"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Wednesday, October 08, 2025

The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese (2023)

Rose picked this for book club. Kind of long but it was OK. The second time we've been asked to read a Verghese book.

Thought it would be duplicative of the other book, but no so much. 

Kerala as a place of interest, I just know it’s different but not so much why.  Water! Much more criss-cross with the west than many other places in India - catholics, islam, etc. Roman coin hoards, Hard for the Mughuls to make headway. 

100 years of solitude feel - overlapping names in the generations.

The idea that Elsie didn't much love Phillipose, even told him that she believed he would not interfere with her work. 

A little weird that young Elsie guiding Digby's hand was too much like a lover.

Big Ammachi is a fine character - kind of central to the book. She is married into a family that experiences death through water or drowning, sometimes in odd ways, repeating over generations.

Her husband also an incredibly fine human

The way Digby’s hand was repaired (somewhat) - I just ran into that in an X post. Had no idea. 

A version of Matron from the prior book was a key character here.

The Communist stuff always strikes me as absurd - meaning the author probably described it accurately! Lenin Evermore, of course. 

Even tossed in a reference to liberation theology - same.

The idea of the Western Ghats as a protective barrier.

The elephant - huh? 

So much leprosy.  Digby immunity impressive.  

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