© Kevin Corby Bowyer 2024
Kevin Corby Bowyer - writer
© Kevin Bowyer 2024
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Dancing while we may What started the ball rolling? The story about my wife digging up an old shower curtain must be quite well known by now and how it inspired the tale of one lonely woman pulling the remains of a poor, forgotten soul from the ground. The digger became Rose Headlam. She’s the key, both the fount and the culmination of everything. But, of course, it’s not as simple as that. (Is that simple?) We tend to believe we’re more enlightened than earlier generations or that we know better than other cultures. Our values are t he right ones. We can pass judgement, secure in our convictions. They are, after all, based on proven moral values and scientific certainties. We’ve developed a mindset in which a thing either is or is not; it’s either right or wrong. For example, perched on our pl atform of received wisdom, we determine at what ripeness of years a person might marry and we frown on earlier ages that did not have this “correct” view. We shake our heads at cultures that do not share our assessment: they’re misguided; we’ve learnt how things should be done. This polar reckoning permeates our lives. True or false, guilty or innocent, the living and the dead, the light and the dark, the up and the down, sleeping or waking, good taste/bad taste… Our whole existence is geared to binary perception. Time is linear. It’s an immovable notion for us, an illusion thrown up by our conscious perception of moving through it. But we know it’s not true. Solid objects consist almost entirely of empty space but we’re not aware of that. Our bodies are filters: our eyes filter out light we cannot see, our ears filter out sounds we cannot hear, our digestive system filters out food we cannot use. And our brains filter out who knows what in the stuff that surrounds us? As for science, it can only pronounce judgement on what can be measured, deduced, conjectured, or imagined. What about the rest? What about everything that cannot (or cannot yet) be deduced, conjectured, or imagined? The universe of space and time is immeasurable. We sit on an island in the darkness, our knowledge like a torch beam puncturing the overwhelming unknown. Little creatures we are. Certainty is the new ignorance. What has this to do with my writing? As a musician, I often sought to challenge, to explore the unfamiliar, the neglected, the forgotten. I didn’t set out in my writing with the intention of presenting a similar face, but I see now that it is there (of course it is; how could it not be?). The seed is present from the start the compulsion to achieve the impossible. That’s Rose; she has it in her soul, as I have it in mine. But it doesn’t stop there. The novel sequence throws up human relationships that convention tells us are beyond the norm. A few, we might automatically deem abusive. Are all to be frowned on, or might some turn out to be wholly benign? I make no judgements on the reader’s behalf but allow my characters to speak for themselves. Inevitably, the opposites also appear in my books – bonds that appear happy but turn sour. On the face of it, Dancing while we may traces a pastoral story spread over generations. Kate Swithenbank (Kate Regan) is a central figure, but her ancestors, descendants, friends and acquaintances all play their part. One reader suggested it’s a “witchy take on Poldark”. Hm. Thanks for that… Running beneath the whole saga, like a barely perceived, subterranean passacaglia bass, is the elemental spirit, Reudh, jumping the centuries in Kate’s ancestral line, sheltering in chosen individuals: Willa, Anne White, Kate herself, Rose Headlam, to name a few. Some of these women are entirely unaware of Reudh’s presence; others perceive it only gradually with the passage of years. Reudh has an estranged sister, Kweid (or Maria), of whom we catch occasional glimpses. Reudh and Kweid, the Red and the White, pitched in opposition to three bitter brothers ancient, evil – sharing a single soul between them, one in three. Their hate is spread across eternity. But the story of the elementals plays out in a space far above Kate, Rose, and the rest. The reader rarely catches more than an echo of it – except in those few instances when it erupts, bloody and merciless. I reckon I’ve said enough. You should read now… Kevin Corby Bowyer, Glasgow, January 17, 2024