Water For Elephants - Chapter One

My first impression of the book Water for Elephants after reading the first chapter is that I am curious and intrigued to what the whole story is going to be about. I feel this way because of how the narrator Jacob Jankowski goes into detail about his surroundings and how he says he doesn't really like living where he is because he still believes he is young at heart but knows his age has caught up with him physically. Jacob goes on about how once you get past a certain age you forget your age and a few years isn't going to make a huge difference to your life. Even though Jacob states that when you get older you loose you memory he seems to be able to remember things from when he was younger which shows irony to what he says about memory. Towards the end of the chapter Jacob is at dinner with other people in the retirement home and gets into an argument with a man named Joseph McGuinty. Mr. McGuinty said that he used to carry water for the elephants at the circus which Jacob didn't believe and called him a "liar" and an "old coot" Mr. Jankowski was then taken to his room by the nurse and was told to calm down. Therefore I am excited to find out how the relationship between Jacob and Joseph will play throughout the rest of the book because I have a feeling Joseph McGuinty will play a huge roll in the rest of the book. 

Water for Elephants

Hello, my name is Ben Erb. I have decided to read the book Water for Elephants due to the positive and enthusiastic reviews I have read from others about the book. Another reason I chose this book is because of how there is a movie scheduled to come out based on the novel sometime in the upcoming year. With the movie I will later on be able to compare the two and get a better overall understanding of the story. My understanding of the story is that there is a man that was in a traveling circus that is now older and he tells us about his experiences he had when we was younger. I hope to get a lot out of this novel and be able to enjoy reading the book to possible learn new things about the characters throughout the book.

Reviews From:

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Water-for-Elephants-A-Novel-Sara-Gruen/9780006391555-AllReviews.html