water for elephant

So far I'm in love with the Book Club book choices. Water for Elephants was a great read that keept me wondering what could possibly happen next.

The way Sara Gruen tells her story is very similar to Nicholas Sparks "The Notebook". The story jumps from the present to the memories of the past. Instead of telling the past thought a Notebook, it is told in the dream like memories of Jacob Jankowski.

In the present Jacob Jankowski is a 91 year old (or is it 93 year) old man in a nursing home. The entire story takes place in a matter of a few days in real time. But in the past Jacob is a 23 year old man whose life has fallen apart and his dream like memories are about how he put his life back together.

After the loss of his parents Jacob 'runs away to the circus', even though that wasn't really his intention when he ran out of his final semester of his final year of veterinary school at Cornell. The Circus holds more trouble for Jacob then he could have ever expected.

I would love to say that Jacob's loss and pain is at the end. But in the corse of the story Jacob will loose both Kinko/Walter and Camel. Camel is the man who gets him the job in the circus and becomes a close friend. Camel becomes sick not long after Jacob joins the circus and is keept safe for as long as possible by Walter and Camel. Kinko is Walter's clown name, at first Walter does not like Jacob. One day, Jacob helps Queenie, Walters dog, when he is sick. After that Walter becomes very close to Jacob and helps him through many trials at the circus.

Circus's are going under left and right. Uncle Al, the circus owner loves to go to collect acts and animals from the skeletons. At the beginning of the story the Benzini Brothers Circus takes a three day detour to pick the bones of one disolved circus that has a act he is particularly interested in, however, instead of the act he was hoping for he ends up with a bull, the circus term for an elephant.

In some ways the purchasing of the bull is the beginning of a disaster just waiting to happen. Marlena is expected to preform with the bull, but her husband August the animal handler is unable to get Rosie the bull to do anything. It's not until Greg, a worker, speaks to Rosie in Polish that they figure out how to get her to understand them. There was a language barrier the whole time. It's a little ironic that Polish is the language the elephant understands, since Jacob is the son of Polish immigrants. After this revolution Rosie preforms tricks with no problem.

Rosie's problem may be figured out, but Jacob's is just beginning. He has already kissed Marlena since then the tension between them is spectacular. They both try to ignore it and move on with their jobs, but the tension still grows. After Rosie and Marlena have a wonderful performance, Marlena wants to have a small party between August, Marlena, Jacob and Rosie. When August walks in he miss interprets what he sees and hits Marlena. Jacob attacks August in Marlena's defense, both come out worse for the wear. Marlena decides to leave August, but that is a long road that ends in an animal stamped, the death of August the destruction of the entire circus.

In the end, after so much loss, Jacob and Marlena spend the rest of their lives together. After the fall of the Benzini Brothers Circus and the gaining of an elephant, 11 horses and a baby on the way Jacob and Marlena join the Ringling Brothers Circus and spend seven years traveling with them. At the end of the seven years they settle in Chicago where Jacob, with a Cornell Veterinary Degree, seven years working with exotic animals, and an elephant works for the Chicago Zoo.

Back to the present, Jacobs children forgot him and he wonders over the the circus that had been set up across the street at the beginning of the book, and at age 91 (or is it 93?) Jacob once again runs away with the circus, again.