The use of history as therapy means the corruption of history as history.
A.M. Schlesinger, Jr.
A.M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Water for Elephants review
A book I read as a twelve grader. This is one of those objects I quickly judged because of one glance of the cover. I thought it was going to be about someone who works in the circus feeding elephants. My guess was proven correct, this was about a circus, but the novel had a darker tone.
The story is about a man by the name of Jacob Jankowski, a "ninety or ninety-three year-old" man who lives in a nursing home. Jacob is told what to eat and what to do.
Jacob Jankowski is twenty-three years old and preparing for his final exams as a Cornell University veterinary student when he receives the news that his parents were killed in a car accident. Jacob’s father was a veterinarian and Jacob had planned to join his practice. When Jacob learns that his father was deeply in debt because he had been treating animals for free as well as mortgaging the family home to provide Jacob an Ivy League education,.. One night, he jumps on a train only to learn it is a Circus train. When the owner of the circus, Uncle Al, learns of his training as a vet, he is hired to care for the circus animals. This consequently leads Jacob to share quarters with a dwarf named Walter (who is known as Kinko to the circus) and his dog Queenie.
The author did research for this book as they state
"The major themes explored in this novel include circus life during the depression (Gruen did extensive research on the subject), the testing of a man’s moral compass, self worth, mental illnesses, acting on emotions, illusion vs. reality, and love triangles."
My perspective: As I mentioned above, I did not expect the book to have a huge twist on escaping reality and getting into drama. The book showed me that behind the clown make-up is either a depressing man trying to live during the great depression. I like the idea how the story is told as Jacob being an old man and then showing him as a young lad. The young Jacob only did what he was told. In exchange, he gets to learn other people’s view and opinion about characters. He still treats animals as his he wanted to. The story kept its promise of having a love triangle with Jacob, his boss Austen, and Austen’s wife. The beginning of the book was quite good. If it was not for his parents death, where he would go had many possibilities. Throughout the story, I felt that I went at an odd direction that I did not expect and it was not good in my view. I lost interest at the end of the novel. The story was good, but maybe because I read about the theme of a love triangle to much that it felt stale and repetitive
Nostalgic: Once again, I read another book because I was assigned from my teacher. I thought I was going to enjoy this book as much as I like Pride and Prejudice. I liked the book because it showed me that it is okay to judge a book by its cover when a person had a gut feeling about the person. I read the book because I found the plot interesting about a corrupted circus that is trying to survive the great depression. It was good, however it felt I read something similar when the book tries to connect to other themes. The ending was satisfying enough for me to give the novel a thumbs up, though this was nothing new on my side, and my grade will stand.
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