A Springe to Catch Woodcocks

Potterism — By Rose Macaulay

In this new novel by Miss Macaulay it is not only her cleverness and wit which are disarming. It is her coolness, her confidence, her determination to say just exactly what she intends to say whether the reader will or no. We are conscious, while the dreadful truth escapes us, of a slightly bewildered feeling, of, almost, a sense of pique. After all, what right has the author to adopt this indifferent tone towards us? What is the mystery of her offhand, lightly-smiling manner? But these little, quick, darting fishes of doubt remain far below our surface until we are well into the book; we are conscious of them, and that is all. The rest of us is taken up with the enjoyment of ‘Potterism,’ with the description of the Potter Press and what it stands for. It is extraordinarily pleasant to have all our frantic and gloomy protestations and furies against ‘Potterism’ gathered up and expressed by Miss Macaulay with such precision and glittering order—it is as though she has taken all those silly stones we have thrown and replaced them with swift little arrows. ‘How good that is, how true!’ we exclaim at every fresh evidence of Potterism and every fresh exposure of a Potterite…. But then there is her plot to be taken into account. It page 201 is very slight. She has simply traced a ring round the most important, the most defined anti-Potterites and Potterites. Potterism is the strongest power that rules England to-day; the anti-Potterites are that small handful of people, including ourselves, whose every breath defies it. And what happens to them? Here those small fishes begin to grow very active, to flirt their fins, flash to the surface, leap, make bubbles. This creates a strange confusion in our minds. For the life of us we can't for the moment see, when all is said and done, which are which. Is it possible that we ourselves are only another manifestation of the disease? Who has won, after all? Who shall say where Potterism ends? It is easy to cry: ‘If we must be flung at anything, let us be flung at lions.’ But the very idea of ourselves as being flung at anything is an arch-Potterism into the bargain.