On my list of things I would quite like Santa to bring me for christmas was "Le Voile Noir" by Anny Duperey. A little browse on Amazon.fr and the postman has brought it to me last week when semi-normal postal service resumed (he also brought a DVD of the Shadoks - Him Indoors does not really get it but it has me giggling in the small hours which is always a good thing). Anyway in the book the author talks about her childhood and her quest for memories of her parents. It is illustrated with photos her father took before his death. Sometimes you read a book and a chapter strikes a chord. The book has a small chapter which may just hit the spot for quite a few knitters and for people who know or live with knitters and have always failed to see the point/attraction of it. I thought I may translate it and post it (forgive the clumsy translation, I am not much of an interpreter). If your French is any good (don't you that there is an English version out there) you could always give the rest of the book a chance. Anny's mother died went she was 8-1/2 and she fails to remember her. Amongst the information she has gathered : her mother loved knitting and she was particularly adept at it. The following extract follows: [...] I know, for I have practiced it for a little while and observed its effects on me that knitting is a pastime for the alienated. It is similar to a drug. We can have knitting attacks, we can feel withdrawal if we found yourself with a free hour during which we could have knitted and find we negected to take the work with us, it generates a pernicious addiction. We quickly get accustomed to the confort of being here and absent at the same time, protected by the impassible barrier of needles and curtain of small stitches which hangs between us and the others. With the golden alibi of being "useful", it is a wonderful excuse not to participate to the life that surrounds us and allows us to delay quite a while the moment when we have to join those who are calling us. "Wait, I am finishing my row..." However we know full well that when one is finished, there is nothing easier than starting another, almost inadvertantly. During a severe attack, we do not even notice, it just happens. A blessed amnesia falls between the last stitches of the rows which we have just finished and the first of the one which has just been started. "Wait, I am finishing this one..." There is no lack of justification - we are in the middle of a motif, it is the last row of the ribs, we are getting to the decreases for the armholes... "Wait, I am doing the other side otherwise I won't know where I am..." After the fith, sith row started, close ones who are waiting - to go out or to have dinner - can rightly take the inertia for provocation or a mark of hostility. If it is pointed out to her, the knitter looks upans in yer eyes you can be read the greatest of surprise, the look is "far from it all" very soft and slightly misty, proof of total innocence. Most of the time she is sincere, you rarely knit against others but more for your own relief. Because knitting is a powerful anaesthetic. At the lower stages of the need for anaesthesia is the plain knit, with a simple repetitive stich. From the outside it seems more mind numbing, "dumb" knitting - it is untrue. While the hands are busy with the automatic mouvement, the head is free to wonder and is is hard to cut ourselves completely from the outside. Compilcated stiches, multiple coulours seem to me to be a matter of a more serious stage of voluntary alienation. At high doses, under the cover of artistic creation, you can litteraly become an intarsia junkie. Somebody who is busy incessantly counting stiches to avoid mistakes cannot be disturbed. Close ones soon avoid any intervention. "That's it, you have made me miss a stich, I'll to start the row over again..." In the case of large motifs, covering the entire front panel ore better still the entire jumper, including the sleeves, the screen between yourself and others is about perfect. The screen between yourself and yourself too... Faced with a constantly changing number of stiches we cannot even dream any more, And well protected, the eyes, hands and brain busy, stich by stich, row after row, we lose ourselves in an hypnotic lethargy, closed on ourselves in a corner we knit for those we love, and that we cannot during of these hours touch or listen to. Then once the work is complete we wtch them go to work or to school, coered, wrapped in this little mass of powerless tenderness knoted stich by stich. Then the hands are empty and the mind worries and all that is left to do is to start another piece. Knitting for our close one is a compensation for a feeling of powerlessness and uselessness - at least that is what I think. My mother knitted. Preferably complicated pieces. Incessantly. I do not know what to deduct from this information, but I know that she pushed those around her close to nervous breakdow with her "Wait I'm finishing my row...". And now I know something else [...] It was not enough for her to knit constantly, the extreme skill she had acquired having probably reduced the calming effect, just as drug users add an ingredient to the poison which has become ineffective, she had managed to find a way to knit and read at the same time. At least a book a day, It seems, and anything she would lay he hands on. Maximum anaesthesia... Hope you liked it and the porr translation did not put you off. I can recognise myself in th Wait, I'm finishing a row. I have been known to knight and read a magazine at the same time and I have occasionaly chose complicated patterns for no particular ereasons. The Boy wore many outfits which were knitted on the commute to Oxford. Maybe I should use marketing and sell to Him Indoors the theory that is so many of my needlework project are scattered around the place, unfinished it is because my alienation/lunacy is only partial.
Ever wondered why people knit ?
5.1.04 22:46
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(5.1.04 23:03) Have just completed the tapestary foot stall that I stared 4 years ago, here is the feeling of smug. time to knit it's about time someone should have a baby or maybe I should knitt and pack the bits in tissue for my cildren when they become parents. |
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(6.1.04 00:07) Lovely! Are men allowed to knit? Quite fancy it now, but already have large enough reputation for eccentricity. |
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(6.1.04 20:58) Oberon. Arun sweeter in complex patterns were knitted by men, in Ireland back along |
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(6.1.04 21:11) Oberon. Shepherds used to knit. Soldiers and sailors were keen quilt makers (very striking and unfussy geometric patterns, often based on squares). Ahhrg I have become a needlwork anorak ! Got a feeling that you were rather time poor these days (Rosalind not cracking the whip hard any more ?) + are you ready for alienation ? Princess-f-t. Doesn't your daugther have any dolls who ned jumpers (from the business the Bear Factory are making I would say dressing up toys is still going strong) ? |
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christine (6.1.04 21:22) Oh, this is a lovely book. so much food for thought. Please please please translate for us here the bit about how good her grandma was at the sewing machine and how love was measured through the time spent making Anny clothes... |
