Book Review by Zinta Aistars · Paperback: 350 pages · Publisher: Algonquin Books, 2007 · Price: $13.95 · ISBN-10: 1565125606 · ISBN-13: 978-1565125605 I’ve been to the circus only once in my life, as a small child, towed along by my parents for what they surely thought would be a treat. It wasn’t. We never went again. Even as a small child, I seemed to instinctively pick up on the abuse required to get wild animals to do what they do in the three rings of a circus. If nothing else, the sight of such wonderful creatures as elephants, lions, tigers, bears and various others, forced to do what they would not normally do but for cheap human entertainment, galled me. I loved animals. I loved them at a distance, to view them in either their natural habitat or through some telescopic lens that would keep the disruption of their lives in the wild at a minimum. For that reason, out of my respect for their wildness, I have avoided both the circus and zoos. Sara Gruen’s novel, Water for Elephants , reinforced my decision. It is the story of Jacob Jankowski, both at age 23 and at age 90-something (he can’t clearly recall, as he narrates the story in a series of flashbacks from the nursing home where he is at present wasting away his final days). He does not run away to the circus for the usual romantic reasons of seeking adventure and freedom, as it is commonly viewed. His parents have died in a car crash, and he finds himself without any inherita ...
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