Water for Elephants: A Novel | Sara Gruen

Water for Elephants: A Novel | Sara Gruen | Provocative surprise

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Water for Elephant...

	Water for Elephants: A Novel Sara Gruen Algonquin Books, 2007 - 350 pages average customer review:based on 1502 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Beautiful story

An amazingly beautiful story, Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants is the tale of Jacob Jankowski and the 3 months that he worked for the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth circus. When we meet Jacob, he is in his 90s, living in a nursing home and reliving his days with the Benzini Brothers circus. It was through a chance encounter after the death of his parents that caused him to leave veterinary school and put his fate with the circus.
I was really surprised by how quickly the story captured my attention. The novel jumps back and forth from "now," where we see Jacob dealing with the trials of old age, and "then," as he remembers his days with the Benzini Brothers circus, and how those days formed him into the man that he would grow to become. The sequences are fluid, though, and you find yourself easily swept along with the story. Sara Gruen's prose is amazing; I found myself on several occasions holding my breath, I was so wrapped up in the story. Gruen clearly portrays her characters emotions and captures each of their voices and personalities perfectly and her portrayal of the lives of the circus folk in the 1920s-30s was very grim. It was amazing to me that so many people would live that kind of life, but I guess when that was the only work to be had, they'd take what they could get.
Gruen seems to have done her research as well. Even though the Benzini Brothers circus is fictitious, I think it was clearly influenced by any number of circus' in operation at the time. She also makes reference to several actual circus events (such as the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944 and the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train accident of 1918). Even down to the band playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" during an emergency, Gruen seems to have done her homework on circus life.
If you haven't read this yet, I'd really recommend it. I'd had the book on my shelf since it was released (I was caught up in the buzz, but never got around to actually reading it) and after 2 friends mentioned it a couple weeks back, I decided to take it off the shelf and give it a try. I'm sorry that it took me that long to get around to reading it.

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Provocative surprise

I never give anything a 5 but I did here because I read this book 4 months ago, and whenever I am talking about literature with anyone I bring this novel to the front of my list. It still has a haunting quality. It also seems to parallel what we are going through in our economy today. So it is very appropriate for now.
Personally, I hate the circus. I dislike movies about the circus, paintings, anything. I picked up this book reluctantly thinking I would just skim through and know that I wouldn't like it. Well, I was hooked. Gruen's writing put me right in the scene. I could just feel the environment, the smells, the grittiness, the working sweat, and just the entire ambience.
I really enjoyed this read and was kind of sad when I finished it.
I am now looking for another novel that provokes the same engagement and experience. Wonderful work.

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(four and half stars) A travelling circus during the depression

In her excellent novel "Water for Elephants," one can see how much time and effort Sara Gruen put in to recreating what it was like to work for a travelling circus during the depression. There is no romantic vision here: conditions for workers and animals alike were harsh and even brutal. Workers and stage performers were at the mercies of greedy owners and managers whose only concern was profit. If workers weren't needed, they might even be tossed off the circus train at night. And the animals were treated even worse. Jacob, the main character, finds he can't finish veterinary school due to certain tragic events, and takes a job in a travelling circus, where he's treated somewhat better than the average worker because of his healing skills. But he falls in love with the wrong woman, and begins to fear for his own life. Fortunately for him, there are co-workers who though mistreated, still have that spark of humanitarianism remaining.

"Water for Elephants" is a riveting story that does not shy away from acts of brutality. However, I did have two quibbles with the book. First, the realization that the elephant, who quickly becomes the star of the circus, possesses a rather extraordinary knowledge of a foreign language (as opposed to English) seemed a bit hackneyed to me. Second, there was too much of a disconnect between the easy-going humane young Jacob, and the old bitter nursing home resident that he became. Even though Jacob experienced the horrors described so vividly in the book, obviously the circus got into his blood, and he seemed to have led a relatively happy and comfortable life afterwards. Why then did he become so bitter and unhappy? It was as if the author forgot to write a bridge between young and old Jacob. Even so, Gruen has written a remarkable book that will be on many "must read" lists for years to come.

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An authentic feel

This is an excellent, well researched book. The author obviously has a lot of empathy with the animals. Descriptions of life on the circus train seemed genuine. The ending that involved the elephant was a real surprise. One criticisim I have is that all of Sara Gruen's books have happy endings. I guess I'm just a Jude The Obscure kind of guy.

Very well written

A well written story that held my interest to the end. If you're a sensitive animal lover as I am, some of this book may be hard, but it's worth the read. The ending seemed a bit rushed, but overall, I enjoyed the story.

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