Water for Elephants
Gruen, Sara - FIRST EDITION
From THE BOOKSNIFFER, Lewes, East Sussex, United Kingdom
AbeBooks Seller Since March 28, 2003
Quantity: 1From THE BOOKSNIFFER, Lewes, East Sussex, United Kingdom
AbeBooks Seller Since March 28, 2003
Quantity: 1About this Item
No flaws, unread looking first edition. First printing, protected jacket, not marked, not ex library. Language: eng Language: eng 0.0 Language: eng 0.0 Language: eng 0.0 Language: eng. Seller Inventory # ABE-10592156450
Bibliographic Details
Title: Water for Elephants
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton London
Publication Date: 2006
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
Edition: 1st Edition.
About this title
Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob's life with this circus. Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself. The animals are mangy, underfed or fed rotten food, and abused. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the "menagerie" and all its ills. Uncle Al, the circus impresario, is a self-serving, venal creep who slaps people around because he can. August, the animal trainer, is a certified paranoid schizophrenic whose occasional flights into madness and brutality often have Jacob as their object. Jacob is the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass and as his reward he spends most of the novel beaten, broken, concussed, bleeding, swollen and hungover. He is the self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden, and... he falls in love with Marlena, crazy August's wife. Not his best idea.
The most interesting aspect of the book is all the circus lore that Gruen has so carefully researched. She has all the right vocabulary: grifters, roustabouts, workers, cooch tent, rubes, First of May, what the band plays when there's trouble, Jamaican ginger paralysis, life on a circus train, set-up and take-down, being run out of town by the "revenooers" or the cops, and losing all your hooch. There is one glorious passage about Marlena and Rosie, the bull elephant, that truly evokes the magic a circus can create. It is easy to see Marlena's and Rosie's pink sequins under the Big Top and to imagine their perfect choreography as they perform unbelievable stunts. The crowd loves it--and so will the reader. The ending is absolutely ludicrous and really quite lovely. --Valerie Ryan
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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