| View Larger Image | Water for Elephants: A Novel | Paperbackby Sara Gruen (Author)
| List Price: | $13.95 | | Price: | $10.04 | | You Save: | $3.91 (28%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Algonquin Books | | Page Count: | 350 Pages | | Publication Date: | April 09, 2007 | | Sales Rank: | 967th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9781565125605
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
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 |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 1794 reviews)
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Fine read - worth the time by Frances I. Sanclemente (San Diego, CA United States)  5 Stars
November 25, 2009
Beautifully written. Lots of detail and action. Very poignant passages. Worth the time. You won't regret the investment.
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Transports you to another world by H. R. Willis (Columbia, SC) 5 Stars
November 24, 2009
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and couldn't wait to share it with others. All of my friends who've read it, love it as well. As you can tell from the near 5 star consensus from reviewers, this is a wonderful book, so I don't really need to go into a long drawn out review, but I will say that I loved the rich, interesting characters who felt like old friends by the end of the book and the story was engrossing and lovely - a true love story between lovers, between friends and between man and beast. And the total immersion into another world and time was just a bonus. You can't go wrong with this book!
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Awful Book by Jennifer  1 Stars
November 23, 2009
I'm another reader who can't even begin to understand why this book was so popular, or why people rave about Gruen's writing. I thought the writing was mediocre at best, and that the plot, narration, and dialogue were BORING! Plus, the characters aren't very likable, and the frequent graphic sex scenes are completely unnecessary. I tried to like this book, and I tried to finish it, but I really couldn't, on either count.
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One of the Best Books I've Read in a Long Time by Angela Harris  4 Stars
November 17, 2009
Water for Elephants has it all- adventure, drama, romance, history, and the circus! What more can you ask? Seriously, read this book.
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WONDERFUl - Beautifully written by M. Love 5 Stars
November 16, 2009
Wonderful book - very well written - great character development. You can visualize, feel, hear and smell the sounds of the circus.
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