Gruen, Sara. Water for Elephants.. Toronto: Harper-Collins, 2006.
He didn’t really expect them to show up—they never really do, and when they do show up, it seems like a chore, and they have a constant eye on their watch, waiting for five o’clock as if it can’t come soon enough. “They” visit their dad irregularly. It’s a chore to visit “dad” in the nursing home. They assured him at the time that it wasn’t really a nursing home, rather an “assisted living” home, where he could get the help he needed after his fall. He is a retired veterinarian and they are his 5 children and several grandchildren who he resents for having put him in this place rather than taking him into their homes to care for him. He drifts in and out of memories. He is Jacob Jankowski and he loves elephants.
Even though it has become rather difficult to remember some of life’s many details, the one thing that ninety-something year-old Jacob has been able to remember is that the circus is coming to town tomorrow, and he gets to go if his family remembers to visit and take him. Should he count on them?
It has been nearly 70 years since the great Depression when he was 23 and writing his exams for veterinary school at Cornell University. He didn’t finish. His parents were killed in a car accident, leaving him penniless, and he dropped out, walking out of his final exams and subsequently hopping a train. He had thought he was in love. But it turns out he was not. Catherine, from back home was not the girl for him.
The train he hopped turns out to be a circus train. Specifically, the train belonged to the “Benzi Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth”. Luckily, he was able to parlay his expertise and experience with animals for a job with the circus. He became the circus vet, where he cared for a menagerie of exotic animals, including an elephant, Rosie, who responds only to polish commands.
He learned the ins and outs of the circus, through the treacherous ruling of Uncle Al, who cheats the Circus workers out of their wages, and fraudulently rips-off exhibits with false advertising.
In a series of revisited memories, he remembers having been engrossed in the circus…especially engrossed in Marlena, the horse-rider and wife of August. Jacob falls for Marlena immediately. The attraction between the two is inevitable, but the mental illness of August is threatening.
Marlena isn’t the only love of Jacob’s life. Rosie, the elephant is too. To Jacob, Rosie is perhaps the most faithful of anyone at the Circus.
Jacob remembers and reveals the richness of the circus and the leisurely recreation of the circus’s daily routine in a lovely and memorable way, and noted that the crewmembers seldom saw actual money but the performers and managers who party in the evenings, were able to drink champagne and dress in evening wear.
He remembers the hippo pickled in formaldehyde, the four-hundred-pound “strong lady”, Rosie the elephant, who pulled free from her stake and drank the lemonade for the midway, as well as the tragedy of the Jamaica ginger paralysis caused by the consumption of adulterated ginger extract.
He remembers these events just like they happened yesterday.
Marlena and her husband August seem to be in love at first, but before long, he sees that August is a cruel man, who beats the animals, including Rosie, and who eventually beats Marlena as well. Uncle Al tries blackmailing Jacob to reunite Marlena and August, for the sake of the circus—as both were invaluable members of the team.
When Jacob fails, people start to die, and one by one this leads to the final blow up.
Jacob refuses to lose his memories of the Circus—which for him was both his own hell, and his saving grace… visit Jacob at the Circus (read Water for Elephants).
