Blue Tent, The

In the shadows of south Wales’ Black Mountains, an isolated house becomes the setting for a surreal yet ordinary set of events in Richard Gwyn’s The Blue Tent. Living alone in the house, bequeathed to him by an elderly aunt, a man lives a simple life full of books and broken sleep. When a brilliant blue tent appears outside his garden boundary, things take a mysterious turn and his life is, not so much turned upside down, but muddied and confused. The tent is responsible, in ways that aren’t always clear, for the introduction of a cast of characters who join his rural existence. One by one, his life is complemented by people all linked to the tent and Megan, his aunt and benefactor. Megan, he discovers, made the tent and has varying connections to his new guests that span her life and the world beyond south Wales. Beyond this, everything that takes place largely remains a mystery. The Blue Tent is a finely balanced book. It is also magical realism, with the two elements in very careful measures. Characters appear magically from the inside of the titular blue tent, as if from nowhere and with dubious links to the real world, but it often feels as though this is where the magic stops. These characters become seemingly inconsequential additions to our man’s life – they make big bowls of pasta, get a quirkily named pet dog, and make big bowls of ratatouille. There is food, there is gardening, and there is the renovation of an old bike found in the shed. This may sound glib, but it keeps the book immensely believable and enjoyable, and heightens the power of the magic. What Gwyn does so brilliantly in The Blue Tent is to pre-empt the reader’s questions every step of the way. There is a natural order and flow to our protagonist’s life that are disturbed by the tent and its inhabitants. As the surrealism of a mysterious tent with questionable powers is introduced, a reader naturally and sensibly questions the logic of what’s going on. It’s a gift for the reader that our protagonist similarly questions what’s happening at the same time. One is not expected to simply buy into a questionable narrative as is often the way with magical realism; Gwyn makes it okay, and even expected, to question what is happening. There’s a quote from legendary writer and professional prankster, Ken Kesey, that The Blue Tent brings to mind: ‘The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer.’ This could have been written about The Blue Tent – it’s a very special book. It says a lot about literature (Megan leaves a handwritten note in the house’s library about how ‘One book opens another’ – similar in ethos to Kesey’s never-ending interest in mystery) and it raises questions about the self and the legacy of a life. The Blue Tent asks who we are, raises questions about our connections to others, and does so in a deceptively simple way. A great book. -- Liam Nolan @ www.gwales.com