

The setting in which the Mechanique’s story unfolds is so inhospitable and terrible that people prefer to submit to being transformed into puppets and work for a mysterious circus than continue with their normal lives. When Boss warns about the risk of death during the mechanization process, they even feel relief – as one of the characters thinks at the time: if the worst had happened, life would have been one less thing to worry about. The cities that they visit – always in ruins – have no name. Those who are not part of the circus are treated only by their position in society – usually their profession – and left aside by the narrative quickly, without a second thought. The characters are always reflecting on the fragility of their lives and the constant oppression to which they are submitted.

In this world, art ceased to exist: there are no more movie theaters or stages to present a play, only the Circus Tresaulti. The Government Man, the main antagonist in the book, wants to bring art back to the world, but he wants to rebuild it according to his principles.  He wants to use art as a political tool to manipulate the people. The Government Man says that the members of the circus are soldiers and that their gifts are the key to the realization of his dream. Boss is appalled by this prospect and says that the members of the circus are, first and foremost, artists. It is because of this that, when the narrative culminates in battles and armed confrontations, the tone is rarely exciting but sad and filled with melancholy.

The story, for the most part, is told in the present tense. In some cases, this choice is justifiable – for example, when the daily life in the circus is being exposed (“She raises her arms, and the crowd noisily hushes itself”), or when there is a dialogue with the reader (“You can see one with a false leg, but these days there are so many bombs and so many people to remake; one shiny leg is no surprise“). At other times, though, the present tense feels wrong, causing strangeness, as the action being described in the present actually happened in the past. However, the feeling of the passage of time is off in the circus, especially for the protagonist – who never thinks to have lived there for a long time – and perhaps this is the reason for this confusion between tenses: to cause in the reader the same disorientation of the characters.

Despite being the debut novel of a young author, Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti is a daring book. Genevieve Valentine builds a complex and inventive narrative structure that enhances the story and makes it unique. The occasional slips do not compromise the narrative, and, in the end, the book remains a very successful experiment.

December 06, 2018.

Originally published in Portuguese on March 30, 2015.