The downside of searing throat pain is that you cannot sleep. The bright side (cue Monte Python) is that you can spend an entire evening in bed to finish a book. In this case, it was Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.
I had no expectations for this read and will admit was, at times, surprised (and perhaps blushed) with our author's frankness in setting scenes. (I am sure it is still far from a popular 50 book in the spotlight.) Like the author (previous to her writing this novel), I have no recollection of having ever been to the circus. [It could also be that I am suppressing a memory which includes clowns. I'm not a fan of clowns thanks to reading It perhaps a bit too young but that is another story.] The characters, the work, the risk, and hope of reward became vivid to me as I hit "Next" on the Kindle (which is admittedly not the same as saying "turned the page" but we have to let go a little of these). I was eager to know how Marlena would make out and whether or not Jacob's story would "fair" a happy ending. Until reading the author's notes, I completely missed the Biblical parallels. A quick search leads me to believe I was not the only reader to do so.
In the end, this novel was perfect travel reading. The noises of children, animals and those occasional plane smells drove me deeper into the book and added a bit of 3-D enhancement to the story threads. I did find the anecdote about Edison and the elephant disturbing, but I'm trying to chalk it up to knowing history better arms us not to repeat it.
Author's note: Side effects of throat pain sometimes include bad puns, disjointed, jumpy texts and insertion of personal parenthetical anecdotes.
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