I was shamed by David Eddyshaw’s recent comment (“I highly recommend The English Understand Wool to the three Hatters who have not already read it”) — he, of course, had no intention of shaming me, as he could not possibly have known that I had failed to read the latest fiction by one of my favorite authors — and I have accordingly remedied my inexcusable omission. I have no intention of telling you “what it’s about”; the text itself will do that. I will quote a couple of early bits to convince you that you need to read the whole thing (it’s a short book and will take only a few hours). Here’s the opening of the novella:
—The English understand wool.
My mother sat on a small sofa in our suite at Claridge’s, from which the television had been removed at her request. She held in her lap a bolt of very beautiful handloomed tweed which she had brought back from the Outer Hebrides. She had in fact required only a few metres for a new suit.
I use the word “suit” because I am writing in English, but the French tailleur—she would naturally think of clothes in French—makes intelligible that one would travel from Marrakech to the Outer Hebrides to examine the work of a number of weavers, perhaps to establish a relationship with a weaver of real gifts. It makes intelligible that one would bring one’s daughter, so that she might develop an eye for excellence in the fabric, know the marks of workmanship of real quality, observe how one develops an understanding with a craftsman of talent. The word “suit,” I think, makes this look quite mad.
She had needed only a few metres, but she had bought the entire bolt to prevent it from falling into ignoble hands. We had stayed overnight on the way north in Inverness, where the shops were full of distinguished tweeds put to debased uses.
And here’s the start of ch. 4:
Maman was exigeante—there is no English word—in matters of protocol. Lunch, tea and dinner were served formally. English was spoken if my father was present, French if we were alone. It is important for the servants to become accustomed to the correct manner of serving; if the President of the Republic comes to dine, they must not be anxiously casting their minds back to the last important dinner. It is an advantage to them to speak both French and English flawlessly. (When they made mistakes, they were corrected.) If an opportunity arises in a great hotel, they will not be unprepared.
Maman spoke French with a pure Parisian accent. She used this in the normal management of the household; it was better for them to accustom themselves. She spoke the standard Arabic, the Arabic of television, of high-level functionaries, of international businessmen, on formal occasions where French was inappropriate. She spoke Darija, the Moroccan form of Arabic, when the servants were ill or had family problems. This was the hardest to learn because the language schools did not like to teach it, and private instructors felt they would lose face if they did not teach what was taught in schools. What she set out to do she did.
I will add that I am entirely in accord with DE’s “At several points I had to suppress an embarrassing desire to cheer out loud for the remarkable heroine, an eminently worthy spiritual sibling to Ludo.” Nobody writes like DeWitt.
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