‘Cutting for Stone,’ Author Abraham Verghese’s New Novel ‘The Covenant of Water’ : NPR

Much will be written about Abraham Verghese’s multi-generational South Indian novel in the months and years to come.

As we have seen with Verghese’s earlier fiction, there will be frequent references to that other famous doctor-writer, Anton Chekhov. There will also be continued invocations of the likes of Charles Dickens and TS Eliot to describe Verghese’s ambitious literary reach and realism. Indeed, the literary prowess of The alliance of water deserve as much praise as those of these canonical authors.

We might as well consider Commitment as part of the English lineage Indian romance which includes great names in literature like Raja Rao, K Nagarajan, OV Vijayan and RK Narayan. Like the unforgettable rural worlds of southern India that these authors bestowed on us with places like Kanthapura, Kedaram, Khasak and Malgudi respectively, Verghese gave us Parambil, a water-filled and almost mythical dreamscape in Kerala . Rao’s immortal opening line for his Kanthapura suits Verghese Commitment also: “There is not a village in India, however wicked, that does not have a rich stalapurana, or a legendary history, of its own.” And, like Rao’s story, Verghese also opens with a storytelling grandmother.

Drawing on ancient Malayali Christian community stories that date back to 52 AD with the arrival of St. Thomas in India, this story chronicles the ebb and flow of lives over three generations, from 1900 to the late 1970s. and as various historical events in British and then independent India unfold, we experience them through the loves and losses of an ever-growing group of characters like a nodal system with ever-changing branches and intersections multiplication.

Mariamma, a 12-year-old married child, marries a 40-year-old widower and becomes the mistress of 500 acres of Parambil. Her husband’s family has a secret medical “condition” where water is the cause of death for members of every generation. Big Ammachi, as he is called, experiences many joys and sorrows from a young age until his death. Although she remains in Parambil all her life, the human and spiritual worlds intervene forever. Her wide open heart welcomes everything and everyone, no matter if they bring pain or comfort.

This kind of ability is also a notable stylistic quality of the novel. Sometimes we may wonder why almost every character has a backstory or why certain subplots exist. Always a skilled surgeon, Verghese makes meaningful connections between macrocosmic and microcosmic detail with such elegance that they are often barely noticeable at first. For example, the parallel tales of the Parambil family, Scottish physician Digby Kilgour, and Swedish physician Rune Orquist seem like they could each be whole novels on their own. Instead, Verghese takes his time to reveal how everything, like the waterways there, are connected and ultimately flow together.

In turn, our patience as readers is well rewarded. Whether describing the spice craze sweeping Europe, the breathtaking coastal views of Kerala, the irresistible evening breezes of Madras or the bustling Anglo-Indian enclaves, Verghese tends to be lyrical. But he writes with such singular detail and restrained precision that it is a pleasure to be swept away and immersed more deeply. Even characters who only appear for a few paragraphs leave lasting impressions as each is schematized as essential to the novel’s anatomy. And Verghese misses no opportunity to inject humor, including on Malayali culture. For example: “Because if there is one thing the Malayalis fear, it is to miss out while there is harvest to be done.”

The most impressive sequences are, of course, the numerous medical scenes. It would be fair to say that Commitment is also a novel tracing the history of disease, medicine and surgery in India from 1900. Besides the “condition”, Verghese explores how science and people’s attitudes have gradually evolved towards leprosy, leprosy, childbirth, drug addiction, etc. This, in itself, is revolutionary for an Indian novel. There are also reflections on what genetic inheritance means beyond the body, the necessary place of art in our lives, how social hierarchies determine far-reaching life trajectories, and how we need to understand the past. to live in the present.

Yet despite sweeping coverage of a momentous modern historical period of the Indian subcontinent and including vital encounters between East and West in various storylines, this is not a tale of political resistance. open against the colonizers and their local accomplices. While Verghese sprinkles critical observations on how they exploited India, the Western figures are far from villainous caricatures. Towards the end, Verghese shows his socio-political leanings more clearly by introducing the formative phase of the Naxalite movement as it spread from West Bengal to parts of southern India, including Kerala. Initially, it also reads like a side story worthy of a whole novel. Trust Verghese gently brings it back to the central spine of the story.

In his introduction, Verghese says this about writing this novel during the pandemic: “The day job has never been harder than when Covid arrived; the overriding emotion I felt, that of finding meaning in a world of great suffering undoubtedly permeates the book.” So it’s to Verghese’s credit that we’re driven to finish the novel’s nearly 700 pages, even weeping and raging in the face of all the tragic death and loss. It’s like something one of Big Ammachi’s kids says somewhere in the middle of the book; Philipose, who grows up to be a renowned writer and marry a gifted artist, offers this heartfelt and resonant sentiment:

“Ammachi, when I come to the end of a book and look up, only four days have passed. But in that time I have passed through three generations and learned more about the world and about myself than for a year at school. Ahab, Queequeg, Ophelia and other characters die on the page so we can live a better life.

We also look up from the last page, catch our breath, and nod.

Jenny Bhatt is a writer, literary translator, literary critic and founder of Desi Books. She tweets at @jennybhatt.