As Kevan Manwaring's imagination soars unfettered from one volume to the next in his epic Windsmith series of 'bardic novels', it reveals a powerful vision of life and the universe as infinite potentiality.
No mean feat, but then, Manwaring regards these books not as part of the fantasy genre, but as 'mythic reality' befitting the existential odyssey. In these stories, he opens a portal to other worlds he has travelled in his inner adventuring: worlds we are reluctant to leave at the end of a chapter.
Aviator Isambard Kerne, in the first book of the series, The Long Woman (2004), finds himself in the Lands of the Dead after being shot from the skies in the First World War. A battle against the forces of darkness, with magic as his weapon and Merlin as his mentor, then ensues in this parallel universe, with the salvation of a beleagured Albion being the ultimate challenge.
Giving Flight to the 'Windsmith' Theme
The Windsmith Elegy, with the final volume to come, is a remarkable threnody for the lost of history, particularly for those fallen in the first and second world wars, but also for all those taken before their time across the ages, famous or no. To give flight to the 'windsmith' theme, Manwaring focuses on aviators: Royal Flying Corps observer Isambard, 1930s ‘queen of the skies’ Amelia Earhart, and Antoine de St-Exupery, poet, pilot and author of The Little Prince.
In The Burning Path, Isambard and his soulmate Amelia find they must come to terms with their past before they can break its dark bonds, and learn what they are willing to sacrifice for love. The desert metaphor and imagery are especially striking as the setting for their ordeals (doubtless as Manwaring worked on the book while writer-in-residence at El Gouna, Egypt, on the Red Sea coast), which will keep the reader rapt.
A 'Windsmith' Sculpts the Air with Words
Importantly, through the narrative of Isambard's trials and tribulations, Manwaring moves beyond the values and limits of the quotidian to address the question of existence itself, the notion of existence seeming to be his standard of value, with the protagonist's mastering of the four winds symbolic of contact with an underlying divine energy in the cosmos for which there seems to be no word in English, other than perhaps 'life-force', but which is rendered as 'neart' in Old Irish, and 'ond' in Old Norse.
Indeed, one would say his approach is to free the imagination and offer us a vision of what a person can become in terms of realised potential – a windsmith, perhaps, someone who 'sculpts the air' with words, music or awen (a word from the Welsh meaning inspiration, particularly the poetic kind). In this way, can we not see Manwaring, who is also a poet and storyteller, as a windsmith?
His writing extends the reader in the direction of selfhood – that quality that constitutes one's individuality – and reminds us of the limitations of everyday consciousness, but also of how it may be expanded to satisfy the deepest callings of human need. He sees broadly and with compassion. Crucially, he reveals life and consciousness as boundless potential, which is surely the ultimate purpose of all art.
- Manwaring, Kevan, The Burning Path: The Windsmith Elegy Volume 4. Awen Publications, 2011. UK £9.99. ISBN 978-1-906900-19-9.
Geoff Ward - Geoff Ward, MA Lit., is a British journalist, media consultant, author and lecturer/tutor in literature and creative writing
