Book Review
Title: The Covenant of Water
Author: Abraham Verghese
Publisher: Grove Press UK,
2023
Pages: 724
“What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets
they share.” This massive book explores the intricacies of human relationships
with a plot that spans almost a century. The story begins in 1900 with
12-year-old Mariamma being wedded to a 40-year-old widower in whose family runs
a curse: death by drowning. The story ends in 1977 with another Mariamma, the
granddaughter of Mariamma the First who becomes Big Ammachi [grandmother].
A lot of things happen in the 700+
pages of the novel which has everything that one may expect from a popular novel:
suspense, mystery, love, passion, power, vulnerability, and also some social
and religious issues. The only setback, if it can be called that at all, is
that too many people die in this novel. But then, when death by drowning is a
curse in the family, we have to be prepared for many a burial.
The Kerala of the pre-Independence
days comes alive in the first half of the novel quite like the history one
glimpses at in Ken Follett’s novels. When Jawaharlal Nehru took over India from
the British in 1947, the average life expectancy in the country was a meagre
32. The living conditions were so poor that only the privileged people could
hope to live to their old age.
The injustice of the skewed social
system is portrayed in Verghese’s novel through some of the Pulaya characters,
particularly Shamuel and his son Joppan. While Shamuel is the typical slavish low caste
self-effacing person, Joppan is a rebel, fairly subdued though.
“You see yourselves as being kind and
generous to him,” Joppan tells Mariamma’s son Philipose bluntly but politely.
Philipose had given a substantial sum of money to Joppan after Shamuel’s death.
It is the money that Shamuel had earned through his hard work as well as canine
loyalty to Philipose’s family. Joppan is not impressed, however. He knows that
the system is very unjust. People like him and his father do all the work and
the landowners get all the benefits.
“The ‘kind’ slave owners in India,”
Joppan tells Philipose, “or anywhere, were always the ones who had the greatest
difficulty seeing the injustice of slavery. Their kindness, their generosity
compared to cruel slave owners, made them blind to the unfairness of a system
of slavery that they created, they maintained, and that favoured them.
It’s like the British bragging about the railways, the colleges, the hospitals
they left us – their ‘kindness’!”
Lenin Evermore is another rebel in
the novel. He becomes a Naxalite in order to bring about a more just society.
But he is driven to frustration sooner rather than later. Not only the
political structures but even the Christian ones don’t really care for the
poor, he learns after all his activism which has brought the legal structures
to his hiding place. Having understood the intrinsic perversions of all
systems, Lenin understands that the pulayar Jesus died on a different
cross.
Such incisive peeks into history and
its systems are rare in the novel. But Verghese does bring us some very
dramatic and poignant scenes occasionally. The novel is a thriller in many
ways. It keeps you hooked. But it is certainly more than that; almost an epic.
It does succeed in exploring the mystery that life essentially is. The secret
of the family curse gets a medical answer too in the end.
Love triumphs at the end of all. Dr
Digby Kilgour who leaves his country of Scotland in order to pursue his passion
for medical studies gets mingled with the story of the Mariammas. He becomes a
paragon of love, quite like Jesus, in the end of the novel.
This is a very moving work,
absolutely fascinating.
Review encapsulated interesting points. I will buy and of course, reading may take a long time.
ReplyDeleteI had quite a bit of free time this week. Yes, it's a bulky book. But delightful.
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteThank you for the review, which seems also to be a recommendation - my TBR list if becoming very bulky! YAM xx
The novel was a best seller in the west for a few months.
DeleteSounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt is, I assure you.
DeleteI listened to the book on Audible post cataract operation but did not complete it. I found the story quite fascinating and am glad to read your review. I hope I pick up from where I left in 2025.
ReplyDeleteYou need patience to complete the reading / listening. I think the patience is worth it.
DeleteIt sounds like a good one.
ReplyDelete