Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

2 reviews

elisalasater's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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erebus53's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is a beautifully nuanced book peppered with aphorisms and wisdom, and fragrant with Madras spices. It is a multi-generational book about the growth and change of a community over the course of nearly a century. I really felt for all the characters and the love, triumph, loss, trauma, and peace they found over time.

The author is a qualified doctor and there are graphic scenes of surgery that might not work for some readers, but I really love them, because they make sense to me and fit with the thematics of healing and care for others. I'm thankful that it's all well researched and even appropriate to the times; no annoying anachronisms; ether for anesthesia in the early 1900s, and resection of the GI tract rather than treating ulcers with antibiotics. It just doesn't break my immersion like many otherwise lovely books have done in the past.. it could be done wrong, and isn't.

I noticed a strong thematic narrative woven through the whole book the around  somatic therapy in trauma healing, that reiterates a lot of the things that I have learned, lived, and read, about trauma healing. "The best rehabilitation is doing what the brain and the hand are familiar with; it's good for both." 

Early in the book I was almost overwhelmed by the complexity and nuance of tackling Real Life.. things like idealism, accommodating misfortune, making the most of a situation, finding it hard to understand self when there are no words.. 

I recognised the struggle of knowing that you are different, at some deep, physical level,
but not knowing what causes that difference; trying to find accommodations to a condition that you can't pin down, and you don't know what physically causes the difference, or even how it makes you different. The dichotomy of losing body function (by age or infirmity), feeling like your body is something other than the real You, and yet that your disability becomes an intrinsic part of your identity.

Dr Verghese uses some lovely big words. It may help if you pack a dictionary on your trip. I find it amusing that at one point a character uses a word that another person doesn't comprehend, which feels like it's giving the reader the permission to go look that one up if it's not familiar, and it made it wryly humorous when he uses that same word again later.. but we know it now *grin*

The book is full of thoughtful quotes about life, growth, passion, the roles of women, art, love, pain, protest, religion, fatherhood, youth and age, political corruption, Colonisation, and so many deeply complex and personal things. The author seems to share my personal conviction that a life is simultaneously infinitely precious, and ultimately insignificant. This is less a discussion of grey-areas, and more of myriad colours and complexity that all changes with the eyes you use.

It's easy to feel invested in these characters, and I was still caught off guard many times, when the story seems to be going one way, only to find it pivoting or bounding off on a new path. This was a book that grabbed me and pulled me in. A+
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