Final Exam Post

 

Gruen moved to the United States from Canada in 1999 for a technical writing job. When she got laid off two years later, she decided that she would give writing fiction a try. As a devoted animal lover, Gruen’s first novel, Riding Lessons, “explores the intimate and often healing spaces between people and animals and was a USA Today bestseller”(saragruen). Gruen’s second novel, Flying Changes, is also about animals, horses more specifically. Gruen’s most recent novel, Ape House, features the Bonobo Ape. Gruen has had a life-long fascination with the human-ape discourse, taking a special interest in the Bonobo Ape. “Ape House is a riveting, funny, compassionate, and, finally, deeply moving new novel that secures Sara Gruen’s place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before” (saragruen).

Sara Gruen’s awards include the 2007 Book Sense Book of the Year Award, the Cosmo Fun Fearless Fiction Award, the Bookbrowse Diamond Award for Most Popular Book, the Friends of American Literature Adult Fiction Award and the ALA/Alex Award 2007.

Sara Gruen’s novel, Water for Elephants became an instant hit and one of “the most beloved bestselling novels of our time” (saragruen). Readers fell in love with Jacob, a young man tossed onto a rickety train in the middle of the night after running out of his final exams, and Rosie, an elephant that can’t be trained.

The plot of Water for Elephants is very intriguing. You get a look into the life that circus workers live and the troubles they had to face on their long journeys from town to town. It was interesting to see who sticks up for whom when the going gets rough and who has who’s back when they really need it. Of all the characters, Jacob is the strongest because he sticks up for what he wants and he helps those who need helping. "I'm not going to sit here and listen to you tell me that it's okay for August to hit her because she's his wife. Or that it's not his fault because he's insane. If he's insane, that's all the more reason she should stay away" (164). When August started hitting Marlena, he wasn’t going to stand by and let that happen and that was the turning point in the novel for Jacob’s character where he finally manned up and stood up for the woman he loved.

The major theme of this book is love. It’s a love story between Jacob and Marlena. “My heart pounds so hard that, despite the roaring of the crowd, I am aware of blood whooshing through my ears. I am filled to overflowing, bursting with love” (105). When Marlena finally shows her act with Rosie to the crowd, Jacob finally realizes then and there that he is madly in love with her. The love story isn’t just between humans though. Jacob falls in love with the animals that he has cared for day in and day out for such a long time. It's impossible to describe how tenderly I suddenly feel toward them – hyenas, camels, and all. “Even the polar bear, who sits on his backside chewing his four-inch claws with his four-inch teeth. A love for these animals wells up in me suddenly, a flash flood, and there it is, solid as an obelisk and viscous as water” (97). When Jacob realizes that he has nothing in his life any more – no family, no friends, no woman to love, he feels an overwhelming rush of love for the animals that he has grown to know so well.

This novel is a great love story combined with tragic, mysterious plot twists that you wouldn’t see coming. Water for Elephants was very well written with descriptive detail and such bursting emotions that you can feel them seeping out of the pages you hold in your hand.