Water for Elephants - a book review

Water for Elephants 6/10

 

I was in need of a book to read and I happened upon water for elephants. The girlfriend explained how it was suppose to be a good read and since I was short on time I decided to give it a read. I will have to admit it was a pretty decent read...like any other book at first it seems boring, but after you get a few bites the book is difficult to put down.

This book gets a lower rating mostly because it is simply not my genera...no magic, dragons, knights, war...etc etc

At first the reader is confused because we get the viewpoint from a senior citizen for a while...this person, even though he has trouble remembering who he is, is the main character present day. He keeps retelling the tale of his life through flashbacks...so the whole time

It is about a young man in the early 1900's he is out of high school and about to get into a college when his folks die...he is very distraught and runs away.

Every so often the reader will return to the viewpoint of the old man, stuck in a home, who is losing his grip on reality. It just happened to be the time of year the circus came to town. The narrator started working for the circus after he jumped a train...which happened to be one for a traveling circus. One day at lunch he is at a table and someone was getting too much attention talking about the circus. This other old guy was telling all the old ladies that he used to work for a circus. This irritates the narrator, because he had actually worked for a circus, so he started to question the other older man.

"What did you do in the circus" asks the main character

"Carried water for Elephants" replies the other old man

and all the old hens "oohed" and "aaahed" however since the narrator had come to be the traveling veterinary for the circus he had a great deal of experience with elephants. Elephants drink an enormous amount of water. His day would be consumed by carrying buckets upon buckets day and night for a single elephant.

We jump back and forth in time every other chapter until a plot begins to develop and we see there is going to be a conflict between the main character and....imagine it, a woman. The woman is obviously already taken by someone else so nothing should be happening between the main character and her, however push comes to shove...and a conflict develops.

The end is pretty good...If you like the circus or like reading stuff from early 1900's then I certainly recommend reading water for elephants