Water for Elephants
by Sara Gruen
Hodder & Stoughton, HK$120
The inspiration for this novel was a photograph taken by Edward J. Kelty, who followed circuses around the US in the 1920s and 30s. Just as his work enticed Sara Gruen into an eerily charming world, so her novel lures readers under the big top for a romance involving a vet, an elephant called Rosie and an equestrian named Marlena. Both females lead miserable lives under a sadistic ringmaster, whose violent demise begins the book. The following chapters flip between sepia-washed memories of the struggling Benzini Brothers circus and the present life of the vet, ninetysomething Jacob Jankowski, a nursing home inhabitant who is transported back to the old days by a forthcoming outing to a circus. Gruen segues back and forth in time seamlessly: one minute Jacob is telling off a fellow retiree for lying about having carried water for elephants, the next he's taking a crash course in the workings of a travelling circus and discovering that Rosie isn't the obtuse pachyderm everyone says she is. It's just that she speaks only Polish. Simple in structure, rich in detail and sometimes dreamy in ambience, Water for Elephants doesn't require readers to jump through hoops to enjoy all it offers.
