Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Image from http://a4.vox.com/6a00c2251c05e18fdb00cd9709da1c4cd5-500pi. Cover Artwork for "Water for Elephants: A Novel".


Every year, we get one of those novels that comes along, and makes a standard in storytelling. It usually constitutes some thematic events, and the setting itself has some sort of isolated theme. 12 Angry Men, was a play that took place in one isolated room, and was perhaps one of the most dramatic tales ever to grace the stage. The first Saw film was a conversation mainly between two men locked in a room with nothing but fear, and the raw emotional instinct of survival to keep us on the edges of our seats. This time around, a novel of less than four hundered pages, but a lifetime embedded inside takes place in a train car, and a retirement home. This great novel is called "Water for Elephants" by author Sara Gruen.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about this novel, is the fact that it takes place in only two solid settings. Well, three if you count the Big Top Performances described by the lead character Jacob Jankowski. Let's delve more into this character, and just how Sara Gruen uses his life's journey to tell a story of hardships, trial and error, and absolute sacrifices that dawn upon all the important characters.
Jacob's story starts him off at the old folks home. He is "ninety or ninety-three" and is perhaps a grouchy old man, that still has all his marbles in the pouch. Jacob is excited, because the circus is coming to town, and is preparing for several days to go see it. Somehow, he sees this as his last hurrah, and really has not another reason to live in this decrepit state that faith, and old age has thrown him. He hates the food, and would trade anything for a nice corn on the cob, or just to be able to taste an apple, and hear the mechanical sounds, the sweet tastes, and the symbolism of youth once again, so not to feel as old and defenseless as he does now. Jacob is an retired vetrinarian who dropped out of Cornell University after losing everything to blinding bad luck. He is hit with a double whammy, as his parents die in a freak car accident, and the house belongs to the bank, seeing as his parents took out another mortgage loan to pay for his Ivy League education. Seeing as he has nothing to go home to, even though he had but the final exam to take to earn his degree, Jacob walks out without even touching the exam, and jumps aboard an open box cart. Who knew that this cart would lead him into some of the best, and worst incidents of his long life.
Jacob, being the bringer of bad luck throughout the entire novel, seems have boarded a circus train. At first, Blackie, who is sort of the muscle work to keep hobos from jumping trains, seems to at first want to finish off Jacob fast, and toss him from the speeding locomotive. He is saved by one of the only reasonable characters throughout the entire novel, Camel, and is then given a job on the circus tour. To make light of the situation, he is tossed into the privileged cart to mee Uncle Al. Uncle Al is the Ringmaster behind the Circus, aptly named "The Benzini Bros. Most Spectacular Show on Earth". This was also during the Dustball era where Ringling was king of the circus curcuit, and Benzini, was biting at the knees, try to scrounge up all the remaing parts of other circuses, just so they could surrvive. So like vultures, they traved the Midwest, picking away at the dead carcasses of emptied curcuses that have ran out of money, in hopes of one day showing up Ringling Bros. Jacob joins on as a lacky, but his hidden talents as a vetrinarian to the Arabian horses during the show saves him a trip off the train via "redlighting" (Being tossed from the train during a slowing up at a stoplight). After making in good with Uncle Al, and becoming accquainted "friends" of August, the head animal wrangler, and Uncle Al's good friend, he lands a decent job working with the circus animals, and earns much respect from the other workers.
Things are seeminly well considering how life has treated Jacob up to this point, but he goes and does something rather dumb, and falls for August's wife, Marlena. She's a girl in the show that tends to, and does incredibly astounding acts with training the horses, and also being a charmingly beautiful women to boot. Jacob gets first accquainted with her, as he tries to save her horse that has been treated hrrobily, and malnourished ot the poin that his hooves were twisting, making hte pain almost impossible to deal with; so much that he could not even stand. Jacob sees no hopes, and odes away with the animal, but becoming even more attractied to Marlena.
As the story unfolds, we find out secrets about August, and Marlena's past. We meet Kinko the clown, who is vertically challenged, and called Walter by hi good friends. We even meet his agitated little Jack Russell Terrier Queenie. The characters are surreal, astounding, and often scary or hilarious. The dialouge is sometimes cliché, but fits the 30's well, and the roaring climax of the story, Rosie, who gives birth to the very title of the novel, "Water for Elephants" by author Sara Gruen is not one to be missed. If you have yet to read this great work, I do not suggest you hesitate! This was on my list of books to read for a while, and was a great way to start off my summer of reading. This novel is heart-warming, and written in a way that anyone that loved the circus as a child can enjoy. You visualize the way the animals see, you can even feel them, smell them, and hear their bellows throught he words on the paper. Sara's imagery is astounding, and it's amazing she knew nothing about the circuses, until the old pictures she purchased prior to the other novel she was thinking of writing, that inspired her to research and write about the story of Rosie, Marlena, and Jacob, and the loving bond all three had.
Ms. Gruen, I thank you for this work, it truly has depths that many authors wish to obtain. Sara's research pays off, as this was awarded as a New York Times Bestseller in 2006. I enjoy the overall conflicts, such as the internal conflict of Jacob v.s. the realization that he is growing older, and nearing the end, and the external conflicts he has with August throughout the entire novel. Gruen knows how to tell a story, and writes in a way that you are sailing through it, and not wanting to turn back.
To conclude, this novel has everything in it for readers of all genres: suspense, romance, drama, action, and even some sci-fi querks, although the novels underlying theme is the classic "Fact is Stranger than Fiction" , the concepts found to be true in her research are both mystifying, and even add more magic to the Big Top. With an amazing story, and amazing photographs througout the book, you have to give this novel a look-over, and I gurantee you will fall in love for the circus, and empathize much with this great chacter whose roll plays out wonderfully in "Water for Elephants". Again, the name of the book is "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen, and can be purchased at your local bookstore, and Amazon.com. Thank you again for your support of Malacast Editorial.

Read the upcoming iPhone Review whenver I get a hold of one. I do not intend of buying one, because I despise cell phones, as mentioned in my two previews done earlier in the year. Stay tuned also for my upcoming previews of several books coming out in late 2007, and very early 2008. My next review is a toss-up: Either Manhunt 2 the video game for the PS2, or the long-awaited book review of "Helen of Troy" by my favorite author Margret George, so expected an honest, but rather bias review. I will try to be fair, but I am a huge fan, and rwas mos honest on her novel "Mary, Called Magdalene".

Transformers Movie Review (Late Review)

Notice: The following post was written and to be posted on July 3rd, 2007 at approx. 7:35 p.m. Eastern Time, but due to certain complications, has been held back until now, please accept my appologies for the late post, and do enjoy this post on the new Transformers film. Any sources used for specifying the spelling of a character's name/name of vehicle come from Wikipedia.org, and/or IMDB.com, all information is of my own direct knowledge of the film itself, and of general common knowledge on the subject. Enjoy, and thank you for supporting Malacast Editorial. P.S. Happy Fourth of July!

Hi, I just go back from the Transformers Premiere, and had a decent walk back home. It is as of now 7:02 in the p.m., and I have just got back to my relaxing chair, and pulled up my laptop to settle down from the walk. Anyhow, let's not dive any further into my walk, rather to the review of Transformers: the movie.
Okay, first things first: this movie is based off the comics from Marvel/Anime/Hasbro toys. The characters were almost exact to what the common fan would expect: Star Scream was the Mach Jet, Blackout, a Black Hawk Helicopter (and first bot seen in the film). Barricade was a Police car, although in the original series he was technically a race car. On the Autobots side, there are: Optimus Prime, a Semi (naturally) Bumble Bee (Corvette, orignally a VW Bug) Ironhide, being a GMC Dropkick, Ratchet, (normally an ambulance, is an H2 Hummer) and Jazz ( Pontiac Solstice in the film, normally a Cybertronian car).
The movie itself was of a decent quality, and did have its rough moments, but nevertheless, it was rather lacking in some areas. Micheal Bay has directed a movie that rossed over 24 million dollars alone in one day, making it the highest grossing box office film for a Tuesday release. It was even a very nice day overall throughout the country. Transfore vers as many fans know are "robots in disguise" and the transforming would be key in the film, which it is,a nd done well in that Micheal Bay style. The chracters have reflection that seems to be realistic, the transformation even make the classic sounds that accompany the switching from vehicle to robot. The movie adaptation to the tranformers universe is also very much exact to the classic cartoon we grew up with. One translation that did not go over was the exclusion of Soundwave, and replaced with the Decepticon Frenzy. Frenzy, instead of turning into a cassette player, like he di in the early and mid eighties, now turns into a "boom-box" in the film. Another change was that of Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons changing into a giant lazer gun. Unfortunately in the film, he only changes into a jet, similar to that of Star Scream, who is of course, his right-hand man...er bot.

image from http://www.canmag.com/images/front/transformers/barricade.jpg. This is what Barricade, the police car in the film, looks like as a robot form. Quite an impressive bot that you meet about an hour or so into the film.

STORYLINE: WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

The movie's storyline sticks very close to that of the old cartoon, in that it deals with the use of young eath teens discovering the bots, via the boy Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) purchasing his first car. As many of the commercial have shown, the boy assumes he's going to get a Porsche, but instead is brought to a used car dealership, to buy a banged-up old Corvette. The car starts acting weird, and decides to drive off on its own accord. Sam follows it to a junnkyard, where he discovers his car is "more than meets the eye". Sam learns that his car is an alien machine from the planet Cybertron, and that he has disguised himself as an automobile. He sends a message to other robots, called the "autobots" for short, and the premise is to find a cube of pure energy called the All Spark. The Autobots have traced it to Earth, via Witicky's great great grandfather, whom had discovered a frozen "Ice man" in the Antartic. The Autobots have fought an enemy known as Decpiticons for eons, and have traced the All Spark to Earth. They want to use it to end the war, and finally bring peace and justice to their race. Little do they know that the "Ice Man" is actually Megatron, who had been frozen and kept in a cryogenic state. OPnce the other Decepticons discover the whereabouts of their leader, they soon see it fit to release him from his frozen prison, just bringing about war, terror, and destruction upon the Earth. Will the Autobots defeat the Decepiticons, in what may be their final battle? Or will the Decepticons wreak carnage on earth, and use the All Spark for world domination? You'll have to check out this film in theaters now for the answer.

Image fromhttp://graysmatter.codivation.com/content/binary/megatron_movie.jpg This is what Megatron's robot form is in the film. He is pretty badass, and has a manical sense of humor to top it all off.

Despite many reasons one may find this film lacking, let's be real: it has giant fighting robots, demolishing and destroying everything in their paths (Although the bullet time was a little overdone, in my opinion, the fight scenes are what summer movies are truly all-about. They are nothing short of magnificant). On top of it all, the film runs about two and a half hours, and you may need to stretch your legs out, but Transformers leaves you wanting to see a sequel be done. I fror one would see a sequel if Micheal Bay will again direct, since he has done an amazing job, and has stuck to the plot better than most of these transistion films do, even topping the Spiderman film storyline transistions. If you are into Transformers, or a fan of anything Japan, this film is most definetly up your alley, I just say that for being a long-time fan, I truly was not that disappointed with the minor changes. Megatron as an aircraft sort of sucked, but Starscream was done very well. I recommend this film as a film to see this summer, because the director does not let you down! I don't want to give much more away, but the actors do a swell job, the humor, although rather short and blatant does make those who know the series well get a minor chuckle, and the attitudes of the Autobots are dead-on to their characteristics and personas. Enjoy this film, as I did, because it is defiently worth the ticket. I also recommend, like I do for most films like this one, to see it in an IMAX theater if possible, I had not had the pleasure to see it in an IMAX theater yet, but if the occasion rises up, I very well just might see it again.
image taken from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2a/000493904527.jpg This is my favorite Transformer of the Decepticons, and that is General Starscream. Starscream is a fighter jet in the film, and is perhaps one of the most popular Transformers on the Decepticon's side. The fans were outraged with his new look, but they failed to notice that most of the characters only resembeled the true look of the Eighties cartoon characters, and have gone through many transistions over the past 25-30 years. I honestly thought Starscream was decent-looking in the film, and his update into the 2000's was better than most.

Stay in touch for another update on Malacast Editorial, when I review the 2006 New York TImes Bestseller "Water For Elephants" by Sara Gruen. A mighty fine read, and although it's an older book, a rather under-the-radar work. I just noticed how it is recently getting more press towards the end of 2007 than it has when it was released in mid 2006. Perhaps the outwaying of books like "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and "The Secret Life of Bees" has made it seem not as important of a novel, but I assure you; you will not want to miss my overview of this great book.