Something for everyone! | Water for Elephants: A Novel

A Winner! | Water for Elephants: A Novel | Sara Gruen

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	• Water for Elephants: A Novel Sara Gruen Algonquin Books, 2007 - 350 pages average customer review:based on 1381 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great!

This book has been on the periphery of my "to read" list - I delayed reading it because it seemed to be a mainstream favorite (which I tend to avoid). The characters were interesting, complex, and often surprising. I found myself totally engrossed and could not put it down!

Something for everyone!

This tale flips back and forth from an elderly man's plight at a nursing home to his memories of his days as a vet for a depression era circus. Both stories are richly detailed, well told and make you ache in your bones with compassion for the characters. I couldn't put it down!

A Winner!

This novel was an adventure that never got bogged down or boring. It was simply the best novel I've ever read. A three ring circus that kept the reader enchanted from beginning to end with characters that were fascinating

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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.

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Not bad, but...

The book wasn't bad, but the plot was entirely predictable and uninspiring, and the character development was feeble at best. Simply caricatures and cardboard cutouts, acting exactly as their stereotypes would suggest.

Definitely not a total waste of time, as it's clear the author did her research, but it definitely failed to grab me.

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.

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