The Covenant of Water: Review and Inspiration

I just finished reading The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. I had at least three friends tell me I had to read this book, which had the opposite result one might expect. I actually started to dread reading it because, with such strong referrals from friends I trust, I worried that my expectations would be so high that Verghese would fail to meet them, and I would be disappointed. I felt this dread despite the fact that I loved Cutting from Stone by the same author.

Thankfully my worry came to nothing, and I, like my friends, have thoroughly enjoyed The Covenant of Water. One reason I loved studying biomedical engineering is that the human body is so miraculously complex. I have always been fascinated by the ways things can go wrong in the body and the ingenious ways we humans try to fix or work around problems when the body can't self-correct. With Verghese's medical background, he's able to add a layer of entertainment by injecting interesting physiological problems with which his characters must cope. The medical mystery at the center of this novel drew me in almost immediately. 

But what has kept me engrossed is Verghese's skill at writing a story so that the reader becomes invested in the characters. I think he manages this by letting us see them grow and have their victories before they come up against a crisis. This was a long book, but I didn’t want it to end.

The Covenant of Water is not without its flaws. I don't love that Verghese will delve into the stories of side characters and then later abandon them (to a greater or lesser extent). For example, he gives us an interesting tidbit about Uplift Master but never goes anywhere with it. There’s all this buildup around Mariamma and Lenin, but he doesn’t return to them. We never really learn what happens to Digby’s boss at the hospital. I also struggled to get through at least one side story. So, great book, but maybe a little too scattered.

Finding Inspiration from The Covenant of Water

My daughter woke up one night recently with bad indigestion manifesting as a tummy ache and the sensation that she needed to burp. She was clearly in pain. I gave her some suggestions: slowly drink some water, try using the toilet, do a few torso twists. Nothing was working, and I didn't have any appropriate medication on hand. As I lay awake listening to her suffer, I thought about how helpless I was feeling.

However, as it happens I had just read a part of the book where the family matriarch, Big Ammachi, helped campaign for a hospital to be built near her home. She explains it to her granddaughter by saying, “I’ve seen more than my share of suffering and tragedy in my life, molay. I was always helpless. When your grandfather was sick, I could do nothing. When we pulled Jojo out of the water, if we had had a hospital close by… who knows? When Baby Mol gets ill, you know how far we go to find a doctor. That's why I got up on stage, Mariamma. Because I don't want us to be helpless or frightened. Doctors know what to do. A hospital can care for the sick. That's why I want a hospital closer to our people. I'm old now, and so that's all I can do."

I loved Big Ammachi's character because she's a great example of someone not giving into helplessness. Always we encounter circumstances beyond our control, but sometimes filling our autonomy needs means exercising what little control we do have. In Big Ammachi's case that meant trying to pave the way for future generations to rise above similar challenges. Thinking about her hospital campaign was a great comfort to me. It reminded me that, compared to early 20th century rural India, I am not really helpless. I have so many resources at my fingertips, including doctors, pharmacies, and the Internet.

We made it through the night. I took my daughter to see her pediatrician, who thought she was battling a minor tummy bug. He did send us home with a prescription that we never had to use. She had a couple more short bouts of burps but is back to normal now.