Water for Elephants: A Novel
 | By Sara Gruen Algonquin Books, 2007, Paperback Customer Rating: 1834 reviews Recommend |
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- ISBN13: 9781565125605
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.
Jacob Jankowski says: "I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other." At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn't always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn't a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn't write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison.
Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob's life with this circus. Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself. The animals are mangy, underfed or fed rotten food, and abused. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the "menagerie" and all its ills. Uncle Al, the circus impresario, is a self-serving, venal creep who slaps people around because he can. August, the animal trainer, is a certified paranoid schizophrenic whose occasional flights into madness and brutality often have Jacob as their object. Jacob is the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass and as his reward he spends most of the novel beaten, broken, concussed, bleeding, swollen and hungover. He is the self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden, and... he falls in love with Marlena, crazy August's wife. Not his best idea.
The most interesting aspect of the book is all the circus lore that Gruen has so carefully researched. She has all the right vocabulary: grifters, roustabouts, workers, cooch tent, rubes, First of May, what the band plays when there's trouble, Jamaican ginger paralysis, life on a circus train, set-up and take-down, being run out of town by the "revenooers" or the cops, and losing all your hooch. There is one glorious passage about Marlena and Rosie, the bull elephant, that truly evokes the magic a circus can create. It is easy to see Marlena's and Rosie's pink sequins under the Big Top and to imagine their perfect choreography as they perform unbelievable stunts. The crowd loves it — and so will the reader. The ending is absolutely ludicrous and really quite lovely. — Valerie Ryan
Title: Water for Elephants: A Novel
Sales Rank: 266 in Books
Author: Sara Gruen
Publisher: Algonquin Books, 2007-04-09, Paperback, 350 pages, ISBN: 1565125606
Package Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1 inches, 0.9 pounds
- A great story
- This book is great start to finish. I didn't want it to end. I will miss these characters. The writer does such a wonderful job of painting such a poignant setting. Loved every second of it. More reviews
- A page turner!
- This book was a fun read. There was a real twist at the end! Loved it! … More reviews
- Grabbed my attention from page 1!
- Page one of chapter one expresses thoughts that have gone through my mind ever since I turned 30. The author writes with such honesty that is grabs you from the very beginning and all the way through to the end. She also writes with enough detail that you can certainly visualize each scene, but not… More reviews
- Stunning...Simply Stunning
- Given the number and quality of this book's other reviews on this site, I'll keep my comments short. When a reader has a book that contains an otherwise unfamiliar setting made familiar though amazingly extensive detail, fully developed characters, a strong storyline, and subtly woven literary themes, they have a great book. Water for Elephants is such a book. Gruen's… More reviews
- WATER FOR ELEPHANTS AT AMAZON
- This is a good read. My daughter(23) recommended it to me and I bought a copy for my Mother-in-law. We all enjoyed it. More reviews
