Where in the world am I today?: St. Thomas, joining the Emerald Princess
A few weeks back I was traveling through Orlando on my way to join the Monarch of the Seas and had the delightful pleasure of spending some time with my friend Penny Mathis. Penny picked me up from the Airport and drove me out to Port Canaveral. I insisted on taking her to Waffle House for a brunch as part of this journey and before dropping me off at the ship she handed me a copy of Water for Elephants a book by Sara Gruen.
A quick stop by wikipedia gives you this quick synopsis of the story –
Water for Elephants is a historical novel by Sara Gruen. The novel centers on Jacob Jankowski and his experiences in a travelling circus called The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.
Gruen did extensive research of both circus archives as well as searching out and recording various people’s personal accounts of their lives on various circuses in the United States and this research paid off as she seems to have captured some of the gritty realities of what the life on the circus was like during the great depression.
Years ago while working at the Edmonton Street Performers Festival a casting agent from Cirque du Soleil came to scout talent at the festival. Also there that year was my friend Geoff Cobb who performs as Sword Swallower, Thom Sellectomy. Geoff seemed to have a certain distain for what Cirque du Soleil represented because to his mind, Cirque wasn’t really a Circus… They were far to clean and far to polished and over the course of the week at the festival I got to hear some of his more gritty stories about some of his experiences while working as a clown on the Clyde Beatty Cole Brothers Circus in the late 80s.
Reading ‘Water for Elephants’ reminded me of some of the stories that Geoff told that week and really gave me the impression that the story not did a great job of relating the twists and turns of an old man’s memory of how he met his wife while working on the Circus, but also captured and did justice to the gritty realities of what life on the circus must have been like during the great depression.
The best possible review I could probably give this books starts with this confession. I’m an incredibly slow reader. It takes me forever to get through a book and this one I devoured in about three days. It’s a quick read, the story is engaging and the world and characters that Gruen created kept the book in my hands. Well worth the read.
My friend gave me this book and I too enjoyed it thoroughly. I was amazed at her ability to write about a protagonist that his male. I would find that quite challenging to put myself in the opposite sex’s shoes.
Right now my wife and I are watching the HBO special Carnivale and it has quite a few parallels with the book.
It’s a good read all in all.
Thanks for the infos! Your blogpost actually assisted me.