Water for Elephants

When I bought this book from my favorite independent bookstore, the owner, who knows EVERY regular's preferences (a quality you want in a book guy) tsked and said, "I don't know about that one, Val. You don't really go for sentimental." I didn't take offense, and said I'd try it anyway. He made this face and said, "Mmkay, then, that'll be $16.35."

Why didn't I listen? Now when I go back to the store, there's a chance the owner is going to remember and ask me how I liked this book, and I'm going to have to eat a whole lotta crow. It wasn't just sentimental, it was syrupy and glopped with sugar. I was unable to finish it. It made me question myself, and not in a good way. I love elephants. They are awesome. I like the African elephants show more best, but I wouldn't turn down dinner with an Indian elephant. If I could go back in time, I'd love to have tea with a mammoth, as long as the weather was nice. Do you get what I'm saying? I felt just hateful.

Why can't I enjoy a book about a man and his elephant? Because of the poor writing, the cliched dialogue, and the mean man who is terrible to animals?

Why, yes. That'll do it. That and the fact that I had Snagglepuss in my head reading all of Marlena's dialogue.

I really am a terrible, terrible person. show less

I haven't read a book set in a circus since the Enid Blyton stuff I used to like at the age of 8. How different, then, is this circus - a depression-era vision of mud, poverty, treachery and violence. Just the hardest of lives, but with a strong thread of humanity running through it, as the narrator battles to improve animal welfare at a time when circuses with animals were not viewed as cruel or unacceptable.

I loved this book from start to finish - it is just so well written. Like the breasts in chapter 3, the author has a pleasant bounce to her writing. She can do grit, she can do romance, she can do humour (the search for a new Fat Lady was brilliant), and the glimpses of the protagonist as an old man living in a retirement home show more were incredibly perceptive. Just a brilliant book. show less

between 2.5 and 3 stars. this is really good for the historical bits and the insight into what it was like working with a train circus in 1931. i had never really thought about how maybe there weren't too many zoos back then, and so the circus had far more animals than i thought they would - chimps, lions, tigers, panthers, polar bears, giraffes, elephants, horses, llamas, yaks, camels, hyenas, orangutans. we only read about the mistreatment of a couple of them, but i can only imagine that all of them suffered such abuse, even if just to be taught that they weren't the alpha animal when the trainer was around. that was the hardest part of the book for me, reading of the way august would hurt rosie the elephant. it was written so show more matter-of-factly, i'm curious as to the research she did into the animal abuse.

the detail in the way the circus operates, and the people who work it (as well as the class distinction between the performers and the workers) was pretty fascinating. jacob has to learn the language, the characters, the inner running of a circus, and so we are exposed and learn along with him. circuses don't exist like this anymore (thank goodness) so this serves as a great peek into the circus life.

generally speaking, when the writing is about the circus and is showing us the historical context, this is well written and interesting. the romance bit (which is a major plot point, unfortunately) dragged it down considerably for me (it was both less interesting and the dialogue between them was significantly less well written) and i felt like there were other ways to move the story in the direction that storyline led us.

but i do think i'll find myself thinking of the circus aspect for a long time, so i'm leaning this to 3 stars instead of 2.5. show less

Summary:

An old man in his 90s reminisces about his time in the circus.

My Opinion:

I'm writing this a little differently because this is pure fluff for me. I loved this book. It's funny, it's disturbing, it's gritty, it's incredibly sad, and there is a love story intertwined within the pages. It's about love, friendship, the fragility of life, and the need for remembrance--not just in memories, but in our relationships, too.

This is short because I don't want to give too much away!

It was the Great Depression & Jacobs father has died - Jacob is in his final term at Cornell University, and as one shock after another befalls him ( no money left, no veterinary practice to inherit from his dad, no other family to turn to) he walks out during his final exams & wanders. He encounters hobos & a train speeding away - without any plan whatsoever Jacob hops aboard, & discovers he’s on a circus train. Every chapter leads Jacob further into at first baffling uncertainties, even danger. But as the novel progresses we experience this Bildungsroman inside an historical drama, & then a growing romance - with unexpected plot twists & fascinating circus animal anecdotes. These are related through the dreams, conversations with show more care givers, & internal musings of the now 93 yr old Jacob, stuck in a nursing home. Plowed through about one chapter at a time but as the pace picks up & Jacob must pick his way through one dilemma or crisis after another, all while trying desperately to hide his growing love for Marlena, the beautiful & brave liberty horses act … well I just stopped & read until the end. A powerful & poignant story with tender insights about growing old. Wouldn’t recommend to young teens due to the graphic violence but especially the sex scenes. But worth reading just for the Rosie ( the circus’ most prized acquisition, an elephant) segments ! show less

I picked this up not knowing a thing about it except the blurb, so I was pleasantly surprised to find this story of love and betrayal under the big top one of the most engaging tales I've read in a long while. I'm not much into romance, but this is so much more than that so I couldn't pull myself away. As a bonus I learned about the dark side of the circus industry during that era. Gaslighting, where they throw the circus hands off the train in the middle of the night to avoid having to pay them, was a new term to me. Despite the cut-throat world they live in, the young veterinarian protagonist and the circus star he has a crush on, try to rise above it all at risk of life and limb.

What tops it off is the story has one of the most show more satisfying endings I've encountered in a long time. I've passed my book along to my mother and it has since gone through the hands of three of my sisters. They all loved it. I'm a big fan. show less

I don’t normally read best sellers – well, at least not best sellers written in the last two centuries – but Mom does and I pick up her discards. Thus, Water for Elephants. I won’t go into the story, which is pleasant enough and easily readable in a couple of hours - somewhat melodramatic. However, there is a connection to junk science – or perhaps junk history. The novel is set during Prohibition, and one of the characters comes down with “jake leg” – Jamaican ginger extract paralysis. I wrote an earlier book review (Death in the Pot) that discussed this in the context of food poisoning. The gist is that Jamaican ginger extract was 70% alcohol, but unpalatable due to the ginger. However, bootleggers discovered that the show more Treasury Department tested the stuff by distillation; if 30% of the stuff didn’t boil off below 250° F it was assumed to be genuine Jamaican ginger extract. The bootleggers substituted tasteless and alcohol soluble tri-cresyl phosphate for ginger extract and sold the result.

In Water for Elephants, however, it’s not bootleggers that are at fault – since everybody knows bootleggers are the salt of the earth – it’s “the manufacturers” – since everybody knows manufacturers are evil. (I suppose you could argue that since bootleggers were making the stuff on an industrial scale they could be described as “manufacturers” – but in that case so are Mexican drug cartels). Further, in Water for Elephants describes tricresyl phosphate as “a plasticizer” – since, again, everybody knows plasticizers are evil. A little Web searching shows 1943 as the first time “plasticizer” appeared in popular literature; Water for Elephants is set in 1931. (It’s possible that “plasticizer” was used earlier in technical literature, but it’s unlikely that the country doctor who uses the term in the novel would run across it; in 1931 tri-cresyl phosphate was used in hydraulic fluid. Apparently, hydraulic fluid isn’t evil enough).

Well, a minor point in an otherwise enjoyable novel – but this sort of thing always gripes me a little. show less