Water for Elephants
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
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- ISBN: 9781565125605
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929 Reviews
| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 19, 2007 Type: User Review |
Made me Cringe at times, but ultimately a story of redemption
Water for Elephants: A Novel
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| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 19, 2007 Type: User Review |
Silly ending ruins and almost perfect book.
I really enjoyed this since it is a topic you don't really read about too often,
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| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 19, 2007 Type: User Review |
What a great book!
Water for Elephants deserves all the hype it has gotten. Terrific story and I could not put it down.
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| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 19, 2007 Type: User Review |
One of the best books that I have ever read
I will make this short and sweet. This is one of the best books that I have ever read. It is really touching. Jake who is the main male character just touched my soul. You won't be disappointed
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| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 18, 2007 Type: User Review |
Join the circus and fall in love
Jacob Jankowski loses everything dear to him; he goes a little nuts and joins the circus. Gruen writes an engaging story that kept me turning the pages. She knows how to build suspense; she uses foreshadowing in the first few pages that makes the...
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| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 18, 2007 Type: User Review |
More Than Pleasantly Surprised....
When I picked up this book I really didn't know what to expect. Never having been a fan of the circus I didn't expect much from the subject matter. Twenty four hours later, I was mesmerized, and left wanting more. This was a fabulous story that...
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| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 17, 2007 Type: User Review |
A lovely novel of life
For me, this book reminded me of being a little kid. I could picture myself sitting at the foot of my grandfather's bed as he told me stories of his youth and the adventures that came with it. I was instantly transported to the 1930's and to the...
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| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 16, 2007 Type: User Review |
good
From the first page, this book swept me away and deposited me in the book. It's a gritty story with a bitter taste of an awful dream and it was well researched. The only reason the ratings are so low is because in the end, it didn't feel like it...
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| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 15, 2007 Type: User Review |
WOW
I really didn't have any interest in reading this, but decided to anyhow. And I am so glad I did. The characters stay with you and it is such a beautifully written story. I guarantee you won't be disappointed!!
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| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 15, 2007 Type: User Review |
So good!
FINALLY a book that Amazon recommended that I just LOVED! It was so interesting, wow! I had NO idea what went on behind the scenes at the circus back in the day! I devoured this book within two days because I just had to know how it would end!
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