Book review: The Significance of Swans by Rhiannon Lewis

Philippa Holloway

‘At first they seem like strange co-incidences…people had disappeared during the night. And when I say disappeared, I mean exactly that.’

Rhiannon Lewis’s recent novella, The Significance of Swans, is a story full of strange co-incidences that snare the reader in the entanglements of our contemporary concerns.

The Magical Realist conceit at the heart of the story, the ‘removals’ in which people vanish in the night, quietly, leaving no trace but a soft indent in a bed or a fading warmth on a blanket, is one that hits home with a muted memory of covid deaths, the numbers during the first lockdown in early 2020 increasing daily, and yet this unexplained pandemic of disappeared family, friends – and eventually the whole population  – is perhaps more sinister for its mystery.

Terrifying

There is no vaccine or government strategy that can help here, and even the ‘sleep clubs’ that are meant to protect one another fail. This is a force beyond comprehension, making it both more terrifying, and also somehow easier to accept and therefore adapt to.

The significance of the swans remains the single point of focus in a world now void of social and political constructs and routines, and this becomes a thread of hope and horror that stitches together the years that are covered in this brilliantly rendered tale.

Lewis’s mastery of this mode of writing is understated and subtle, which is why it is so effective. Never do we doubt or lose belief in the happenings, as they are solidly enmeshed in the real world, and importantly, doing what magical realism does best as a literary mode – transgressing boundaries and highlighting real world concerns through tangible, phenomenological, descriptions that are both familiar and strange at the same time. This uncanny heart beats strongly from start to finish.

A Rare Protagonist

The success of this mode of writing is in part due to the protagonist. Rarely do we get to see, hear and experience a tale through the point of view of an older middle-aged woman in isolation, and especially one who is distinctly average in every way.

There is always a temptation in writing to make a protagonist somehow exceptional, quirky, or ‘special’ due to their talents or some extraordinary skill that becomes pivotal to their survival – in fact this is usually encouraged by the market and by writing lore itself.

Yet by eschewing such narrative tropes, Lewis provides a truly rare and therefore far more fascinating, unique and relatable character.

Aeronwy is novel in her normality, and so utterly compelling to follow through this empty world and into the peril she confronts. Her flaws and mistakes feel natural and genuine, rather than contrived for drama, and everything that makes her invisible in the real world gives her power in this narrative in which she is the dominant voice.

Indeed, when ‘magic realist fiction takes on the perspective of the hitherto oppressed [or overlooked], …their world view [becomes] a valid alternative to the dominant outlook,’ (Hegerfeldt, 2002, pg.71).

Guided through this empty new world by the one woman left behind, we see it afresh – no apocalyptic clichés here, but rather the precise and intimate experience of being in the world alone. Furthermore, it is Aeronwy’s voice that carries the story – where some authors would drift towards an overtly literary mode of language to explore the themes and ideas present in the text, Lewis keeps narration true to the character herself, meaning again the impact is visceral, familiar, brutally authentic.

This is a character whose thoughts, feelings, conflicts and courage will linger in your heart and mind long after the book is closed.

Loneliness vs Freedom

‘I realised with clarity and with some degree of dismay that this was it. Whatever had removed everyone else did not intend to come back for me. I felt strangely betrayed.’

To the many ‘invisible women’ out there in the world this statement could be attributed to so many situations, but here the reader is invited to see the other side to this status.

There is a delicate but profound balance between the isolation Aeronwy experiences as everyone else slowly vanishes and leaves her behind, and the inherent freedom this bestows on her running through the text.

No longer bound by social norms, physical expectations, and conformity to her age and biological sex, she is both cast aside by the powers that removed the others, and freed by them to readjust into a new rhythm of existence.

While at first being left behind signals already being invisible, her presence as (perhaps) the only human left on earth gives her a status that she neither glorifies in nor rejects outright.

This tension between freedom and loneliness is never exploited, overplayed, or binary, but always two simultaneous aspects of the same experience – just as the messiness of real life is forever a tangle of conflicting and often conflated matters.

Despite her hopes of meeting her brother again, her fears she is indeed the last human, she continues to behave in a way that is respectful and considerate of those gone, or those to come who may find her notes and diaries.

In this way, she becomes an icon of humanity. Generous, civil, and compassionate.

The Danger of Others and a Glimmer of Hope

If loneliness and abandonment feel at first the biggest challenge to our protagonist, alongside basic survival in a world emptied of food producers, shops, and infrastructure for societal safety, the presence of a stranger quickly refocuses the mind on the vulnerability any of us, but particularly a woman, can face in isolation.

Here is where Lewis shines in portraying the real-world strategies ordinary folk employ in the face of risk, the mistakes and missteps, the actions (or inactions) any of us might need to take in specific circumstances. Yet we are never encouraged to give up hope, or to feel as a reader that we might fail in similar circumstances.

Rather, we are shown that we are allowed to be conflicted, to experience and range of emotions, to fall and rise again, to walk on. This perhaps in Lewis’s real triumph – in this concise, precise story, she gives us all of humanity. In fact, if literature can function as an instruction manual for how to navigate this increasingly complex world, maybe this is the book that you need at the top of the pile.

The Significance of Swans is Published by Y Lolfa and is available here and at all good bookshops

Philippa Holloway’s debut novel, The Half-life of Snails was longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje prize for ‘a distinguished work evoking the spirit of place,’ and her short story collection Untethered is out now with Parthian Books.