It’s always good to discover new writers and even more so when they have something to offer. This one came with no personal recommendation but was a pick-up in the local library. It was the unusual story that grabbed me. In 1989 England two friends set out in a rundown campervan to create crop-circles, so intricate that they are soon attracting not merely national but international attention.
Along the way the connection with mankind and the ‘land’ is explored along with commercialisation, the power of money and status, the mystery and power of art. Sounds a bit heavy when I put it down like that, but the writing has a light touch, and the most engaging aspect of the book is the two main characters Calvert and Redbone.
Calvert is an ex-SAS Falklands veteran and is carrying many traumatic experiences. It is never stated but regular flashbacks would indicate Post- Traumatic Stress Syndrome. For him the creation of crop circles - the organisation, the purpose, the achievement - is therapy.
Redbone is an aging punk band member who receives mystical visions and has a strong connection to the ‘land’, to the ancient people who lived on it and the wisdom that guided them. He lives in a campervan.
An unlikely couple. We never learn how they met but there is a deep friendship which in the main does not require too much conversation to survive the demands of their work and their sometime disappointments and setbacks. Not much good stuff is written about male-friendship but this falls into that category.
It’s difficult to go into the plot too much. I’m sensitive to throwing out too many ‘spoilers'. But along the way there are challenges human, technological and personal that threaten to throw them off course. At one point Calvert and Redbone have a discussion about ‘the perfect golden circle’. Redbone doubts it could ever exist: ‘I don’t believe anything man-made can ever be perfect.' Even if a machine is employed to make the perfect golden circle will incorporate man’s imperfection at some level. In the end Redbone concedes, reluctantly, that the perfect golden circle still exists in our minds. And it is this which in the end drives forward their Great Project.
In there is an acknowledgement in the two men that they are being driven by ‘something’ outside themselves. Redbone is influenced by Buddhist and Hindu thought, Calvert driven by the power of ‘truth and beauty.’ How it all works out in the end is deeply moving. And reminds Christians that there many discussions out there with broken but commendable people in which to engage.
