whisperings ~ mumblings ~ gusts
Late on a Sunday in January, the northwest wind driving snow against my office window here in the hills where few people live and none of them close, it’s strange to picture Tim Bowling mooning about in the wee hours under the moon in the heart of an Edmonton winter, but there he is, a celebrated author of twenty-one books, slipping around in the darkness of self-exile on a lengthy quest to understand the solitude to which he is increasingly drawn. There he is, a picture of success in late mid-life, success
So here I am to tell the digital world The Call of the Red-winged Blackbird: Essays on the Common and Extraordinary is one incredible work of art. In keeping with the tradition set out by earlier masters of the personal essay form as described by Phillip Lopate, Bowling puts forth the persona of a self-conscious, likeable curmudgeon, a conflicted idler at times self-deprecating, at times adorably clumsy (cue the pool scene), always questioning himself and the world around him, always questioning the truth