By: Sara Gruen Publisher: Algonquin Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Algonquin Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 350 Publication Date: April 09, 2007
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.
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
I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is one of my favorite books of all time! It's about 90 (or 93)-year-old Jacob Jankowski remembering his life when he was young. The story starts with his parents dying in a car crash, and him having no money. He stumbles upon a circus in town, and gets hired as the veterinarian. There are many other aspects to the story, including a romance between Jacob and his boss's wife, and an elephant who captures the hearts of many.
Too Good to be True? I love animal stories, but I always read them bracing for the sad ending. This book was a mixed bag.
In the first part of the book, terrible things happened to both people and animals.
In the latter part of the book, the angels practically came down to sing. Everything good that could happen, did! I'm not opposed to that. It just seemed a bit much. Too simplisic. Even the ultimate solution for old Jacob was just strangely perfect and therefore hard to believe.
A logical question that bugged me about the plot was why did Uncle Al not get rid of the schizophrenic August? And how in the world did August get to be in charge of the animals in the first place? He wasn't good with them. Jacob or the other Polish worker would have been much more effective training Rosie. If Uncle Al had ditched August, the inflammatory situation between him, Marlena, and Jacob would have been defused.
When Jacob was scooping up Rosie and the liberty horses, I was silently pleading 'Don't forget BoBo.' And he didn't. Like I said, just too good to be true.
Great book but a little flat The 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.
Trying a bit too hard I 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 characters and why I cared! My only complaint with the way the story is resolved is that Gruen tried to do too much with biblical metaphors and clever double entendres. The characters as written hold enough interest and tell a significant enough story without leaning on outside references. Overall, though, this a book that deserves the attention it's received.
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 book club (Isn't that why you have them), however I'm sure glad I did, I really did enjoy this read and found the pages turned much quicker than I anticipated. I always am interested to see how an author can write in the point-of-view pf the opposite sex and I thought it was executed wonderfully. Also, the terminology that was used was very specific to the time and to how the circus-folk spoke at the time. One could tell Gruen definately did her homework. If there is any drawback it would be the end to one of the stories (I'm not going to say which one or how it ends don't worry). I thought it ended kind of sappy and a little unbeleivable for a story that seems very factual. Bottom line, four stars. I am very stingy with my stars, so please read and enjoy.
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