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Description
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
Customer reviews for 'Water for Elephants: A Novel'
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The real show happens offstage...
Jacob Jankowski is ninety years old -- or maybe he's ninety-three; he doesn't remember. However, he does remember a very interesting part of his life. It comes about one day when the news that a circus is in town and one of Jacob's fellow nursing home inmates brags about having worked at a circus and giving water to the elephants. Jacob knows the old man is full of it. After all, Jacob once worked at a circus. Rewind seventy-something years, to the 1930s, amid the Great Depression. Jacob is twenty-three, just weeks away from getting his degree in Cornwall University to become a certified veterinarian. Then he receives the news that his parents died in a terrible accident. He also discovers that they had no money -- they had invested every last penny on Jacob's Ivy League education. Distraught, Jacob runs away. By accident, he ends up on a train, destination unknown. He discovers that the train is actually one that carries a traveling circus. One thing leads to another, and he ends up working as a sort of unofficial caretaker for the animals. He meets August and his wife Marlena. Jacob learns many secrets to life as a circus performer and worker, meets lots of interesting people, and encounters some very unsavory things. August, for instance, is a very unstable, unpredictable person. He is abusive to the animals and insufferable one moment, and completely charming and obliging the next. The way he treats the animals, especially Rosie, the new performing elephant, makes Jacob sick, but he can't do anything about it. The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth has its awful moments, but things get worse for Jacob when he falls in love with the beautiful Marlena...
I like the way Water for Elephants changes from Jacob's present-day narrative as a cynical old man with early signs of dementia to his days as a naïve young man and his struggles with wanting to fit into the Benzini Brothers and wanting to lose his virginity. The way his voice and narrative change is clear and precise and you get drawn into this unique and at times quirky novel. The backdrop of the Depression is wonderful and believable. The secondary characters are compelling, especially Walter, August, Uncle Al and Marlena. August is a horrible person, and the scenes centered on his abuse toward Rosie the elephant are indeed sickening. It's a good thing Gruen spares us from too much information in terms of the actual abuse. Rosie sounds adorable and I loved it when she was in the scenes. I very much enjoyed Water for Elephants. It's very moving and entertaining. No wonder it became a #1 New York Times bestseller! Even though the NYT list has never influenced my reading, especially since the stuff that makes the top list is mostly trash, it's nice to see that readers get it right every once in a while. Sara Gruen is a great author. I look forward to reading her future works.
[Saturday, July 19, 2008]
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A Life Changing Book
This book was nothing short of amazing. From the first page to the last, I did not want to put it down and when it ended, I was sad it was over. One of the things that makes the book so strong is the characters. from Jacob to August to "Rosie", there isn't a character that I did not feel moved by at one point or another.
There is a dark side to the circus life and this book will show you things you never imagined that happen outside the Big Top. So, if you are going to buy one book this year, make it this one.
[Saturday, July 19, 2008]
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Fantastic
I am completely enamored with this book. Honestly, I couldn't put it down, and missed it when I had to. Just fantastic.
[Wednesday, July 16, 2008]
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