Day 4 of 40: The covenant of water - Abraham Verghese

The beauty of the book comes out in the few last chapters and the first 200 pages. For me what worked was the beauty of Kerala and the history of Kerala which shines through in the initial pages. Although talking to few Malyalis I realized that its more focused around the christian Malyali and I researched a bit as it raised my curiosity on the community. Abraham’s description was beautiful and it was like Kerala was almost like Indian Venice - The touristy house boats in Ernakulam are the remnants of that. And of course it’s still the India’s God country.

For me even the characters shone through, Elsie, Ammachi, Uplift master, Philipose, Baby Jojo etc. It was beautifully laid out characters which builds over a period from 1900 to 197. You could see a stoic father, growing up pangs, suppressed anger & passion. It’s a big book at 700+ pages but the fact that I looked forward to read a few chapters everyday and finished it a week / 10 days is a testament to that.

His specialization as a doctor explains the condition quite nicely, although at times I skipped it because of all the macabre description. But he closes the condition loop beautifully in the last few chapters. It came as a big surprise to me - the ending.

I like this genre of historic fiction which explores history and the society through a family saga spread across generation.