Mary Nelson

Let me say at the outset of this review that I usually read literary fiction. This book was a departure for me, one that I took on the faith of the 1600+ positive reviews on Amazon.com. Those reviews misled me, I’m afraid.

It’s mystifying why so many reviewers loved this book.

Jacob Jankowski, now over ninety years old, looks back on his decision to run away with the circus life during the Depression era after the tragic death of his parents forces his departure from veterinary school. He recalls the magic, the animals, the circus workforce, love affair, and, of course, the elephant mentioned in the book’s title.

It’s not a bad story, a fairly straightforward narrative without any literary flourishes, written in plain language and present tense. Certainly the author did her research so she could use the right lingo and details. Flash-forwards to the protagonist’s current life in a nursing home only provide a pretense for the ending, unfortunately. The plot is so thin that until about 3/4ths of the way through, I was convinced there wasn’t one. Likewise, the characters are fairly thinly realized, except for the “paranoid schizophrenic” villain and the intelligent elephant, Rosie. I found myself wondering why I even liked the protagonist, who fashioned himself as a kind of savior for a couple of victimized lesser players. Recently bereaved, the protagonist’s experience of bereavement is completely absent from the book, which I found unrealistic at best.

That said, I was surprised that I stuck it out and read to the end, which is why I didn’t give the book a lower rating. In all honesty, the last quarter of the book is quite possibly the best, when the main character finally acts on all his misguided desires. However, the final scene disappointed me; it seemed a bit too contrived.

Light reading, this one. If you want to read for 30 minutes before bed, this isn’t a bad bet, because it doesn’t not require much thought or deconstruction.

Got a Kindle as a gift and now I have a number of new books to read. I am thrilled with my Kindle! I’ll have to write about that in another entry.

I am on track to make my goal (2 books per month plus one bonus book). So far this year I’ve read:

*Three Junes by Julia Glass
*Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
*Change or Die by Alan Deutschman
*My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor
*90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper
*A Sense of Urgency by John Kotter
*Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Well-Being by Andrew Weil
*Anti-Cancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber
*The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You by Dorothy Bryant

You can see my list of books I intend to read this year at:
http://www.listsofbests.com/list/61845

but that list doesn’t add up to 25 because I wanted to leave room for some new releases.

Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road is the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple in the 1950s, who long for a life more uplifting and less stultifying than the suburban Connecticut where they come to raise their young family, because they see themselves as among the best and brightest. Frank has, by his own admission, “the dullest job you can possibly imagine”. But a plot by April to spring them from the trap of boredom and suffocation in their lives, including the insufferable irritations of enduring their friends and neighbors, goes awry.

Yates’ book reads close to character, very much third person limited point of view, with quick, conversational prose. My only quibble was with his shift mid-way through the book, to the points of view of other characters, a little late in coming for me, but necessary to illuminate character and move the plot forward.

Careful characterizations of supporting players—the mild mannered Milly and Shep Campbell, the nervous Mrs. Givings and her hapless husband Howard, and the foil of the Givings’ son John, long incarcerated in a mental institution, give the book more resonance.

Having grown up in the environment described in this book, rich with its suburban cocktail hours, crowded station wagons, desolate evenings at run-down clubs listening to outdated music, and dreadful presumptions and pretenses, Yates’ depiction brought back memories I’d thought were long-lost. It’s obvious that he has both sympathy and contempt for his characters, whose lives are shellacked by a coat of pleasantries to disguise their shallowness. He captures this culture so deftly that I found myself recovering my own revulsion for that time, those ghastly cocktail hours, and the drunken decisions that led people to self-disgust long afterwards.

The characters are only marginally likeable, so the book may put you off. But it is a masterful period piece and a kind of morality tale for our time. As art, it stands up well.