Water For Elephants

When I think of the circus, I always remember the commercial that plays in my town whenever the circus visits. The kids yelling "come on, everyone, let's go to the circus," the theme song and then the little ditty at the end, "three rings of fun!" In the novel Water For Elephants, you're introduced to the behind-the-scenes of The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show On Earth, a traveling circus set amid the Great Depression. The novel centers on Jacob Jankowski, and switches from his life as a ninety-three year old man living in a nursing home to his perspective as the twenty-three year old veterinarian for this sub-par circus (despite its name as the "Most Spectacular Show On Earth" the circus is "probably not even the fiftieth most spectacular show on earth,"). The novel is actually really interesting and while some parts may be a little inappropriate for a teenager of my age, so far I've really enjoyed it. The part that I like the most is that before some of the chapters are pictures from actual traveling circuses that existed during the Great Depression. My favorite picture so far is from the Tegge Circus Archives of an elephant getting off of a train car. I've never really appreciated what gargantuan creatures elephants are until I saw this photograph. I'd show you the exact photo in the novel, but sadly I cannot find it online. So instead here's a picture of another elephant I find just as intriguing. 

So anyway as I said, the novel centers around Jacob Jankowski, a veterinary student studying at Cornell. He's only a day away from taking his final and being able to graduate when he hears his parents have been killed in a car accident. He's left with nothing because his father, who was a veterinarian (Jacob was going to join his practice), was so in debt from taking on patients for free, working for goods instead of money, and taking a mortgage on the house to pay for Jacob's Ivy League education, everything left belonged to the bank. Jacob doesn't take his exam but instead walks out in the middle of it and unknowingly jumps a traveling circus train, The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show On Earth. He meets a really old guy named Camel who decides he could get Jacob a job with the circus. When they learn he's a vet (or close to being one, seeing as he didn't graduate) the brutal ringleader, Uncle Al, takes him on to work in the menagerie, with all the animals. Through his job he meets the man in charge of all of the animals, the paranoid schizophrenic August Rosenbluth (August is described as being able to be charming at times and brutal at others) and his lovely performer wife, Marlena, on whom Jacob harbors a crush. There are many bumps along to line: Jacob sharing a room with a performing dwarf named Kinko (Walter, to his friends) and his dog Queenie, August being vicious and unfeeling towards everyone, having to put down Marlena's favorite horse, and continually running out of food for the animals because neither August nor Uncle Al really care about them other than they make money. It's obvious Jacob continues to develop feelings for Marlena, and the feelings may be reciprocated. Alas, I've only read to page 145, so I've yet to find out. More on the romance later.

So far, I've enjoyed this novel and can't wait to see the movie adaptation that comes out in April, starring Robert Pattinson as Jacob, Reese Witherspoon as Marlena Rosenbluth and Christoph Waltz as her husband, August (Waltz always plays such a good villain, in my opinion). It'll be interesting to see how close they've stuck to the novel. I always hate it when movies stray from the novel they're adapting. So fingers crossed for a good movie worth the 8 dollars!