The Thin Red Line

Long time readers of this blog already know that I am just a huge little kid when it comes to the circus and an enormous fan of Gary Jennings extraordinary Spangle trilogy chronicling a traveling circus troupe in the American south and in Europe in the years immediately following the Civil War.  So when I recently scanned Sara Gruen’s Water For Elephants with the striking illustration of the man in the brilliantly spangled long coat entering a circus top, I knew instantly that I would have to read and blog about this one.    The tale of Jacob Jankowski, a 93 year old nursing home resident who is sick of the bland food and bland life who recalls his youth as a veterinarian on a traveling circus in the American Midwest during the Great Depression.

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Basically I am just an over-grown kid and I love a circus. The Golden Age of the Circus, a richly illustrated oversized book that passed under my scanner yesterday is divided into three sections. The first details the history of the modern circus roughly from 1760 to World War II. The illustrations are fun but the text is a bit dry at times and I confess I didn’t read every word. The second section details the broad types of circus acts from the equestrian rosinback, liberty and voltige turns (acrobatics and dancing atop galloping horses, a troop of horses without riders performing in the ring, and a wild cavalry specialty with daring leaps and stunts, respectively), to the acrobats and tumblers, the equilibristes who walk or dance on the high wire or "tight rope", the aerialists who swing and leap from that "flying trapeeze", the joeys or clowns and the various exotic animal acts, lions and tigers and bears, oh my. The final section talks about the challenges faced by traditional circuses after WWII, about modern circuses from the still kicking Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey to the now ubiquitous Cirque du Soleil.

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