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Lädt ... THE COVENANT OF WATER : a novel (Original 2023; 2023. Auflage)von Abraham Verghese
Werk-InformationenThe Covenant of Water von Abraham Verghese (Author) (2023)
Lädt ...
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. I was absolutely caught up in this book from beginning to end. When I think of religion in India I really don't think of Christianity. They form only 2% of the population (as opposed to Hindus at 79% and Muslims at 15%) but that is still millions of people. Verghese knows this population well as his parents were Christians from Kerala, India. This book covers 3 generations of a family of Orthodox Saint Thomas Christians starting in 1900 when a twelve year old girl, Mariamma, is married to an older farmer, Big Appachan, whose wife died, leaving him with one son, JoJo. JoJo hates being bathed and his father refuses to travel by boat. Mariamma learns that each generation of this family has someone who died by drowning. They refer to it as "The Condition".Tragedy strikes this family when JoJo drowns in an irrigation ditch. Marriamma is distraught because she came to love JoJo as if he was her own child. Despite this death and the difference in their ages, Marriamma and Big Appachan grow to love each other and have two children. The second, a son called Philipose, seems to have inherited the condition. Philipose becomes a writer and he marries a gifted artist Elsie who made him promise she could continue to do her art after marriage. Philipose loves Elsie but forgets his promises to her creating tension. Their son, Ninan, dies while still young and Elsie leaves Philipose. She returns when Marriamma begs her to come back and because of flooding she is confined to the farm for some time. During this time she gives birth to a daughter who is also named Marriamma. Shortly after her birth Elsie goes down to the river to bathe and disappears. Philipose, who had become an opium addict when Elsie left, goes straight and raises Marriamma with his mother's help. When she grows up Marriamma becomes a doctor and helps to solve the mystery of The Condition. There is another thread to this novel involving a Scottish doctor called Digby Kilgore who has come out to India to work for the Indian Medical Service when he was unable to get work in Scotland because he was Catholic. Digby answers to Dr. Arnold who is lazy and even worse, incompetent. At a party at this doctor's home he meets his wife, Celeste, and the two become lovers. Celeste is killed in a fire in Digby's quarters and Digby's hands are ruined trying to save her. Digby is introduced to Dr. Rune Orqvist who runs a leprosarium close to the farm on which Marriamma and Philipose live. Dr. Orqvist is able to repair Digby's hands and he enlists a young Elsie to help him draw as physiotherapy. Digby Years later Digby takes over management of the leprosarium and he comes into contact with the young Marriamma who continues to look for answers about her family, especially her mother's disappearance. This is just the bare bones of the book which takes in so many other issues such as the caste system, British colonialism, land rights (particularly as espoused by the Naxalites, a Communist group dedicated to improving the conditions for farm workers), religious intolerance and more. A true tour de force.
"The Covenant of Water" weaves a beautifully intricate tale, seamlessly blending elements of fantasy and adventure. The narrator's skillful delivery brought the characters to life, making their struggles and triumphs feel incredibly real.............. Water affects a family’s fate in this enthralling epic from the physician-author, set across three generations...This is a novel – a splendid, enthralling one – about the body, about what characters inherit and what makes itself felt upon them. It is the body that contains ambiguities and mysteries. As in his international bestseller Cutting for Stone, Verghese’s medical knowledge and his mesmerising attention to detail combine to create breathtaking, edge-of-your-seat scenes of survival and medical procedures that are difficult to forget. Tenderness permeates every page, at the same time as he is ruthless with the many ways his characters are made vulnerable by simply being alive....The Covenant of Water contains a larger question of community and belonging, one that feels most important in these days of escalating political wars and tensions: is it possible to be fragile and wounded, and still necessary and loved? The answer is rendered with care by a writer who looks at the world with a doctor’s knowing, merciful gaze. As much as any moral reckoning or catastrophic plot point, this is why literature, in all its comforting and challenging forms, matters. AuszeichnungenPrestigeträchtige AuswahlenBemerkenswerte Listen
"From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret. The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of the major word-of-mouth bestseller Cutting for Stone, which has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India's Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning-and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl--and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi--will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants. A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years"-- Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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Developed, deep characters and destinies. Exciting and calming at the same time. Very rich language too, had to turn to the translators many times.
And despite the fact that it is written by a male author, it often feels like a fairly strong female perspective.
Highly recommended! ( )