Pointless drivel
This book was just pointless. I feel like I was reading a novel generated by a random plot generator which spit out a circus, an old guy and a young guy-- nothing had the tactical feel of reality in this book. It was mediocre at best. Even the title of the novel was anticlimactic, given that one of old Jacob's nursing home fellows said he used to carry water for elephants and then not mentioned again. This novel is devoid of anything making it worth reading: Complex plot? No; Mercurial characters? No; Insights into the human condition? No; Stupendous vocabulary and/or Joycean constructions with the English language? No. Instead, we are left with chapter after chapter of a book better suited as children's literature.