The Covenant of Water
Ratings90
Average rating4.3
I was very taken in, though the time and place are not my usual reading material. It is a little sad how the story devolved into the white people.
An audio read that went for about 36 hours. I have nothing against bricks of books but a lot of this intergenerational family story, told very well by the author to be fair, just seemed overwritten at times. The love/sex events, for example, were just dull and ponderous, going far too long. The same can be said for the medical detail, and there was plenty of medical detail explained.
I do get the effect that this read may have had with other readers. There are things to learn that are of interest to the curious mind and for anyone that likes an epic this would be up there. Be that as it may, I was glad to finish it.
It was a good book, well written. But way longer than it needed to be. It felt like the author thought he had to create a manifesto and had something super important to say, but it's just a long story about a lot of normal people and a lot of deaths.
A multigenerational story set in 20th century India. The book touches on India's independence movement, but mostly focuses on the story of a 12 year old girl who marries a 40 year old window, and the family and community she helps to create in her small town.
Honestly the age gap marriage is a yikes, but with the way the widowed man is portrayed from the POV of the girl you never really get that icky feeling. (Should you? I don't know). Nonetheless she goes on to become the matriarch of the family so in that sense it is empowering (relatively speaking).
Definitely not a super uplifting novel (there's a looot of tragedy) but although this book has 700+ pages (which I didn't realise since I read on a Kindle), I really felt like a flew through this one.
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.
Beautiful prose, engaging plot, deep and wonderful characters. I gasped, I cried, I tried my hand at guessing about medical mysteries, and I spoke to complete strangers in a movie theater who saw me reading this about the twists and turns. Incredible!!
An amazing epic! I highly recommend listening to this. It served us over several road trips. I think that reading could be overwhelming to keep track of all the story lines. The breadth — from medicine, surgery, politics, history, Christianity, love stories — is breathtaking. Listen to the Acknowledgments, too.
I am at the stage of my reading life where I am an unashamed genre reader, although i dislike the ponsiness of the term. I read, mostly, to be entertained, sometimes to learn something new and if the two mix i am delighted. I am not scared of supposed “literary novels” but they do not draw me to them. But a friend's five stars, and to setting of India in the last century sounded interesting enough to venture into it. It was a slow start as I was parallel reading other books but that allowed the first two parts, the foundations, to stew and settle in. I was not enamored, not rushing back to pick it up but i was intrigued as the writing was rich without being cloying. Then, having finished my other books i dove back in and Covenant picked me up and carried me to the end in so many satisfying ways. The story arc makes sense, the characters are fleshed out, the length is not self indulgent
In the first few pages a twelve-year-old girl leaves her home to marry, by arrangement, a forty-something widower. Seriously? Do I really need to keep reading this?? (I did. Grudgingly. Would you believe that, just a few pages after that, my reluctance transformed into eagerness?)
This. Was. Beautiful. Okay, a bit over the top, but goddamn what a heart Verghese has! Compassion, insight, humor; an eye for the unbearable lightnesses and despairs of life. I was reminded over and over of a soap opera. One where the characters are kind, gentle, smart, talented, noble. I've never actually watched a soap, so all I have is the cartoon cultural idea of what they're like: drama, plot twists, suffering, redemption, characters larger than life; this had them all but entirely infused with tenderness.
Plus, culturally educational. Verghese writes with (what reads like) good rhythm for local customs and language. He packs in a good amount of background, all of which I found enjoyable and fascinating.
The last hundred or so pages ramped up the drama a notch, which forces me to drop my rating from six stars to five.
The Covenant of Water is a big novel, set in Kerala along India's Malabar Coast. It's the story of a family of people who suffer from a curious problem: many people in the family unexpectedly drown.
The story opens with the marriage of a twelve-year-old girl in that family, a girl who comes to be known as Big Ammachi. We learn about Big Ammachi's life and the lives of her new extended family and friends over three generations.
It's a compelling story with many wonderful happy moments and many terribly sad moments.
I knew that I wanted to read this book the moment I heard author Abraham Verghese speak about this novel at Inprint in Houston this year. And, despite my high expectations, I was quite satisfied with the story.
i think thats about enough of that for me even excluding the weird rape analogy the last 100 pages has been a slog to get through i really really enjoyed the first three parts of this but now its just repetitive like we get it i simply cant care anymore 400 pages too long + weirdo + wasted my time + L + ratio
If you read only one thing this year, let it be this book. I can barely find the words to describe it. It is so... beautiful and definitely the best thing I have read in years. Verghese has done it again!
The Full article is posted here
If I have to sum up the story of this mammoth 736 pages novel in a single sentence, ‘this is an account of the effort of its characters to prevent repetition of history by breaking the cycles to which they are tied to.' Every character finds themselves to be part of a large cycle and are destined to replicate the fate of some predecessor. They are aware of it and are desperate to break the cycle and escape out of it.
My full review is published here: https://literaryquicksand.com/2023/03/review-the-covenant-of-water-by-abraham-verghese/
As I sit here watching my blinking curser, I'm wondering where to start with this book. Man, it was a lot. Good a lot, mostly!
The first thing I noticed was the time investment I'd need to put into it. I didn't look at how long it was before requesting it on NetGalley, but when I finished the first chapter and my Kindle was telling me it would take 18 more hours to read the whole thing, I just about had a fit