The English Understand Wool

Helen DeWitt

Book cover for The English Understand Wool
Book cover for The English Understand Wool

The English Understand Wool

The English Understand Wool

Helen DeWitt

  • Become a member to save 50% off your first order and then 30% on all future orders. Simply add any book to cart and you’ll see an option to become a member
  • 100% of this book's profits go to our community of authors.
Get 50% off your first order, and then 30% off everything
Member Book Price
$18.95$9.48
Monthly Membership
First month free, renews at $5.00
$0.00

Log in to access your Membership or Book Club price

  • Allstora Membership will renew at $5/month, cancel any time
View full details

Description

Maman was exigeante--there is no English word-and I had the benefit of her training. Others may not be so fortunate. If some other young girl, with two million dollars at stake, finds this of use I shall count myself justified.

Raised in Marrakech by a French mother and English father, a 17-year-old girl has learned above all to avoid mauvais ton ("bad taste" loses something in the translation). One should not ask servants to wait on one during Ramadan: they must have paid leave while one spends the holy month abroad. One must play the piano; if staying at Claridge's, one must regrettably install a Clavinova in the suite, so that the necessary hours of practice will not be inflicted on fellow guests. One should cultivate weavers of tweed in the Outer Hebrides but have the cloth made up in London; one should buy linen in Ireland but have it made up by a Thai seamstress in Paris (whose genius has been supported by purchase of suitable premises). All this and much more she has learned, governed by a parent of ferociously lofty standards. But at 17, during the annual Ramadan travels, she finds all assumptions overturned. Will she be able to fend for herself? Will the dictates of good taste suffice when she must deal, singlehanded, with the sharks of New York?

Critical Reviews

Brilliant and inimitable Helen DeWitt: patron saint of anyone in the world who has to deal with the crap of those in power who do a terrible job with their power, and who make those who are under their power utterly miserable.--Sheila Heti "Electric Literature"

DeWitt has plenty of stories to tell about mercenary literary agents, feckless editors and the systematically thwarted ambitions of artists. Her brilliant new novella, The English Understand Wool, is such a saga. Told, like her previous novels, from the point of view of an obsessive personality, this clever little book revolves around the education of seventeen-year-old Marguerite by her French mother on the rules of bon ton. DeWitt has a knack for delivering acutely eccentric ideas with such intense frequency and in a no-nonsense tone that readers become almost persuaded of their unarguable logic.-- "Spectator World"

This crisp novella, the latest from Helen DeWitt, is told in a series of hostile letters between the girl and her crass American editor in New York.-- "Vulture"

In Helen DeWitt's new novelette, The English Understand Wool...depictions of provincial life, aesthetic value, in the hands of those who cannot recognize it, finds itself at the mercy of market logic.--Jared Marcel Pollen "Gawker"

Prose as sharp as Maman's tailored clothes.--Connor Harrison "Literary Review (UK)"

The English Understand Wool is Helen DeWitt's best and funniest book so far - quite a feat given the standards set by the rest of her work. It is a heist story, an ethica; treatise, a send-up of media culture, a defence of education and an indelibly memorable character portrait. Its pages are rife with wicked pleasures. It incites and rewards re-reading.--Heather Cass White "The Times Literary Supplement"

DeWitt's mastery of adverbs is deserving of worship.--Molly Young "The New York Times"

Weighing in at just 64 pages, Helen DeWitt's The English Understand Wool is a delight.--Mia Levitin "The Irish Times"

I didn't want the book to end.--Kaitlin Phillips "Artforum"

That a ghost writer should commute her story - that of a 'missing child' raised outside the culture she was born into by imposters - to the kind of neutered copy the masses expect is quite out of the question. I am who I tell you I am, DeWitt seems to be saying, and I will speak for myself in the language of my choosing.--J.W. McCormack "The New Left Review"

DeWitt is the sort of writer to whom engineering - the right mark in the right place, getting the message through - matters as much as exposition.--David Trotter "London Review of Books"

A midsummer's night dream, a turbulent and amoral comedy, disrupting the sleep with its dodges and masks--altogether a delight.--Jon Domini "The Brooklyn Rail"

Readers of Helen DeWitt's limited previous output--two novels and a collection of stories in twenty-two years--will fall greedily on anything new. Her novella The English Understand Wool exceeds expectations.--John Self "The Critic"

A staggeringly intelligent examination into the nature of truth, love, respect, beauty and trust... This is that rare thing, or merle blanc, as maman might say: a perfect book. I've read it four times, which you can do between breakfast and lunch.--Nicola Shulman "The Times Literary Supplement"

The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt is, strictly speaking, a book of last year, but it was only this year that it came into my ken and became an obsession. The pleasure begins even before you start reading, because it is, as an object, handsomer and wittier than any other volume on my shelves. A tall, slim, laminated hardback (69 pages divided into 32 sections) with a silver spine, Wayne Thiebaud's Boston Cremes oozing over the front and a good splash of pink around the title, it looks like one of those school exercise books that you decorate at home with tinfoil and collage. But never judge a book by its cover: this is a brute and savage tale about the art of heartlessness, the folly of editors, verbal precision and mauvais ton. The ending is pure genius: De Witt's daemon has a will of iron.--Frances Wilson "The Times Literary Supplement"

A bright jewel of a book, to light up an afternoon.--Ian Marchant "Church Times"

Publishing Information

Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Pub date: 2022-09-27
Length: 64 pages

The Allstora Membership

Membership Perks:

  • Save 30% on all online store purchases
  • Exclusive access to author's content
  • You pay less, but authors still earn double

Membership Terms:

First Month: $0.00
Monthly price: $5.00
  • To access membership discount simply log in and add to cart, discount applied automatically.
  • One month free trial, cancel anytime. Membership renews on the 15th of each month.