As of late, there has been a lot of talk regarding Water for Elephants. I finally got my hands on a copy and thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed not just the story -- a wonderful tale that immerses you into circus life during the Depression -- but I loved that structure and devises Gruen used. One flashes between Jacob in his nineties, and his 23 year old self when he first joined the circus. The climax is the opening scene and you spend the rest of the novel trying to figure out what happened and what let to this event. By the time the climax happens in sequential order, you are equally curious about what happened to Jacob in the after math to his present state.
There are many under currents that enrich the novel. For example, Gruen has a sensitivity for the human animal bond and how another dimension of one's personality is exhibited with one's interaction with animals. Similarly, how people tread the aged and frail. The photos are wonderful, too. A truly engaging novel that compels you to read it again and again.
From the publisher:
Orphaned and penniless at the height of the Depression, Jacob Jankowski escapes everything he knows by jumping on a passing train — and inadvertently runs away with the circus. So begins Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen’s darkly beautiful tale about the characters who inhabit the less-than-greatest show on earth.
Jacob finds a place tending the circus animals, including a seemingly untrainable elephant named Rosie. He also comes to know Marlena, the star of the equestrian act—and wife of August, a charismatic but cruel animal trainer. Caught between his love for Marlena and his need to belong in the crazy family of travelling performers, Jacob is freed only by a murderous secret that will bring the big top down.
Water for Elephants is an enchanting page-turner, the kind of book that creates a world that engulfs you from the first page to the last. A national bestseller in Canada and a New York Times bestseller in the United States, this is a book destined to become a beloved fiction classic.
A forum for book discussion and musings. Why Jolie Laide? I am drawn to aspects of the world that are outside the classical rigours of symmetry and proportion prescribed as beauty. The slight discords are more compelling.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys
I wanted to read this when it was first issued, but never got around to it. Recently, I picked it up and fell in love with it. I have no idea why it is non-fiction. The Thames froze 40 tims in recorded historoy and while that may be interesting in itself, Humphreys takes those forty frozen incidents and creates 40 corresponding vignettes that are touching, poetic and enchanting. Some of my favourites involve characters who are in more than one story. This is a delightful that I would share with anyone but especially with someone who likes historical fiction.
It also made me go back and re-read The Lost Garden. I'm waiting to read Coventry -- the story of Harriet, a widow. She stands on the roof of Coventry Cathedral as part of the nightly fire watch, when first the factories and then the church itself are set on fire in air attacks. In the ensuing chaos, Harriet and a young man have to find the way back to his home where he left his mother....
But back to the Frozen Thames: here is the blurb from the Publisher:
In its long history, the River Thames has frozen solid forty times. These are the stories of that frozen river.
And so opens one of the most breathtaking and original works being published this season. The Frozen Thames contains forty vignettes based on events that actually took place each time the river froze between 1142 and 1895. Like a photograph captures a moment, etching it forever on the consciousness, so does Humphreys’ achingly beautiful prose. She deftly draws us into these intimate moments, transporting us through time so that we believe ourselves observers of the events portrayed. Whether it’s Queen Matilda trying to escape her besieged castle in a snowstorm, or lovers meeting on the frozen river in the plague years; whether it’s a simple farmer persuading his oxen the ice is safe, or Queen Bess discovering the rare privacy afforded by the ice-covered Thames, the moments are fleeting and transformative for the characters — and for us, too.
It also made me go back and re-read The Lost Garden. I'm waiting to read Coventry -- the story of Harriet, a widow. She stands on the roof of Coventry Cathedral as part of the nightly fire watch, when first the factories and then the church itself are set on fire in air attacks. In the ensuing chaos, Harriet and a young man have to find the way back to his home where he left his mother....
But back to the Frozen Thames: here is the blurb from the Publisher:
In its long history, the River Thames has frozen solid forty times. These are the stories of that frozen river.
And so opens one of the most breathtaking and original works being published this season. The Frozen Thames contains forty vignettes based on events that actually took place each time the river froze between 1142 and 1895. Like a photograph captures a moment, etching it forever on the consciousness, so does Humphreys’ achingly beautiful prose. She deftly draws us into these intimate moments, transporting us through time so that we believe ourselves observers of the events portrayed. Whether it’s Queen Matilda trying to escape her besieged castle in a snowstorm, or lovers meeting on the frozen river in the plague years; whether it’s a simple farmer persuading his oxen the ice is safe, or Queen Bess discovering the rare privacy afforded by the ice-covered Thames, the moments are fleeting and transformative for the characters — and for us, too.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
a light and fun read with a surprising ending. Furthermore, it encourages me to expand my own reading...