The Circus of Dr. Lao (A Bantam Giant, A1519)

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• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000DCOKYC
• Release Date: January 1956
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Length: 210 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Lao means old in Mandarin and Cantonese.

One day, a Chink (the book description, not mine) takes out an ad in the local newspaper announcing a circus coming to town that day. The ad is mysteriously worded to attract a variety of locals and transients. The sideshows are quite different than most circuses, and so are the animals, including something that is consistently indefinable. Each person sees the circus differently. Many tend to ignore or gloss over any inconsistencies. It is as if the circus had never been there. They say it is best to write what you know. Charles G. Finney served in the U.S. 15th Infantry in China; oddly enough, so did one of his characters. He worked on a newspaper in Arizona; oddly enough, so did one of his characters. I suspect he is on a first-name basis with the menagerie in Dr. Lao's Circus. The story, well, there is not one. The plot, nope, not one of them either. Characters? Yes, they were characters. A good movie adaptation of this book is "Seven Faces of Dr. Lao", Dr. Lao played by Tony Randall. The all but absent plot was replaced with a standard one that helped tie the story together and wrapped up loose ends. They cleaned up the dirty parts and watered down the good Bottle. It is well worth viewing (see my review).