The Woman Who Walked on Water

by Lily Tuck

The Woman Who Walked on Water  is a beautifully crafted, dark fable, the story of a woman's search for meaning, from the author of The Double Life of Liliane .

Adele leaves her comfortable life in Connecticut for India, to follow a guru she has met in Chartres Cathedral. Her departure confounds her family and Adele is beautiful; she is lucky; she possesses charisma; she is a champion swimmer whose stamina and grace astound the patrons of the exclusive resort in the Caribbean that her family visits each year. Adele's husband cannot understand what the Indian guru - an elusive, ever-changing man who indeed seems privy to some of life's mysteries - can give Adele that he cannot. Her two children worry as she grows gaunt and begins to look older than her years, and as her letters arrive less and less frequently.

As we watch Adele's deepening spirituality,  The Woman Who Walked on Water  compellingly gives life to the writings of Rumi, Laotzu, and the Upanishads, which infuse this work with their wisdom. Yet what also emerges is a troubling portrait of a woman alone in a foreign country, surrounded by a family and culture not her own, in a dry and dusty city. Lily Tuck portrays with acumen, pathos, and humor a woman who may have found enlightenment. She also leaves us questioning Adele's fate, and our own desires for transcendence.

Genres: Fiction, Spirituality

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 1996

About the author

Lily Tuck is an American novelist and short story writer whose novel The News from Paraguay won the 2004 National Book Award for Fiction. Her novel Siam was nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She has published four other novels, a collection of short stories, and a biography of Italian novelist Elsa Morante (see "Works" below).
An American citizen born in Paris, Tuck now divides her time between New York City and Maine; she has also lived in Thailand and (during her childhood) Uruguay and Peru. Tuck has stated that "living in other countries has given me a different perspective as a writer. It has heightened my sense of dislocation and rootlessness. ... I think this feeling is reflected in my characters, most of them women whose lives are changed by either a physical displacement or a loss of some kind".

Reviews

[Heather Fineisen · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I finished reading this, I was inclined to turn back to the beginning and read it again. It was a great book for me, the pray from Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love. But quirky, less charmed, and told in vignette like chapters where the reader has to work a little. If you like a straightforward story with proper structure, you will think this is a book that doesn't make sense. I didn't start reading this again although I have put it back on the shelf. I picked up another Lily Tuck novel instead. More joy? We'll see...

[Brenda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why did I read this? I’ve read much better. I read it because it was on my shelf and I expected it was there for a reason. But I found it tiring. It didn’t take long to read, which is why I gave it 2 stars instead of 1. I was hoping for a big “pay off”…

[Judi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narrator meets Adele at a resort in the Caribbean. Adele is easy to notice from the restaurant table since everyday she swims so far out with her three golden retrievers that anyone watching her can't see her anymore. And then she returns with more energy than the poor loyal dogs. The narrator learns of Adele's trip to India and her dedication to her guru and how she left her wealthy Connecticut home and family.

The story is told very gently, weaving the present with the past and the time on the beach. This novel is elegantly simple and profound. It's one that I will keep in my collection to re-read and to (hopefully) ponder the Zen-like paradox.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't even rate this one.

Will someone please read it and explain it to me? I've read it twice now, 15 years or so apart, and I'm STILL not sure how I feel about the whole thing. Although I have to admit to having a different perspective on it, after years of yoga, philosophy, rhetorical study, and spiritual suicides.

Read it. We'll talk. In another 15 years.

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book met my favorite quality - it was fast & easy to read. Aside from that, I found it a bit annoying at times. I understand it is supposed to be deep and meaningful, but I found the character to be a fruit who didn't deserve the family she left. Also, I didn't care for the odd repetition ... if you read the book you'll understand what I mean by that.

[Marilyn Pocius · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sort of fable or parable. Short, entertaining and with an ending you can interpret how you wish. I think she turns into to dog.

[Jessica Edwards-Lawlor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve had to buy 3 copies of this book as I’ve worn them out - a relatively short story filled with the most intriguing words and feelings

[Susan Chow-Dukhan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Narrator of the book went to a Caribbean resort and met Adele, a woman who left her affluent life in Connecticut to go on a spiritual journey following a guru from India. The guru remains nameless but is referred to by Adele, as He or Him.
The time line in the novel is non-sequential, as some chapters are about the narrator and Adele at the resort, Adele's childhood stories of swimming competitions and her father, Adele's stories about her marriage and children, Adele's stories about Him and the narrator's stories about her interaction with Adele's children and husband. Unfortunately I found the use of this form of time line to be confusing, as we are provided with so much detail, that it seemed that the narrator's relationship with Adele lasted over several months rather than a few days and that they had become best friends.
The writing style of run-on sentences combined with the overuse of commas was distracting. The overuse of Adele's name and referring to the guru as He or Him, made reading increasingly onerous.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not sure I understood this extremely well written book. It is the story of a wealthy woman on a spiritual quest -- searching for meaning in her life by leaving her husband and children in Connecticut to live with a guru/"wise man" in India who she met by chance in Europe and (alternately) by swimming with her three dogs in the Caribbean. Each chapter begins with a quotation from a Hindu, Sufi or Buddhist text. I found the narrator (a friend of the protagonist) to be the more interesting character. I am impatient with women like Adele (main character) who have the means and access to power that could actually affect positive change and who could do quite a bit to alleviate the suffering of others but rather seek spiritual enlightenment through self indulgence albeit not materialist.

[Marty · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book and must read for any woman who knows that her footsteps here on Earth is not her only journey, but that she is very busy in other dimensions where time/space do not exist. If you know your path is interwoven with multiple journeys read this now (and save yourself a lot of aggravation).

[Fettya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book way before Eat,Love,Pray came out, but basically a similar story. She left her comfortable life in CT to follow a guru to India. If you liked Eat,Love,Pray, you should read this. You can finish it in a day.

[Asli Espin]

The book I found my mother in

[CynthiaLubben · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just finished the book but I really couldn't tell you what it was about. It is like you interrupted a conversation in progress and then walked away before it was finished.

[Darla · Rating 2 out of 5]

eh.

[Candice · Rating 2 out of 5]

wait, what? glad this one is over.