大象的眼泪 (2006)

《大象的眼泪》（英语：Water for Elephants）是美国作家莎拉·格鲁恩的第三本小说，此作品正被二十世纪福斯改编成电影，由瑞丝·薇斯朋和罗伯·派汀森分别饰演男女主角。

故事简介

九十多岁的阿格斯被家人送进了老人院。一天巡回马戏团到阿格斯所住的老人院附近表演，勾起了阿格斯七十多年前的记忆。

二十岁的阿格斯是个准兽医，但他的父母突然车祸横死，他受不了如此震惊的的打击，在考毕业试时逃离了试场，随便就上了一架正在行驶的马戏团列车。在马戏团中，阿格斯获委以重任担当兽医，后来更负责照顾镇团之宝大象梦西。同时，他认识了已为人妻的玛莲娜，两人极速堕入爱河。在一次蓄意火灾中，两人带着梦西逃离了马戏团，展开新的生活。现实中的阿格斯则获得马戏团收留，不用再留在每天被人杯葛的老人院。

改编作品

电影

《大象的眼泪》（2011）

音乐剧

《大象的眼泪》（2023）

Water for Elephants is a 2006 historical romance novel by Canadian–American author Sara Gruen. The novel is set in a 20th-century circus. Gruen wrote the book as part of the National Novel Writing Month.

A film adaptation was released in 2011, while a stage musical began presentations in 2023 and opened on Broadway in spring 2024.

Plot

The story is told through a series of memories by Jacob Jankowski, a man living in a nursing home who can't remember if he is 90 or 93 years old. In the nursing home, Jacob's life lacks excitement. He gets visited every Sunday by one of his five children and has good rapport with a kind nurse named Rosemary, but for the most part, Jacob's a tired old man whose life is highly regimented and scheduled. This all changes, however, when the circus parks right outside of the nursing home window, igniting Jacob's memories of his time working with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

As his memories begin, Jacob is a 23-year-old Polish American preparing for his final exams as a Cornell University veterinary student when he receives the devastating news that both of his parents have died in a car accident. Jacob's father was a veterinarian and Jacob had planned to join his practice in Norwich, New York. When Jacob learns that his parents' home has been mortgaged to pay for his tuition and that his father's practice will not become his own, he has an emotional breakdown and leaves his Ivy League school just short of graduation.

In the dark of night, Jacob jumps on a train, later learning it is a circus train belonging to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. On the train Jacob is befriended by Camel, an old man and circus veteran, who persuades his companions not to throw Jacob off the train. Camel takes him under his wing and is able to find him odd menial jobs. When the owner of the circus, Alan J. Bunkel, "Uncle Al," learns of Jacob's training as a vet, he is hired to care for the circus animals. This leads Jacob to share quarters with a little person named Walter (who is known as Kinko to the circus) and his Jack Russell Terrier, Queenie. A few weeks later Jacob is summoned to examine Camel, who, after drinking "Jake" (adulterated Jamaican ginger extract) for many years, is unable to move his arms or legs. Fearing Camel will be "red-lighted" (thrown off a moving train as punishment or as severance from the circus to avoid paying wages), Jacob hides him in his room.

The equestrian director, August Rosenthul, is a brutal man who abuses the animals in his care (such as the new elephant, Rosie) and the people around him, though he can also be charming and generous. Jacob develops a guarded relationship with August and his wife, Marlena, with whom Jacob eventually falls in love. August is suspicious of their relationship and physically assaults both Marlena and Jacob. Marlena subsequently leaves August and stays at a hotel while she is not performing. Uncle Al then informs Jacob that August has paranoid schizophrenia and utters a threat: reunite August and Marlena as a happily married couple or Walter and Camel get red-lighted.

A few days later, after discovering that August has tried to see Marlena, Jacob visits her in her hotel room. After he comforts her, they end up making love, and soon declare their love for each other. Marlena then returns to the circus to perform (and have secret meetings with Jacob), but refuses to allow August near her, which makes Uncle Al furious. Not long after her return to the circus, Marlena discovers that she is pregnant.

One night Jacob climbs up and jumps each train car, while the train is moving, to August's room, carrying a knife between his teeth intending to kill August. However, Jacob backs out, leaving the knife on August's pillow to send a message. When Jacob returns to his train car, he finds that no one is there, except for Queenie. He then realizes that Walter and Camel were red-lighted and that he was also supposed to have been too.