Every Human Being Bleeds Red

The Covenant of Water, this may be the most majestical book I have ever read. Stop. Best book I have ever listened to, all 31 hours and 16 minutes. Read by the author, hearing him tell this story prepared me to read the book, which I plan to read word by word this summer, all 715 pages.

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The Covenant of Water is a novel written by Abraham Verghese, currently a professor and Vice chair of the Department of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. This leaves out a string of other recognitions and achievements, credentials that hint at his background, that contribute to the authority he demonstrates throughout the telling of this labyrinthine story.

A generational saga, the story takes place in southern India from 1900 through 1977.

To borrow a line from the movie Silverado, “It’s a bad start, boys” when the book begins with a 12-year-old girl brokered to marry a 40-year-old widower. My youngest daughter’s reaction, “I can’t handle that.”

Yet I knew from reading books written by and about the British missionary Amy Carmichael, not only was this practice common in India, Amy Carmichael established a mission in Dohnavur, India to rescue children from sex trafficking. Amy Carmichael served for 55 years, never taking a furlough, and died in India in 1951.¹

Verghese’s character, that 12-year-old girl, Mariamma, becomes the matriarch of the family, revered “Big Ammachi,” the beginning thread of faith that runs throughout the entire story. This thread takes twists and turns, contributing to the one BIG story, much like the Bible tells one story, His Story, stitched by the scarlet thread of redemption.

Verghese has written perhaps the most humane look at humanity through characters who face joys and terrors, sorrows and ecstasies, hearts broken and not every body can be mended. The character’s lives overlap and intersect and expose the inside workings of each person’s heart and soul, parallel to the way a surgeon might open various parts of a body and see what Gray’s Anatomy attempts to illustrate.

Gray’s Anatomy was first published in 1858, consistently updated to today’s 42nd edition, which is referred to as “the doctor’s bible.” It too plays a role in The Covenant of Water.

While there are graphic sexual scenes, these are not pornographic. The descriptions focus on the character’s emotional context, showing reasons that lead to these moments of human weakness and foreshadow the consequences that follow.

Book’s back cover shows high praise from critics:

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And on Facebook this week, I read that the author himself is surprised by his book’s reception. Worldwide.

In an article about the author on his website,² as a physician he said he had been caught up in the “conceit of cure.” He added, “One can be healed even when there is no cure, by which I mean a coming to terms with acceptance in such a terrible setting; this is something a physician can, if they are lucky, help.”

Theology: How we think about God

From another book I finished reading this morning, these words “… theology cannot be divorced from humanity.”³ This brief statement expresses what has taken me years to even begin to comprehend. I must respect people as human beings before any attempts to understand their beliefs.

I loved this book for reminding me of our shared humanity, no matter where we live or when in history we are alive. Hearts pumping blood, every human being bleeds red.

Through the main character, the author shows deep respect for Christianity in a world filled with superstitions and competing belief systems. Behold for yourself the creative genius that brings this story to life.

1 Elizabeth Elliot wrote a compelling biography, A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael.

2 https:www.abrahamverghese.org/biography

3 How to Walk into a Room, Emily P. Freeman