Of Spaces and Ideas

Explores how physical space is represented and affects the work of two British novelists.

Of Spaces and Ideas provides a deeper insight into the work of two contemporary British novelists, Jim Crace and Simon Mawer, with a particular emphasis on spatial sensibility as one of the defining elements of their poetics.

Drawing on a range of literary-theoretical approaches to space, the study analyses selected novels by the two writers to demonstrate the ways in which they render space and place. Above all, it explores the ways in which their spatial representations allow them to express the key ideas behind their stories, namely those of identity, history, and the relationship between an individual and the environment in which they live.