The Diva Review:
For some reason, I'm always attracted to books about the circus. I especially love ones about circuses of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although I'm loath to actually attend one (issues with clowns – I understand it's common), I'm fascinated by the culture. And the animals. Like with all topics, some stories work and some just don't.
Water for Elephants is a story that could have gone terribly wrong because there are so many moving parts. Fortunately for us, it doesn't. It comes out wonderfully. Jumping back and forth in time, we follow the now elderly narrator as he takes us back to his youth when he left is prestigious university just shy of his degree and quite literally joined the circus. As we flip back and forth through time, a picture emerges of a time and place where behavior and morality were guided by the difference between carneys and rubes.
It's a mystery, a love story, a tale of unlikely friendship and eventually, redemption. I very much enjoyed reading this book. It's so well written and researched, and really tenderly told. It's definitely up there with my favorites.
|
|
|
Diva Interviews