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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 813.6 EAN: 9781565125605 ISBN: 1565125606 Label: Algonquin Books Manufacturer: Algonquin Books Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 350 Publication Date: April 09, 2007 Publisher: Algonquin Books Studio: Algonquin Books Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: 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 Product Description: 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. Book Description: An atmospheric, gritty, and compelling novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932, by the bestselling author of Riding Lessons. When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, drifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her. Beautifully written, Water for Elephants is illuminated by a wonderful sense of time and place. It tells a story of a love between two people that overcomes incredible odds in a world in which even love is a luxury that few can afford. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Great book but a little flatThe book has some good charactors, interesting story line, but some of the charactors seemed a little flat to me. For example, the roommate in the stock car, I some how felt more connected to him than Jacob. Overall a fun and light read, but just lacking a little depth to the main charactors. I will absolutly read other Sara Gruen, I think she has some good talent as a writer. Just my opinion. Rating:  - Trying a bit too hardI usually wait to read popular bestsellers to see if the writing quality holds up after the marketing's died down. But I picked this one up on the recommendation of a sibling's book club and devoured it on a long plane flight. I would never expect to be so engrossed in a theme of misfit (sometimes repulsive) circus rowdies and second-hand animal acts, but Gruen's writing style compelled me right into the narrative and once there, I had to keep reading to solve the mystery of what happened with the ... Read More Rating: - Even if this isn't your typical read, you will enjoy."Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen is a well written, depression-era book, that most readers ages 15-95 could read and enjoy even if you think this isn't the typical type of book you would read. This book tells two stories simultaneously as a 93 yr. old crumudgeon embittered by his surroundings in a retirement home recollects his life as he travelled with a second-rate circus while falling in love with a married woman. I probably would have never read this book had it not been for a family ... Read More Rating:  - Good bookA friend raved about this book so I purchased it. It is a very good read Rating: - Loved itI loved every moment of reading this book with the exception of the last 5 pages or so. The ending, in my opinion, was forced, rushed, incredible, and slightly ridiculous. To have this wonderful, beautifully written story end in such a way really did the story an injustice. I still recommend reading it, because it was a beautiful story, and was fantastically written, but the ending left so much to be desired. |
