Overview

This study shows how fiction that makes use of textiles as an essential element utilizes synaesthetic writing and synaesthetic metaphor to create an affective link to, and response in, the reader. These links and responses are examined using affect theory from Silvan Tomkins and Brian Massumi and work on synaesthesia by Richard Cytowic, Lawrence Marks, and V.S. Ramachandran, among others. Synaesthetic writing, including synaesthetic metaphors, has been explored in poetry since the 1920s and, more recently, in fiction, but these studies have been general in nature. By narrowing the field of investigation to those novels that specifically employ three types of hand-crafted textiles (quilt-making, knitting and embroidery), the book isolates how these textiles are used in fiction. The combination of synaesthesia, memory, metaphor and, particularly, synaesthetic metaphor in fiction with textiles in the text of the case studies selected, shows how these are used to create affect in readers, enhancing their engagement in the story.The work is framed within the context of the history of textile production and the use of textiles in fiction internationally, but concentrates on Australian authors who have used textiles in their writing. The decision to focus on Australian authors was taken in light of the quality and depth of the writing of textile fiction produced in Australia between 1980 and 2005 in the three categories of hand-crafted textiles – quilt-making, knitting and embroidery. The texts chosen for intensive study are: Kate Grenville's The Idea of Perfection (1999, quilting); Marele Day's Lambs of God (1997, knitting) and Anne Bartlett's Knitting (2005, knitting); Jessica Anderson's Tirra Lirra by the River (1978, embroidery) and Marion Halligan's Spider Cup (1990, embroidery).

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9781443800792

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Reviews

'[T]he breath and depth of Diana Mary Eva Thomas's research is rewarding, challenging, and just plain fascinating [...] [I]f you like to read beautiful immersive fiction, have ever wondered how some authors are able to create detailed environments and complex characters more effectively than others, or thought that perhaps the standard textile metaphor has the potential to be so much more, Thomas's research provides a thorough, contemporary approach to these questions and much, much more.'Christine WiltshierSpring 2017 newsletter of the Textile Society of America

[T]he breath and depth of Diana Mary Eva Thomas's research is rewarding, challenging, and just plain fascinating [...] [I]f you like to read beautiful immersive fiction, have ever wondered how some authors are able to create detailed environments and complex characters more effectively than others, or thought that perhaps the standard textile metaphor has the potential to be so much more, Thomas's research provides a thorough, contemporary approach to these questions and much, much more. Christine Wiltshier Spring 2017 newsletter of the Textile Society of America

[T]he breath and depth of Diana Mary Eva Thomas's research is rewarding, challenging, and just plain fascinating [...] [I]f you like to read beautiful immersive fiction, have ever wondered how some authors are able to create detailed environments and complex characters more effectively than others, or thought that perhaps the standard textile metaphor has the potential to be so much more, Thomas's research provides a thorough, contemporary approach to these questions and much, much more. Christine WiltshierSpring 2017 newsletter of the Textile Society of America

Author Information

Diana Mary Eva Thomas is an Honorary Fellow at the Faculty of Law, Humanities and Arts at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She has had a long career as a librarian and researcher and has exhibited her textile pieces in many group shows. Her scholarly work has appeared in Interdisciplinary Humanities and her textiles in Textile Fibre Forum, among others. She received a PhD (with Examiners' Commendation for Outstanding Thesis) from the University of Wollongong in 2014.

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