A character in Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants says of the Depression-era traveling circus that provides the setting for the novel, “The whole thing’s illusion, Jacob, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what people want from us.”
Does something similar apply to this No. 1 bestseller? Are the virtues critics and others have found in the novel real or overplayed? Find out Friday when a review of and reading group guide to the novel will appear on One-Minute Book Reviews, which dealt with the first two chapters on Sept. 14 www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/. You can find the publishers’ guide to Water for Elephants at www.algonquin.com.
(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
