This could have been a wonderful novel.  Don’t get me wrong - it’s a very good novel, the story is solid, the characters are well drawn, the research is solid - but it’s flawed, and those flaws prevented me from truly enjoying the book.

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob Jancowski - a vetrinary student who suffers a personal trauma that launches him into the world and, as fate would have it, lands him on a circus train.  I don’t want to spoil the actual story, but I do want to mention the things that bothered me.

The first thing is that the book is told on two timelines - one is the present, where Jacob is an old man in a nursing home, and the second is the meat of the book - the real story - told in flashbacks to his youth.  This dual voice is, in my opinion, one of the most overused and pointless literary devices to ever pummel a reader’s concentration.  If a very important point were made, I might conceded that the bits where he is an old man have their place in the story, but the way it’s written they feel tagged on, and they derail the story every time the voice shifts.  Nothing - in other words - is really gained by this additional part except some length; as a literary trick it fails to pull any rabbits out of the hat.

The second flaw, and this one is the worst, is that the book begins with a scene that recurs later on in the text - this scene is the climax to all of the tension, passion, and action of the book, and by the time you reach it you already know what is going to happen, and every bit of power drains out of the scene like a popped balloon.  Everything after that feels like anticlimax, and then you are delivered back to the old man, and the present, for what was apparently supposed to be a feel good surprise, but instead felt like fluff.

The main story - that of Jacob, Marlena, August - the elephant Rosie - and the Benzini Brother Circus is fabulous.  It’s well worth the read, and I mention the above flaws - particularly the device of using the climax as a beginning - because if this story had just begun with Jacob ending up in the circus and been a linear novel that led through to the climax, I’d count it among the best I’ve read in recent years.  As it is, I’ll remember it, but will remember that it could have been so much better.

You can order the book by clicking the cover to the right.

-DNW