The Covenant of Water - Abraham Verghese

I spent approximately three weeks inside the pages of this wonderful book. Within the first five pages I realized the strength of the story would be wrapped around female characters. Now after finishing the book, I realize why females. 

I have learned how female family members sacrifice so much for their families. Even in giving birth, prior to modern medicine, throughout history they have risked their lives for continuance of the family lineage. And they sacrifice out of love and duty. I once heard or read somewhere that "mother's die so that we may live!" Without a woman's maternal love and nurturing ways within a home, there would be no connections within a family, nor continuity of passing on culture and traditions to the next generation. This includes how to run a household, raise children, manner as a wife.

Through women, water, and love, everything in "The Covenant of Water" is connected. Men definitely play their roles as providers, but it is the women who carry the family torch from one generation to the next. And this is a multigenerational story. Without women there'd likely be no identifying where we come from or who we inherited looks and character from. Without the women to provide all they provide to a family; we'd all be orphans with untraceable beginnings and faithless futures. We'd be separated from our beginnings and endings.

"For the only thing each of us can be sure of is who our mother is, is that right?"

- Broker Aniyan of "The Covenant of Water"

The water in this story likely represents home. It provides sustenance for basic human needs but also can threaten family members who carry a common family trait known as "the Condition." 

Here is where the story presents so much tragedy for one family to bear and overcome. And as with great writing, the reader is pulled in to survive along with the family its many challenges. Life is akin to the Monsoon season. On the one hand it provides much needed rainwater crucial for agriculture after a long, dry season. On the other hand, it causes devastating floods, damaging infrastructure and homes while threatening lives.

The hardback novel, inspired by memories of the author's mom, is 715-pages long. But every page seems to add something that connects either past, present or future events and/or persons. Everything is creatively connected; however, one must have patience as well as a willingness to learn about a foreign culture's ways and history. To rush through this novel is to cheat yourself out of all it offers. Oddly, I felt myself a bit sad as I approached its final chapters. I knew the ending was near and yet I wasn't ready to part with the story

The author utilizes his medical background almost to a fault in the telling of this story. I however found it a very ingenious writing method, cojoining the characters with the very human medical conditions that arise. Descriptions of medical diagnosis, disease, surgical procedures and such are more detailed than some readers might wish to read about. Although much of the medical information might go over many readers heads, it feels relative and adds to the credibility of certain scenes.

It is all connected.

I enjoyed reading "The Covenant of Water." I enjoyed what it taught me about India and how everyday peoples living in a different era and society dealt with the human conditions of life.

The more different we see ourselves as cultures, the more alike we see ourselves as human beings. Whether living in 1900AD South India, or 2025AD America. It is all humanly connected.

-wpowell