Fabian's Reviews > Water for Elephants

It's truly admirable to place the plot on a moving train and its roving fairgrounds... it's like living in a cotton candy cloud. There were plenty of chances to dash the reader away, to make poetry out of the circus workers' vagrant conditions, to use the animals as characters, not just decor... to avoid cliche. This novel is written concisely, but with often description so vague the reader just glides over it. Also, the narrator is absolutely unreliable... oftentimes he seems more hero than human, perhaps the 90+ year old man got all of his story mixed up with local history. Sara Gruen is herself a historian, and a lover of the "Moulin Rouge" star-crossed lovers parable. The result is a breezy, whimsical book that evokes the wonderment of the circus itself: there are fake lights, funny events, dashing drama, but its all definitely been seen before.

NEW RETROSPECTIVE RATING: 4**** (2017: "for even artichokes have h...")