Connections in Water for Elephants

At this point, I am a decent way through Water for Elephants, and although I have yet to improve my opinion about it, I am determined to finish the novel. If you read my previous post, you probably know what this book is about- an old man vividly describing his experiences running away to work in a circus. Currently in the novel, it Jacob has befriended some of the more important members of the group and is well treated as the only ivy league educated veterinarian on the train. As other circuses close down as a result of the Great Depression, Uncle Al is acquiring their performers and property using both legal and illegal means. While reading, I noticed several connections in the book to other sources.

Firstly, I noticed that Uncle Al used clever wording to fool people into buying tickets to see ordinary things. By not telling lies (but hiding the truth) Al is able to sell costumers into seeing sights such as a "horse with a tail where it's head should be" (the tail was in the bucket of food). I found this similar to how products are advertised on TV. Exaggerated claims are made for these products that "are not available in stores" by using intricate language that cannot be claimed to be completely false. Only the unreadable fine print that appears briefly near the bottom of the screen reveals more to the purported revolutionary technology.

On another note, I was also able to make a text to self connection. In the narrative, Jacob finds that in the nursing home, everything is tailored exactly to suit his health, containing the right types of nutrients, along with preferences recorded for his daily schedule. Jacob is cynical but surprised about how much they know about him, and on page 106 says, "You'd think that they'd have my preference written down on my chart by now, but they ask me the same question every morning. Of course I would rather eat breakfast in the dining room." I sometimes feel the same way when using a website like Google. It seemingly knows everything about you, and already knows what you will type before you type it. Although it does help their product become better, it is intriguing how much information just one company can collect about you.

Finally, I thought that the narrator during the modern day section had a similar way of speaking as Nick in The Great Gatsby. Just like Nick, Jacob continually reflects upon the past, and finds it necessary to tell other stories before he can truly tell the reader what he wants to say. The English used is also similar- The Great Gatsby was actually written in the 1920s while Water for Elephants is a recent novel with a story happening in the 1920s.

After learning more about the main character, I still haven't grasped the extent of the plot yet. My prediction- as simplistic as it seems- is that Jacob will be able to train an elephant that was believed to be useless. This stems from the title, and the anger that he feels when someone claims that they "carried water for elephants". Along with that, one of the characters has been acting suspiciously, so it may turn out that he will become the primary antagonist.

New Book- Characters in Water for Elephants

Today, I started a new book, Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. I didn't know what it was about until I started reading the book, and I hadn't read the summary before I started either. The book, at this point, appears to be about an old man reminiscing about his days in the circus, but this website can probably tell you more than I can. The main character in this book is Jacob Jankowski, a ninety (or perhaps ninety three) year old man who is stuck in a modern nursing home in the current time period. Jacob is unwilling to accept his situation and cannot bring himself to realize that his life is slowly slipping away. A comment by another patient sets off a series of memories about his younger days. The author uses this part of the story to characterize Jacob and begin the plot and uses the older Jacob as a narrator. While in college, Jacob is suddenly struck with both of his parents dying in a car crash, and, with nothing to do, he hops aboard a train that happens to be part of a circus. From this point onward, he is part of the traveling circus. Although the story seems far fetched, it is written in a way that makes it appear more realistic.

As evidenced in the text, Jacob makes decisions quickly without thinking about their consequences. On page 24, Gruen writes, "I snap out of my stupor. There are people on that train. It matters not where they are going." This quote shows that instead of thinking over his situation and graduating from college, Jacob decides that he has to run away. After realizing the purpose of the train, he is quick to learn about working in the circus. Although he is appalled by the circus workers, within a day he is an employee of the "Benzi Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth". Jacob is able to make friends even in the hostile environment, showing that he can adapt to many situations. On his very first day, he has already made friends with an old circus worker and acts like he has been working in the company for years. Although his quick thinking sometimes lands him in sticky situations, it also saves his life. This can be seen in the following quote from page 56, when the leader of the group, "Uncle" Al, finds out about Jacob- "And pray tell what does Jacob Jankowski think he is doing on my train?... I've seen your sort a thousand times." Instead of being thrown out of the train like others would, Jacob manages to convince Al that he could be useful since he has a partial degree in veterinary medicine which would enable him to care for the animals on the train. From just the first few pages, it is clear that he will have to change significantly to propel the plot forward.

So far, it seems like Jacob will turn into a round character, as he is already described well in multiple points of view. I'm not sure if this book will turn out to be any better, but regardless of its plot it has great characterization for the main character. Many instances in the story give details unnecessary for the advancement of the plot, but re-enforce the character of Jacob. 

Theme in Robopocalypse

This may be the longest time I've taken to finish such a relatively short (350 page)  novel, but here it is again: this time I'm looking at theme in Robopocalypse. I was surprised by the end of the book, and there was an unexpected twist that led to the expected victory. The plot was suddenly brought together by an array of sources, and the main characters group is able to form an alliance in an entity that noboy would expect. This made me give it a good rating on goodreads... and caused me to think about its theme.

The theme of the novel is both explicitly stated and implied by the author, and is constantly developing until the very end of the novel. You get a taste of the theme in the very first chapter, in which Cormac Wallace states,"We are a better species for having fought this war." What he means by this is not only that people learned many lessons after fighting their own creations, but in a broader sense that people need to stand up for what they believe in, especially even in high pressure situations. From the war that ensues throughout the story, we can learn that when people are not mindful of their acts, they can unknowingly opress groups of society that feel they need to retaliate. Although the Dr. Nicholas Wasserman, who created the self aware robot Archos, was minutely aware of its implications, he was careless and let the technology spread to machines and robots of all kinds, from household appliances to military machines. Society too, in the novel, does not realize that by depending on their robot helpers for everything they do, they have given this group of beings a reason to be angy and to retaliate. These robots feel that their self awareness puts them on par with humans, and do not want to be treated like ordinary machines.

Towards the middle of the novel, a second theme emerges. Each seperate group of people thinks that they are only trying to survive, and will not be able to help humanity, but ends up contributing in a large way. This shows that although actions can seem small, when they compound they can result in change on a massive scale. A quote that supports this, from page 132 is "The Osage Nation never turned away a single human survivor... As a result, Gray Horse grew into a bastion of human resistance" Although this small community in the book starts out with only a few badly equipped people, by taking small steps to find other survivors, it is able to grow into a large power in the emerging plot.

If you do decide to read this novel, you will realize that Daniel H. Wilson has put a lot of thought into not only the scientific aspects of the story, but also the literary and philosophical aspects of it.

Characters of Robopocalypse

Now almost finished with Robopocalypse, I can now see how the author Daniel H. Wilson has fully developed the story's characters over the course of the narrative. (If you don't know what this book is about take a look at my previous post) Unlike most novels which only have one or two main characters, Robopocalypse has an abundance of equally important characters whose stories are told in short chapters scattered throughout the novel. Now, most authors would be unable to pull off such a feat, giving depth to no less than seven main characters without even a continuous flowing story, but Daniel H. Wilson manages to do it flawlessly. In themselves, each of the characters does not appear to contribute much more to the plot, but when their stories start intertwining, you can see that they have propelled the plot forward. It is not the plot, but the characters that are the most stunning part of this novel. Without them, the story could be reduced to about one sentence like this one: 'Various tactics are employed by humans to end a war in which robots have decided that the only way to preserve the earth is to end humanity.'

Perhaps the most important main character is Cormac Wallace, who also happens to be the narrator. The plot is almost reverse: the ending is revealed on the first page, but how the story got to that point is the subject of the next 400 pages.Wallace is a clever but ordinary man who has joined the army. He can seem unsophisticated at times, spewing out cuss words, but he is actually given a deep personality by the author. At first, Cormac seems afraid of the conflict, and stays in the shadows of his courageous older brother. You can tell he's never even seen a conflict of this proportion, and doesn't know what to do. As quoted from the novel, Cormac states, "Here it is, the day before Thanksgiving. The day it all happened. My life up until now was never that great, but at least I was't being hunted. I never had to jump at the shadows, wondering whether some metal bug was about to try to blind me, sever one of my limbs, or infect me like a parasite." (Wilson 159)

After losing his older brother though, Cormac is left by himself, and has to change his ways to survive. He slowly develops into a more courageous and fearless leader who is ready to do whatever it takes to destroy Archos, the master robot. At this point in the novel, Cormac realizes that although he may die, his actions could help the billions of other humans survive. He no longer tries to only keep himself safe, hiding behind the shadows, but joins with other people he instinctively knows he can trust. As Cormac Wallace comments at the end of a chapter, "I assumed control of the squad that day. After the death of Tiberius Abdullah and Jack Wallace, the squad never again hesitated to make any sacrifice necessary in our fight against the robot menace." (Wilson 306)

 From just this one character out of many important ones, it is easy to see that Daniel H. Wilson put much thought into the development of dynamic characters.

Reading Connections in Robopocalypse

After finishing Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, I started reading Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson. The author has a degree from Carnegie Mellon University and has written several previous science fiction novels on articficial intellingence and robots. The story starts out as a war is ending, one between people and a robotic system that believes it needs to eliminate the human species to save the rest of the world. A soldier in this conflict, Cormac Wallace, compiles small bits of information for others in the future to know about the war. Each chapter of the book is a snippet of seemingly random information from different people that comes together with Wallace's commentary to tell the story of the war. This method of narration reminded me of a movie I have seen in which the story is told through a series of short scenes and does not make sense until the final explanation. So far, I have reached about 70% of the way through the book, and the different character's tales are slowly blending together. Even the narrator seems to have a much larger role in the plot than I originally realized.

The plot of Robopocalypse is very similar to how we learn about ancient history: in small fragments from a wide variety of sources. Each clue seems to tell a slightly different story, but when we put the pieces together, we can better underestand society in that point in history. Also, similar to how we learn important events that led to other things in more depth than other occurances, the narrator in the novel only writes about the most important people and their most important contributions, claiming he has little time and too much information to sort through.

Even though I am already more than halfway through the book, I still am not able to fully understand the story. I predict that all of the short stories' characters are linked in some way, and will meet up towards the end of the book to find and destroy Archos, the intelligent robotic system that is controlling machines around the world. I wonder though how Cormac Wallace obtained first hand accounts of several people around the world. He clearly couldn't have travelled so much himself, and been in multiple places at the same time. My best guess at this point in the story is that the data was being collected by Archos and was somehow restored to let Wallace use it.

Additionally, the plot structure of  Robopocalypse seemed to be inspired, and a much smaller scale version of another set of novels, the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. These books cover thousands of years in an entire galaxy and do not have characters continue from one book to another, or even from one section of a book to the next. Instead, the individual stories are only connected by a single idea, giving only the reader the ability to know the entire story.

As a final note, I would currently reccomend reading Robopocalypse from what I have read so far, but I cannot give a complete review until I finish the book. Although the robots in the story seem complex and distant, they are really closer than we think.

Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore- Recommendation

"What do you seek in these shelves?"

(Sloan 8)

I recently read Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan. This was the author's first novel, and is based on a short story he wrote earlier. Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore is, as the title suggests, partly about a 24 hour bookstore owned by Mr. Penumbra, but its plot quickly dives into a much larger and mysterious story. When you first start reading, you are immediately introduced to Clay Jannon, a web designer, and ex-employee of a now defunct bagel shop. Clay finds a job at the night shift for a strange little bookstore run by an even stranger old man. Only after a few days on the job, Clay realizes that there are few real customers who buy books. Instead, a small group of dedicated customers "checks out" books from the back shelves, returning the previous book every time. Although Mr. Penumbra has forbidden him to do so, Clay looks inside one of the books at the back of the store and finds a complex set of code. This sets him on a journey to solve a 500 year old mystery with the help of his friends at Google, Mr. Penumbra, and modern technology. The theme centers around the old against the new and tradition against innovation. Filled with Google supercomputers, immortality cults, peculiar typography companies, and a worldwide network of "bookstores", Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore is a refreshing read among the scores of new young adult novels with the same basic plot and characters.
 

 The cover glows in the dark!

I thought that the concept for the plot was very innovative, but was at times not executed perfectly, especially towards the end of the book. Clay, Mr. Penumbra, and his affiliates are given time to develop in the novel, being dynamic characters. Slowly, Penumbra and others start accepting the ways in which technology can help them in the future. Clay, too, realizes that he got much more than he bargained for by working in the bookstore. Nearly every character has a long, philosophical conversation with Clay about new technology and its ramifications in society. This can get boring at times, but also adds dimension to Clay and his feelings about the future. Robin Sloan makes an attempt at indicating that the story happens in the near future; however almost everything in society is recognizable as the world we live in today with an abundance of references to Google, Amazon, Apple, e-readers, etc. This makes sure anyone can enjoy the novel, being a very close depiction of life in the early 21st century. For example, Clay shares the same problems as some of us do, contending that "I'd sit at my kitchen table and start scanning help wanted ads on my laptop, but then a browser tab would blink and I'd get distracted and follow a link to a long magazine article about genetically modified wine grapes..."(Sloan 4). I enjoyed reading Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore. The buildup to the end was very suspenseful, and kept the reader solving the mystery with Clay, until ending (which was a little disappointing). The tone is very conversational throughout the piece, and seems like Clay is sitting right next to you, describing what had happened. This novel is very unique in its plot structure, theme, and conflict- something you will not find in any other book. It combines an ordinary mystery with a unique approach that makes it meaningful for any reader today. Considering that the author used to be a Twitter employee and had little experience with writing, along with the interesting concept, I would rate this book at least 4.75 stars on a scale of 5.  If you're interested in reading it, take a look at this goodreads page. After 288 pages of unstopping action, I can firmly declare that Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore is remarkable.

Here is an interview of Robin Sloan from NPR in which he talks about the novel: