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A novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932. When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her.--From publisher description.… (mais)
BookshelfMonstrosity: Though Gruen's story is fiction and Hillenbrand's journalistic nonfiction, both reveal relationships between humans and animals in the Great Depression's entertainment field. Each describes the backstage training, care, and abuse of performing animals and people in candid, engaging language.… (mais)
Alliebadger: Both well-written stories about the performing life. Very different sides of it, and in very different time periods, but both well-written and exciting.
BookshelfMonstrosity: Readers of Water for Elephants may enjoy reading this memoir of farm life during the Great Depression; though the experiences are rather different, Little Heathens offers a complementary view of the period.
Esse livro conta a história de um tratador de elefantes com 93 anos de idade. Ele está numa casa de repouso e começa a se lembrar do passado e com ele vem as lembranças da sua vida no circo, onde conheceu a mulher que amava e aprendeu a amar uma elefanta. É uma história muito interessante, pois a elefanta é hilária e muito inteligente! Mas a autora não é muito feliz em trabalhar os personagens e suas tramas. Ela tem uma linguagem um pouco crua, mas nem por isso menos interessante. É uma história de fácil acesso e entendimento.
É muito gostoso de ler... não era para demorar tanto quanto eu demorei para acabar por pura falta de tempo!
It's a favorite of book clubs and reading groups, and is supposedly rife with parallels between the protagonist, Jacob Jankowski and Jacob, grandson of Abraham, in the Bible. I wish one of you would tell me what they are. They are not obvious to me, other than a cryptic "Jacob's ladder" parallel to the ladder on the train cars that give access to the roof and that will be important late in the story. What is obvious to me is this is a book about memory, something elephants are famous for and something humans are famous for treating as reliable when it isn't.
At its finest, "Water for Elephants" resembles stealth hits like "The Giant's House," by Elizabeth McCracken, or "The Lovely Bones," by Alice Sebold, books that combine outrageously whimsical premises with crowd-pleasing romanticism. But Gruen's prose is merely serviceable, and she hurtles through cataclysmic events, overstuffing her whiplash narrative with drama (there's an animal stampede, two murders and countless fights).
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
I meant what I said, and I said what I meant... An elephant's faithful--one hundred per cent! --Theodor Seuss Geisel, Horton Hatches the Egg, 1940
Dedicatória
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
For Bob, still my secret weapon
Primeiras palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.
Only three people were left under the red and white awning of the grease joint: Grady, me, and the fry cook. (Prologue)
The idea for this book came unexpectedly: In early 2003 I was gearing up to write an entirely different book when the Chicago Tribune ran an article on Edward J. Kelty, a photographer who followed traveling circuses around America in the 1920s and '30s. (Author's Note)
Citações
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Is where you’re from the place you’re leaving or where you have roots?
I wasn’t aware of dozing, but that’s how it goes these days. I seem to slip in and out of time and space.
With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.
Últimas palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
A novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932. When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her.--From publisher description.
Google Books — Carregando...
(4.06)
Group Read (August): Water for Elephants
17
É uma história muito interessante, pois a elefanta é hilária e muito inteligente!
Mas a autora não é muito feliz em trabalhar os personagens e suas tramas. Ela tem uma linguagem um pouco crua, mas nem por isso menos interessante. É uma história de fácil acesso e entendimento.
É muito gostoso de ler... não era para demorar tanto quanto eu demorei para acabar por pura falta de tempo!
(28 de março de 2008) (