30 May
30 May
30 May 1920
2 Portland Villas, Hampstead - London
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 source of a Potterite ... [Review of Potterism by Rose Macaulay in the Athenaeum, 4 June 1920]