What Book to Read?

Knitting (2005) is a book I think many readers will like; it’s a warm human story about two very different women and the relationship that develops between them, based on knitting. And I did like most of it.

Sandra and Martha meet when they both stop to help a man who has collapsed in the street. Sandra is an academic who is interested in the history of textiles, and women’s role in creating them. Her husband has recently died, leaving her numb and lonely. Martha spends most of her time knitting. She lives alone and appears slightly eccentric; she insists on carrying three large bags around with her. Once Sandra has seen the quality of Martha’s knitting, she conceives the idea of staging an exhibition of knitting from 1900 to 2000, using some authentic items, but also showcasing Martha’s work in reconstructing others from original patterns. Sandra is passionately enthusiastic, but Martha has reservations. Can two such different people manage to work together?

The novel has an extra attraction for me, because it is set in Adelaide, where I live, and is full of local detail. Why is reading about familiar places pleasing? I’m not sure; maybe it only works for backwaters like Adelaide, which rarely get into print. Maybe people who live in London aren’t interested in reading about St Pauls, or the Tate. Or maybe I’m just lazy; instead of having to visualise something the writer has created, I have merely to remember it. Whatever the reason, I enjoyed the setting. But would the sentence: ‘The last hard-rubbish day had provided a decent carpet, an armchair and a mattress’ mean anything to a non-Adelaidean?

You don’t have to know anything about knitting to like the book – though as with me and the setting, serious knitters may feel a flash of appreciation for the descriptions of the intricacies of the craft. Bartlett also uses knitting as a metaphor; she frequently uses terms that are part of ordinary language but also relate specifically to knitting, as in ‘Social history knitted in snippets of everyday language’, a certain behaviour is ‘your pattern’, ‘I was all in a knot’, or ‘she was unravelling’ and Sandra and Martha’s lives are threads joined together in the pattern. ‘Word knitting’ is a phrase Martha uses – ‘words all knitted together to warm your heart like a song’; this unites Sandra’s love of words and her own prowess at knitting. There are many more examples, which may make it sound a bit heavy handed, but it actually works quite well. Bartlett’s writing overall is sound rather than inspired, but this unity of content and diction helps lift it out of the ordinary.

The novel is driven by the reactions of the characters to each other, rather than by dramatic events. The main theme – finding a form of redemption from grief and loss – is worked out though the difficult relationship between Sandra and Martha. Both are well drawn and self-aware. Sandra, for example ‘heard her own voice, disguising coercion as generosity.’  Martha combines innocence with degree of perspicacity; ‘if you don’t actually do domestic stuff, if you don’t believe in it enough to do it yourself, it’s not much use, is it?’ But Cliff – the man who collapses in the street – seems to me to be a bit of a caricature – the tramp with a heart of gold – and as such, there is an air of condescension towards him by the author.

I also find the way Bartlett resolves the tensions built up in the story to be unrealistic, creating a problem in its structure. The novel was written as a component for a PhD in Creative Writing; clearly the examiners didn’t have a problem with this. Writers are obviously free to use whatever literary (or other) devices they choose – and I’m not going to say what that choice is here. Maybe Bartlett sees this device as the whole point of the story. But I’m not convinced, and a sense that I’m being manipulated somewhat spoils the book for me. As I said at the beginning, however, this is probably a highly personal reaction, which other readers probably won’t share.

You can read more about Anne Bartlett here. She is a knitter – but hasn’t provided any patterns.