Adventures in Reading: "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

I am blown away by how fast I can read a book after reading "Anna Karenina". Seriously.

Anyway..."Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen is a great, quick read. It's the story of Jacob Jankowski, an old man in a nursing home reminiscing about the days when he was a veterinary student at Cornell who literally ran away and joined the circus after a tragedy turns his world upside down. The flashbacks to his circus days are the bulk of the story, and Gruen does an excellent job knowing when to pull the reader back to the present time, and when to let the story go uninterrupted.

I always find it interesting when women write from a male perspective, and vice versa. It seems easier, in a way, to write from a male perspective than from a female perspective, since our culture is, let's face it, still fairly male-centric. Women seem to corner the market on female protagonists (with the exception of Nicolas Sparks, but his techniques seem to rely heavily on female fantasy of romance, and not on reality...but I digress). My point here is that I never once thought to myself, "that seems like a very female way of describing this situation". I was mostly concerned about this being a problem when dealing with the romantic relationships portrayed in the story...especially in the sex scenes. Women and men inherently view sex differently, and it's hard for the author's experience to not come through their characters when they don't know anything else (that goes for everything). All that to say, I was impressed with Gruen.

I would definitely recommend this book. It's a quick read, and an engaging story. It's also an interesting look into the behind-the-scenes world of the old train circuses. What more could you ask for, really?