Water for Elephants
by Sara Gruen
Finished on 13 August 2007. Filed under Friendship, Historical Setting, Memoirs, Romance.
Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell.
Jacob was there because his luck had run out—orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive "ship of fools." It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean steak. And rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act—in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of the love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.
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After-Thoughts
It was a reasonably exciting and unique storyline concerning the ideas of romance and friendship love. The plot was touching, describing the development of various relationships between Jacob and the people in the circus.
The story flipped back and forth between Jacob's circus memoirs and his ninety-year-old self. What I didn't like was the lack of connection between the past and the present. It seemed like Gruen was trying to demonstrate some sort of reflection of the past onto the present but did not quite succeed in doing so. In this sense, the plots describing the present ninety-year-old Jacob seemed pointless.
I have one word to describe the ending: random. Firstly, Jacob's memoirs of the circus presented the ugliness and cruelty of off-stage circus life and yet Jacob's final happy ending was to return to such circus life?
Throughout the story it seemed as though that Jacob only stayed at the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth because he had nowhere else to go and he couldn't leave because of Marlena, Walter and Camel. Yet his final decision was to leave his remaining family and put himself back into the circus life again. This was justified by Jacob forgetting most of his family and feeling excluded from their lives; but wasn't the bulk of the story concerned with a man with great love for friends and family?
Overall, it was a relatively well-written story but I wasn't much of a fan for the attempted past-present connection and the ending.
