Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

I remember my last visit to the big top. Ringling Brothers set up their tents in Arlington, Virginia. Somehow appropriate is that the site is now the home of the Arlington County Public Library. Not as splashy as a circus on the exterior but filled with as many stories.

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob Jankowski, a veterinary student who loses his parents and seemingly his future just days before his final exam at Cornell. He runs aimlessly and jumps on a train car filled with workers of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show, a third rate circus hanging on during the depression. The story changes back and forth between the present, Jacob as a young man and the present, Jacob as an old man essentially abandoned in a nursing home.

I never thought about how circuses operated, how people lived, the brutality of the life. My visual perspective is somewhat influenced from seeing some episodes of the televison show Carnivale which also takes place during the 1930’s. Both the book and the series have brought all the inhabitants of the circus alive. There is a wonderful love story and a great assortment of circus animals fill in the background; the amazing liberty horses and their gorgeous trainer, Marlena and Rosie the elephant who seems stupid and untrainable until they realize she only speaks Polish. Rosie, who carefully pulls up the stake attached to her foot, and ambles over to drink up the day’s container of lemonaide, and then ambles back and re-plants her stake.

It is a world that most of us missed and I highly recommend a visit.

Eliza

Water for Elephants is available through the Mendocino County Library. I listened to the story, but the book is also available.