Book 21 - Water For Elephants

Completed April 4th

This is one of the best books I've read all year. Top 3 easy. As soon as I finished the last paragraph I wanted to start it over again. A couple people had recommended it, but my expectations weren't high, to be honest. It didn't work out so well for the last suggestions. But I just dove in blindly, without even reading the back cover.

This novel is set in Depression-era America...mostly. The story is told by Jacob who is 90 (or 93) as he remembers his early 20s, spent working in the circus. [Now, I'm not a fan of circuses. At all. They freak me out. BUT I was fine reading this book.] Jacob was the veterinarian for the Benzini Brothers Greatest Show on Earth in the summer of one of the greatest circus disasters of all time. Some parts are disturbing. There are graphic descriptions of violence as well as animal abuse and death, but it's necessary. The reader needs to understand the conditions of day-to-day life among humans and animals in order for the story to grab him and shake him up inside.

I'm still processing this one. I may re-read it later on this year and do a proper review, but I want to make sure I finish the 50 books first.

Favorite passages:

• Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse.
• Keeping up the appearance of having all your marbles is hard work but important. Anyway, I'm not really addled. I just have more facts to keep track of than other people.
• When you are five, you know your age down to the month. Even in your twenties, you know how old you are. I'm twenty-three you say, or maybe twenty-seven. But then in your thirties, something strange starts to happen. It is a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm--you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you are not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it.
• The whole thing's illusion, Jacob, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's what people want from us. It's what they expect.
• With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you keep it does not.

Rating: 10/10