Crafting Readers

Items

• What the Bird Saw / "The Goldfinch"
  This rug approximates an aerial farmland view for Fabritius’s painted goldfinch as an attempt to embody Theo’s (and the bird’s) story, rather than just witnessing it. Though reading invites real emotion, it remains markedly distinct from actual experience; the practice of crafting The Goldfinch attempts to bridge this gap by considering the same story through a new medium. The latch-hooking method of repeatedly securing individual yarn segments mimics the endurance of Tartt’s narrative style, attempting to replicate the reader’s experience of the novel by simultaneously requiring attention to detail and patience for the big picture. Both reading The Goldfinch and latch-hooking a rug are lengthy endeavours that invite the reader or crafter to bask in the process instead of rushing to an end. GRACE VEUGELERS ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: A quality that I have always appreciated about reading as a medium is that, if I am attending properly to a story, I cannot attend to anything else. I prefer to read slowly, to return to previous pages and passages, to steep my mind in the author’s reality. Yet, when reading Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, I initially struggled to lose myself. I felt intensely aware of my act of reading and of my opposition to her protagonist, Theo. As I faced the novel, I resolved to read recklessly instead. In reaction to Tartt’s barrage of sentence fragments and tangential observations—which resisted my rereading—I would parade myself forwards, even as my understanding might falter. Amazingly, this surrender worked. Donna Tartt emerges as an exception to the general incidence of reading as an act of control (Harrison 39). She pulls her readers along, using some clever combination of incomplete sentences and ideas, endless lists, and colloquial semantic constructions to make each word beg the reading of the next. The story, I found, made more sense if I never stopped reading. Literary critic Rob Jacklosky describes Tartt’s incessant use of lists as “intoxicating” (122) not only in establishing the world, but in generating a “hypnotic, lulling” (122) effect. While my earlier approach had me spinning over details of “gilded cupids, gilded commodes and torchieres, and … the reek of turpentine, oil paint, and varnish” (Tartt 151), trying to commit each detail to memory, a concession to her persistent style granted me a comparatively robust sense of Hobie’s workshop setting. In short, I had to trust that meaning would emerge from the totality of the text. Certainly, summation is essential to any novel, but its effect felt more potent in Tartt’s writing because her constituent parts refuse to stand on their own. If I felt particularly moved by some event in the novel, I could rarely pinpoint the effect within any one sentence. As the novel opens, thirteen-year-old Theo visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his mother but loses her in an explosion. The reader’s suspicion that she has died accumulates over pages as Theo moves through the wreckage, swipes Carel Fabritius’s eponymous painting, and hurries home; but there is no discernible line of text that tips from possibility to certainty. The moment when Theo opens his door to social workers and understands “that [his] life, as [he] knew it, [is] over” (Tartt 86) arrives with finality, not shock. Similarly, knowing that he has stolen an invaluable painting haunts both Theo and the reader. Like Chekhov’s gun, it sits wrapped beneath his bed in Las Vegas or stashed in a storage facility in New York, so the moment of reckoning does not surprise readers with a swift arrival but with the introduction of an unforeseen issue. The expected danger—that Theo would be discovered with Fabritius’s goldfinch in his possession—is replaced by the realization that his childhood friend, Boris, lifted the painting from him and spent years illegally trading with it on the international market. Where a direct line of narration might invite readers to stop and sit in horror, Tartt’s relentless prose demands that we read more quickly so we might watch disaster crest and continue. Critic Chloe Harrison acknowledges this urgency as exacerbated in moments of uncertainty because, though we hurry onward in pursuit of it, Tartt withholds overt confirmation of plot events (40). Instead, she resigns her readers to the same cycles of doubt, denial, and horror that plague Theo. Originally published in 2013, The Goldfinch won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but audience reception nevertheless seems largely divided by Tartt’s style. Some dismissed The Goldfinch as “children’s literature” (qtd. in Harrison 39) or more suited to film—therefore suggesting that Tartt misunderstands the medium of written fiction (qtd. in Harrison 38). Conversely, I appreciate Tartt’s style for nurturing a unique sense of experiencing the story. I might hope that the reading of any story emphasizes process rather than completion; but for Tartt’s lengthy novel, a dedication to the reader’s experience is especially necessary. That her novel unravels beneath a narrative microscope is not inherently a flaw. One of her characters, Horst, even describes Fabritius’s painting as being guilty of the same because with a “step closer … it falls apart into brushstrokes” (Tartt 721). Tartt spotlights her self-awareness, acknowledging art as both “the thing and yet not the thing” (721). For Fabritius: This is not a bird. And for Tartt? Perhaps, this is not real life. This possibility brought me to a conundrum I have often faced: that as powerfully as a story can move me to emotion, it inevitably falls short of experience. Though Tartt does a careful job of unfolding her story with a steady stream of fragments that reflect the onslaught of real life, I struggled to connect with Theo. I could empathize with the loss of a loved one, the strife of adolescence, the loneliness of growing up, but I could not embody those emotions unless I was actively living his life. His pain remained his own. Elaine Scarry offers this insight: “to have great pain is to have certainty; to hear that another person has pain is to have doubt” (7), calling attention to the inevitable limits of empathy. There is no substitute for experience, so my inability to resonate with Theo as a character—to know that the context of emotion and circumstance necessitated every ill-conceived decision he made to lie, run, steal, do drugs, or sell fraudulent antiques—was not a failure of writing but a consequence of it. Tartt could only bring me as close to experience as her form allows, so the project of crafting a rug in conversation with the novel provided another step closer. I resolved to latch-hook a rug because I thought the repetitive process of securing each individual yarn segment might mimic the endless trudge of Theo’s life. Like Tartt’s novel or Fabritius’s painting, the rug forms from parts that are unimpressive and insufficient on their own. Unlike when I read Theo’s story, the making of the rug required my participation and experience, not just observation. The crafting required tactile involvement, and the responsibility of the final product fell to me, swallowing more of my time than I would care to admit. As with The Goldfinch, though, this time granted me the space to move into and out of different perspectives. On some days, the slow speed of reality frustrated me; I implored my hands to work faster like I had implored Theo not to spend another (and another) day drinking away his youth in Vegas. At other times, the sequential movements of hooking each piece “[lulled]” (Jacklosky 122) me as Hobie’s patient lessons on furniture restoration had. In every instance in which I managed some parallel between rug-making and reading, I could understand Theo’s emotions in a more intimate way simply because, in the context of crafting, they became my own. My experience with crafting lacked the community that dominated earlier rug-making practices, as many people typically contributed to gathering and preparing materials as collaborative weavers (Fleming 110), or at least as good company while others worked. I supposed that, in lieu of loyalty to rug-making tradition, my process adhered more to Theo who, also, should not have been so alone. Nevertheless, understanding that the major manipulation and meaning of a hooked rug lies in the pattern (Fleming 110), I made the cautious decision to contradict all of my previous efforts to empathize with Theo. I must acknowledge that The Goldfinch is his story, and the fictional Theo cannot possibly know the effort I have dedicated to understanding him, but, even still, Theo struck me as fundamentally unsympathetic. As intent as he was to “obsess over people” (Tartt 34), in adulthood Theo hardly let his observations inform considerate actions. He was a dishonest employee to Hobie, a dull husband to Kitsey, and an abductor to the painting; so, feeling some minor defiance, I instead considered the perspective of the goldfinch for my rug. The grid canvas limits patterns to geometric designations; and though N.M. Gibbins proposed that crafters might mathematically accomplish more precise angles by skipping certain boxes, I found myself unwilling to risk empty space. However, in imagining an aerial view of farmland for Fabritius’s bird—were he not chained—I felt that the constraints of the medium suited me well. Given that the goldfinch spends the entire novel as a powerless subject to others’ actions and, to me, was only as real as Theo, my consideration of him was as valid as the energy I expended in trying to empathize with Theo. In every stage of my reading of The Goldfinch or of hooking my rug, I both made and unmade my peace with Theo. I realized that, with a seemingly constant source of pages to read or yarn pieces to secure, the ending could only be one thing. Tartt describes the process of growing up as a “state of becoming” (Seaman 8), which is defined by constant change; and similarly, I found the process of rug-making to be a mess of repetition, always different yet always the same. Perhaps the lesson to learn from my endeavours to both witness and experience Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch is that life, like reading, can be best enjoyed not through any single moment or outcome but by experiencing it as you live.
• Weaving Timelines / "The Midnight Library"
  This braided object represents the braiding of the different timelines in Nora’s life that make her the person she is at the end of the novel. The circular shape represents the cyclical elements in the novel. The pale green and brown represent Nora before she dies (birth). Brown conveys the comfort and stability of Nora’s life at the beginning of the novel, while pale green signifies her untapped potential and the nurturing she needs in order to evolve. Purple, the colour of the library, embodies the mystery and wisdom she encounters after she tries to end her life and finds herself at the library (death). The library books are dark green, representing growth and limitless opportunities for transformation (rebirth). By exploring different lives, Nora eventually discovers her true self and integrates all the lessons she has learnt to create the life of her dreams. MARA MIRCIOIU ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: Rag-rug making first became widespread during the Industrial Revolution and experienced fluctuating popularity throughout its history (“Rag Rug”). Initially, making rag rugs was a common way to repurpose old clothing, and such rugs were made mainly out of wool (“History of Rag Rugs.”). The rag rug’s main purpose was to keep floors warm before fitted carpets became common (“History of Rag Rugs”). They were valued for their practical use rather than regarded as pieces of art. Although in the present day, rag rugs are appreciated as a form of art, they were not recognized and appreciated by “the needlework elite” until recently ("History of Rag Rug Making"). There is less research available on rag rugs compared to other textile crafts because of their lack of widespread appreciation and because their history has primarily been passed down through oral tradition ("History of Rag Rug Making"). Nonetheless, rag rugs have had a strong impact since their invention; they are a method of creative reuse and serve as a critique of modern mass production (Shaffer). I chose Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library for my project. This novel was originally published on August 13, 2020 by Canongate Books in the UK, quickly becoming an international bestseller due to its themes of mental health resonating with readers during the COVID-19 pandemic and because it achieved widespread attention on social media platforms such as Tik Tok (Wikipedia). The Midnight Library was named a bestseller by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post (Wikipedia). The novel was nominated for the Audie Award for Fiction (2020) and the British Book Award (2021), and it won the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction in 2020 (Wikipedia). It is sold in multiple formats, such as eBook, hardcover, audiobook, and paperback (HarperCollins). When I first enrolled in ENSH 482, I doubted that crafting could impact my understanding of a work of literature, let alone teach me anything about a novel of my choice. However, after comparing the process of making a rag rug to the form and themes of The Midnight Library, I realized I was completely wrong. I created this rag rug to demonstrate the crafting skills I learned in this class and to show how the process of crafting the rug has deepened my comprehension of my literary text. My process started by choosing a craft. Given that the rag-rug activity was my favourite we did in class, it was the first one I thought of. I reflected on my first rag-rug creation experience and realized that my rug, like my story, has cyclical elements. My understanding of the cyclical elements in the novel is reflected through my selection of colour and the circular shape of the rug. The novel unfolds in three main stages, which I have categorized as birth, death, and rebirth. The novel begins with the line “Nineteen years before she decided to die, Nora Seed sat in the warmth of a small library” (Haig, 1). The introductory chapter lasts 2 pages before readers are transported to “twenty-seven hours before [Nora] decided to die” (Haig, 5). Readers know upon reading the first line that Nora will die, yet at this moment she is introduced and brought to life in readers’ minds. As she approaches her death, Nora avoids anything that challenges her or takes her out of her comfort zone. She constantly dwells on the happiness of others and wishes that she could be someone else. For this reason, I selected the colours pale green and brown to represent the first stage of the novel. Brown is often associated with comfort and stability ("Exploring”). This colour association relates to Nora because she constantly wishes her life were different but refuses to make changes. Pale green is a colour that represents something in need of nurturing, like a young plant. Initially, Nora is deeply dissatisfied with her life. She is aware of her need for help but struggles to find a solution to her unhappiness, seeing death as her only option. Once Nora decides to die, she is transported to a library. Not only is its exterior partly purple, but the colour purple has associations with mystery and enlightenment (“Color Psychology”). While in the library, Nora plays chess with the librarian, Mrs. Elm, while surrounded by books. Each book contains a life Nora could have lived if she had made different choices. Initially, Nora does not want to try any alternate lives and plays chess with Mrs. Elm. However, Mrs. Elm helps Nora understand and navigate the library through the game of chess, showing her that a single life holds countless possibilities, just like how there are countless chess combinations. Mrs. Elm represents Nora’s inner guide throughout the narrative. She uses chess to teach Nora to look at her life from different perspectives, ultimately inspiring her to grab a dark green book off one of the bookshelves. The colour dark green represents growth, renewal, and the unending cycle of life ("Forest Green"). The moment Nora decides to pick up a book, she does not stop trying alternate lives until she finally realizes that the only life she wants to live is the one she had before she tried to end her life. She tries out various lives and learns valuable lessons from each one. Ultimately, she discovers that none of the alternate lives suits her because she never feels genuinely like herself in any of them. Each time Nora experiences a new life, it feels like starting over, as if she is reborn. Once she chooses to return to her original life, she does so with an entirely new perspective, bringing all the wisdom she has gained from her past experiences. The colours are interwoven rather than appearing in subsequent phases because both the evolution of Nora’s life and the structure of the novel are non-linear (Haig). For instance, after exploring various lives, Nora wants to give up and even considers dying for good. Moreover, in each life she explores, she is a different age, and readers transition between different timelines. Creating my rag rug was not a linear process either. I restarted my rug in the beginning stages because I didn’t like the result. I also corrected mistakes along the way when I accidentally looped pieces of fabric through the same hole too many times. Just as I had to unravel and adjust the fabric to achieve the desired design, the narrative's non-linear structure allows for flexibility in exploring different moments and choices in Nora's life, ultimately creating a richer, more complex character and story. Another formal aspect of the book that I better understood through the process of creating my rug was the importance of the use of casual language in the novel. I watched several videos and read articles about rag-rug creation, but many explanations were unclear because they often used jargon that wasn’t accessible to someone like me, a “non-crafter”. My struggle to find a clear tutorial made me appreciate the straightforward and engaging language in my novel, even though it often addressed complex philosophical concepts because Nora has a passion for philosophy (Haig). The novel depicts the human experience of facing and overcoming struggles, a process that is recurring and cyclical. By creating my rag rug, I gained a better understanding of the themes of perseverance, regret, personal growth, the impact of perspective, and flexibility in my novel. I often resonated with the protagonist’s feelings as I went through my creative process. For instance, like Nora, I, too, felt like giving up at times because my rug kept getting knotted. In the end, Nora and I both made it through the hardships we encountered and took the lessons we learnt with us. Crafting the rag rug helped me better understand the non-linear structure of The Midnight Library, as I myself experienced a similar sense of nonlinearity while making my rag rug. The experience also deepened my appreciation and understanding of simple, clear language over more complex, technical language. I will definitely be creating more rag rugs in the future.
• Woven Narratives / "Green Grass, Running Water"
  This woven piece, crafted from yarn and rags, illustrates the complexity of Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water. The legend identifies each material used and the plotline, formal feature, or cultural narrative it represents. I depicted each chapter by weaving with the corresponding materials, braiding them together for chapters with multiple elements, beginning at the loom’s centre. I initially expected a clear visual representation of the novel’s structure to emerge. Instead, the materials blend together, reflecting how King’s storytelling becomes increasingly interconnected the closer you look. Creating this piece helped me engage with the text in an embodied way, translating my reading experience into a physical exploration of its intricate combination of elements. Through this process, I developed a deeper appreciation for King’s layered storytelling, which intertwines Indigenous and settler experiences. Rather than obtaining an objective, singular understanding of the novel’s form, this craft object reveals its rich, interwoven complexity. ELISSA FRIELINK ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: Green Grass, Running Water, Thomas King’s most canonical work, is widely regarded as a Canadian classic, praised for its storytelling and cultural significance (Archibald-Barber 142). First published in Canada in 1993, the novel was quickly embraced by academics internationally and is still taught in many universities (142). The novel’s intricate structure challenges readers, yet students respond positively to the text, as I did when I first read it in a Canadian Literature course (141). I created my craft object, Woven Narratives, by combining weaving and rag rugging as data visualization tools to help me understand Green Grass’s intricate form. King employs Indigenous oral storytelling to incorporate intersecting plotlines, telling an elaborate story that challenges dominant literary conventions. The novel’s structure and King’s numerous references to Indigenous and settler cultures contribute to the novel's complexity. My piece explores and visually represents this intricate structure. The legend shows the materials I chose to represent plotlines, formal features, and cultural narratives. I depicted each chapter by weaving with the representative materials of that chapter and braided materials for chapters that combined plotlines, the frame narrative, or cultural narratives. I wove chapter after chapter until the whole novel was represented. The process helped me explore embodied learning as a pedagogical approach to literary studies. Before weaving, I created a digital key, categorizing each chapter according to the elements I wanted to represent. I cross-referenced the key with the physical novel while weaving, revealing elements I had initially missed. This iterative process deepened my understanding of the frame narrative, which I represented with thin white yarn. The frame narrative opens the novel with the unnamed narrator saying, “So. In the beginning there was nothing. Just the water” (1). Coyote appears and comments on the water, and the narrator responds, saying, “[h]ere’s how it happened” (3). The frame narrative introduces the story’s central question: where does the water come from? This question is answered in the mythic realm when the narrator and Coyote travel through blended Indigenous and Biblical creation stories involving water, and in the realist realm through a narrative involving multiple characters’ plotlines that unite due to a flood. King depicts an “oral storytelling event” where the novel’s narratives are framed by the narrator telling Coyote a story (Hulan and Warley 126). While I recognized the beginning and end of the frame narrative in my initial reading, weaving it into my piece clarified its formal role throughout the novel. Blanca Schorcht discusses King’s “interfusional” style that “transforms the oral into written forms” through repetition and a circular narrative structure (204). The frame narrative reappears in repetitions I initially missed. In Part One, Lionel and Norma pick up the Four Indigenous Elders who escape from a psychiatric hospital. Lionel gets out of the car and finds himself in an ankle-deep puddle (97). Other characters also encounter mysterious puddles and repeat the question: “Where did the water come from?” (98). I wove these repeated questions into my piece with thin white yarn that was easily lost amongst thicker yarn and rags. King brings the realist plotlines back to the frame narrative by reiterating the central question, reminding the reader of the oral storytelling unfolding between the narrator and Coyote. Losing sight of the white yarn in my rag-weaving, I realized how easy it was to lose the frame narrative when I read quickly, consuming the plot rather than contemplating King’s multilayered storytelling. Weaving encouraged me to slow my reading and find the frame narrative within layered stories through material reflection. I found countless other references to the frame narrative that I initially missed until I sat with the text in an embodied way. Part One concludes with the narrator repeating, “[i]n the beginning there was nothing. Just the water,” circling back to the frame narrative. King ends each section this way, revisiting the beginning and starting a new creation story, reflecting the cyclical nature of oral storytelling. The circle is completed in the novel’s conclusion when Coyote remarks on the water resulting from the flood, and the narrator responds, “[h]ere’s how it happened,” suggesting the start of another story (431). By weaving the frame narrative into other material, I reflected on what I read in an embodied, tactile way that helped me understand King’s repetition that creates circular narratives, depicting an oral storytelling event. I originally planned on illustrating the presence of the Hollywood Western in my piece as a cultural narrative, similar to Indigenous and Biblical creation stories. The Western is a book and movie genre that tells stereotypical stories about conflicts between cowboys and Indigenous peoples. I refrained from including the Western as a cultural narrative in my piece because I was unsure if I could fit another material into the loom. As I wove characters' plotlines in the realist realm, I realized the significance of the Western genre for both thematic and formal reasons. Characters like Eli and Lionel read and watch Westerns that perpetuate harmful stereotypes of Indigenous peoples as savage, prehistoric, and destined for extinction. Rather than alluding to these stories, King explicitly tells them. In a fragmented sequence over multiple chapters, King tells Eli’s story while describing the plot of a Western novel he reads, exposing its stereotypes and their effect on his identity. King's portrayal of the Western genre illustrates the dangers that arise when certain stories become popularized and are “granted authority over other stories in terms of its worldview,” which can have “long-term, often destructive effects” on representation and identity (McGill 4). The Western genre becomes an important part of the novel’s plot when the Elders enter a Western movie and the narrative so that the Indigenous group defeats the cowboys (322). Characters in the realist realm watch and are confused by the subversion of conventional Western plots. King’s incorporation and rewriting of Westerns depict his belief “that people should aim to improve narratives by retelling them” (McGill 251). King indicates that cultural narratives, while impactful, are not fixed. His playful manipulation of Westerns thematically challenges stereotypes and adds complexity to his portrayal of Indigenous identity, while making the Western part of the novel’s plot. My choice to omit this element shows the impossibility of my goal to understand the depth of the novel’s structure and represent it to the viewer within the confines of my loom. I initially envisioned my final product as a form of data visualization, resembling an orderly weaving piece that would clearly depict each chapter and its contents. I expected my piece to explicate the form of Green Grass and then communicate it to the viewer through clear visual patterns. However, my actual product resembles a rag rug–a practical, economic object that emerged in 18th- and 19th-century Britain from reused “bits and pieces” and “torn scraps of things” (Steedman 262, 272). Carolyn Steedman notes that historians often romanticize rag rugs, imbuing them with symbolic meaning that contrasts with their utilitarian origins among the working-class poor (277). While my craft object did not arise from utility, my assemblage of varied, textured materials mirrors the ragged aesthetic of rag rugging. The blending of these materials reveals the extent of the novel’s interconnected complexity, which I thought was more knowable and less complex than it actually is. Like historians' romanticization of the rag rug, the meaning I wanted to project onto my piece differed from its actual meaning—an illustration of the novel’s intricacy and demonstration of the need to personally engage with King’s storytelling to understand the novel’s structure. In “Against Mastery: Teaching Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water,” Robert McGill reflects on the dangers of asserting mastery over the novel by seeking a totalized understanding of its form and intertextual allusions in educational settings (249). My attempt to objectively understand and represent the novel’s form through data visualization mirrors such efforts at mastery. Green Grass exemplifies the pedagogy of Indigenous storytelling, which resists “orthodox conclusions” and fixed meanings (253). The stories invite listeners to engage deeply and draw their own conclusions that may differ from the storyteller’s intended message (253). While I anticipated achieving clarity through tactile creation, rag weaving further revealed the novel’s complexities to me as I physically interweaved the narratives onto my loom. King’s work illustrates that different narratives can co-exist while resisting assimilation into each other. King does not create one objective master narrative, but rather a complex story supporting many perspectives and interpretations. After crafting my piece, I still had unanswered questions, showing that deep engagement with Indigenous literature is more valuable than seeking a single, objective interpretation. The value of Woven Narratives lies in my process of making it, and I recognize its limitations in communicating knowledge that is meant to be personally experienced through King’s storytelling. Rag-weaving allowed me to engage with Green Grass in an embodied way, experiencing the interconnection of the novel’s stories by weaving them into my piece. While I deepened my understanding of the frame narrative, I did not fully grasp or communicate the novel’s overall structure through data visualization. Instead, my process enriched my appreciation of King’s interweaving of stories into a whole, complex narrative. Like King’s storytelling, my object resists objective interpretation. I hope it will encourage viewers to seek their own interpretations of the text, reading not just for the written narrative but to engage deeply with King’s storytelling.