Potterism

by Rose Macaulay

Johnny and Jane Potter being twins went through Oxford together. Johnny came up from Rugby and Jane from Roedean. Johnny was at Balliol and Jane at Somerville. Both having ambitions for literary careers took the Honours School of English Language and Literature.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Emilie Rose Macaulay, whom Elizabeth Bowen called "one of the few writers of whom it may be said, she adorns our century," was born at Rugby, where her father was an assistant master. Descended on both sides from a long line of clerical ancestors, she felt Anglicanism was in her blood. Much of her childhood was spent in Varazze, near Genoa, and memories of Italy fill the early novels. The family returned to England in 1894 and settled in Oxford. She read history at Somerville, and on coming down lived with her family first in Wales, then near Cambridge, where her father had been appointed a lecturer in English. There she began a writing career which was to span fifty years with the publication of her first novel, Abbots Verney, in 1906. When her sixth novel, The Lee Shore (1912), won a literary prize, a gift from her uncle allowed her to rent a tiny flat in London, and she plunged happily into London literary life.

From BookRags: http://www.bookrags.com/biography/ros...

Reviews

[JacquiWine · Rating 4 out of 5]

There has been something of a revival of interest in Rose Macaulay’s work in recent years. Firstly, the Virago reissues of Crewe Train (1926) and The World My Wilderness (1950) in Feb 2018; then, last summer, the British Library’s publication of Dangerous Ages (1921) a novel focusing on women at various stages of the lifecycle; and last but not least, the release of two Macaulay titles by Handheld Press in November 2020.

Potterism (1920) is one of the two Handheld Press reissues, beautifully produced with a stylish cover design – very much in line with the book’s early 20th-century setting. In essence, the novel is a satire, one that allows the author to cast a critical eye over many subjects including socialism, spiritualism, religion, the ethics of war and, perhaps most importantly, the powerful nature of the newspaper industry.

Central to the novel are the Potter family, whose lives and experiences are explored in the years immediately following the First World War. Heading up the household is Percy Potter, the influential newspaper magnate and the chief proponent of ‘Potterism’ – a term coined by its opponents to describe the type of communications or ‘spin’ founded on fear, suspicion and the protection of specific interests. The parallels with our current media culture are both immediate and alarming.

They’re up against what we agreed to call Potterism – the Potterism, that is, of second-rate sentimentalism and cheap short-cuts and mediocrity; they stand for brain and clear thinking against muddle and cant; but they’re fighting it with Potterite weapons – self-interest, following things for what they bring them rather than for the things in themselves. (p. 57)

To read the rest of my review, please visit:

https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2021...

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Potterism focuses primarily on the years directly after the First World War and the newspaper empire of the Potter family. It highlights a movement entitled by it’s detractors as ‘Potterism’; a view of the world based on suspicion, fear and the creation of fake news. There are, it has to be said comparisons to be drawn with certain sections of today’s press and political agenda.

Percy Potter, aka Lord Northcliffe is the newspaper magnet and head of the Potter Family. His wife Lelia Yorke is a romantic novelist, entirely caught up in fiction and entertaining the spiritualism so popular towards the end of the war. Her eldest daughter Clare is dull but dutiful, unlike her spirited and intelligent twins Jane and Johnny Potter.

The Twins are both Oxford educated, both take delight in aligning themselves against their parent, alongside the anti- Potter faction. Within this movement we are introduced to Arthur Gideon, devotee of fact and Katherine Varick, pragmatist and scientist. The battles lines of fact and fiction are drawn early on and it is the twins, most specifically Jane that play around their fringes.

The novel is structured in a unique way. The first and final sections are narrated by Rose Macaulay herself. She sets out the characters and ties up the loose ends, but within the central sections she hands both narration and perspective over to her characters. And when a tragedy strikes at the heart of the Potter family it threatens to drag everyone into it’s wake.

Here is a murder mystery, but it is so much more. Wrapped up in the actions and words of this cast of characters is a timely and authentic portrait of the time. There is a simplicity to the writing, a wit that is stark, sharp and revealing. The novel is steeped in the feeling of the age. Tackling subjects such as spiritualism, rise of socialism, emerging changes in class structure, antisemitism and much more, here is a biting social commentary on the press; it’s uses and misuses.

[Kathrin Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sharp in its description of anti-semitism in England after the 1st World War. It reads more like a parody than a novel. Most of the key characters, with the exception of Arthur Gideon and Mr Potter, are thoroughly unpleasant. Reading this book gives some intellectual satisfaction but it is not a novel that draws the reader in. Despite everything, it has some acute observations on bigotry and snobbishness which hold as much now as then.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Took a chance on this after reading her marvelous "Towers of Trebizond." Dodo Press should not have bothered saving it from extinction. Full of allusions to 1920 news & fads, as timeless as a People magazine; and cardboard characters who undergo unbelievable transformations from bourgeois to bohemian and back again.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is not much plot to POTTERISM. It seems to be more of a vehicle for Rose Macaulay to express her opinions (contrarian, snarky and spot-on) on the topics of the day, the day being early 20th century England. Potterism is what the smart young things in this book call a particular view of the world, a view which has no use for facts (just ill-informed opinions). I think of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE and Holden Caulfield's phonies. Potterism gets its name from Percy Potter, a newspaper publisher, and his wife, the best selling author of romance novels. Ironically, two of their children are the ones who named Potterism and have collected a group of friends to be the anti-Potterites. Much of the book consists of the career moves and romantic interests of the anti-Potterites (not too interesting) and their opinions on World War I, women's rights, religion, literature, snobbery etc. (very amusing.) Rose Macaulay has an original mind and her opinions, formed before 1920, are very forward thinking, even for some modern readers. For instance: "innocent women and children. I never understood about these, at least about the women. Why is it worse that women should suffer than men? As to innocence, they have no more of that than men." Or war poetry: "Anyone can do it. One takes some dirty, horrible incident...and describes it in loathsome detail, and then,by way of contrast, describes fat and incredibly bloodthirsty woman or middle-aged clubman at home, gloating over the glorious war." Or "...God? ...Some being, apparently like a sublimated Potterite,who rejoices in bad singing, bad art, bad praying, and bad preaching , and sits aloft to deal out rewards...and punishments...Potterism has no room for Christianity; it prefers the God of the Old Testament...the Pharisees were Potterites." And if I cited every great opinion, I'd be copying nearly half the book. So I advise the readers who enjoyed these small snippets from POTTERISM, read the book. However, be forewarned. There is some shocking anti-semitism in this book. According to the introduction to my edition, Macaulay wrote this way for shock value, to test the reader and because people at that time spoke this way. After 1950, the author deleted much, but not all, of the antisemitism. And that which is left is spoken by Potterites. This is not a book for all readers but for those who like to think outside the box. I enjoyed it as a book of quotations.

[Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

In today’s period of spurious and fake news, spawned by the internet where anyone can say anything, it’s a little startling to find that in many ways, conditions were no better a hundred years ago. Macauley, writing in the aftermath of World War I, comments that people remembered an age of normalcy when “the ordered frame of things was still unbroken, violence was a child’s dream. . .”

“But that world is gone, replaced by the age of melodrama, when nothing is too strange to happen, and mo one is ever surprised. That may pass, but probably will not, for it is primeval.” Macaulay’s specific target in this world is the newspaper business , exemplified by a paper published by Percy Potter, personally a nice fellow, but who puts out a paper characterized by a greed for profits and a pandering to public opinion. It is most afraid of independent thought, social change, loss of power, and most of all, the truth. Seeking the truth would be hard work and would displease a public used to mental laziness,and sentimentality.

Ironically, Potter has two children, twins, Johnny and Jane, who react against what they call “Potterism” and are involved in an anti-Potter paper operated by Arthur Gideon, a friend of theirs. Despite their differences, the family members are on good terms.

This is the opening section of the novel, but in the middle part the novel shifts to the death of Jane’s husband, under strange circumstances that lead to suspicion of a murder, and then the novel works out what really happened to the husband, including evidence given by a medium to Mrs. Potter, a slightly dotty writer writer of romance novels and a believer in the occult.

There are five separate parts to the novel, the first and last using an omniscient author, the middle three, dealing with the murder mystery, narrated by three separate characters. To some extent, this middle part of the book is a distraction from the larger issue of Potterism and is a separate story. At the end, though, when the mystery of the murder is resolved, the question arises of how the Potter press will deal with it – it would be sensationalized if it were not so close to home and in the family, so there is some hypocrisy in downplaying its coverage.

The farcical aspects of the novel’s title are particularly on display with the part narrated by Mrs. Potter and her busybody approach to dealing with the murder, especially in her faith in her medium who has contacts with the “other side.” The tragic aspects appear in the last part when anti-Potterism advocate, Arthur, pays a steep price for his dedication to the principle of finding the truth.

The murder tilts the book toward whodunit fiction, but the novel rights itself by seriously examining how people compromise and justify essentially greedy and selfish behavior, both personally and in the media of the time.

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read three novels of Rose Macaulay’s to date: Dangerous Ages (2 stars); Keeping Up Appearances (3.5 stars); and The Towers of Trebizond (2.5 stars). I would give this 3.5 stars — I liked most of the book thought it was cleverly constructed. It was told in 5 parts, with three parts told by three of the characters (1 part per character) and the first and last part told by presumably the author since their initials were R.M. I liked the parts told by the three different characters in the book the most.

The novel covered before the First World War, during it, and after it, centering on the Potter family and some of the people who became connected with the family. I’ll use the synopsis that is on the back cover of my Handheld Press re-issue (2020, originally published in 1920), to give you a feel for what the book is about. One thing I did not know about WWI (there are a million things I don’t know about that complicated huge war) was that the press of Great Britain was not forthcoming about what was going on in the war — they painted a rosy picture to the public when in reality things were often going to hell in a handbasket. I need to read more about this...as I say I was not aware of it. This book was in part a satirical response to that. It was also a whodunnit, which was why it held my attention. It was good....

Synopsis:
• Rose Macaulay’s invention of the Potter newspaper empire satirizes the British media during the First World War and into the 1920s. When Jane and Johnny Potter are at Oxford they learn to despise their father’s popular newspapers, though they still end up working for the family business. But Jane is greedy, and wants more than society will let her have.

Mrs. Potter is the well-known romantic novelist Leila Yorke, whose cheap novelettes appear in the shop-girls’ magazines. She has become unable to distinguish fact from fiction, and her success gives her an unhealthy estimation of her own influence.

Arthur Gideon works against the Potter empire by writing for the ‘Weekly Fact’, full of truth that no–one reads because the ‘Weekly Fact’ — unlike all the Potter papers —holds no opinions. Potterism has no use for facts....Potterism is all for short and easy cuts and showy results.

Jane grabs the man her sister is in love with. But then tragedy strikes, and Mrs. Potter’s imperfect understanding of truth and lies begins to spin out of control, spreading anti-Semitism and slander throughout the Potter empire. What help are the facts now?

Review:
• https://bookbound.blog/2020/08/28/ros...

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this as a piece of early 20th century women's fiction. Macaulay has a sharp eye and the story moves quickly. Most of the references are explained in the back, but it does help to know a bit about the background and history of the period, or you'll be flicking pages constantly.

Jane Potter, the central character, is a masterpiece, and one can hardly decide whether to like her or be repelled by her. Different characters all have a voice in the novel (by the device of reading their journals, etc), and hearing their takes on the central whodunit is a great touch.

I'd caution that this book has a large amount of anti-Semitism and that may make it impossible for some readers. Macaulay is using this for multiple reasons including to point out the unpleasantness of some characters and the fixation of one character with his own heritage, which simultaneously fascinates and disgusts him.

You are not supposed to take it as read or that it represents the author's own views. But having it as an important part of the novel makes it a tough read in 2024.

[An · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Can’t believe this was written nearly 100 years ago and still feels just as relevant today. The two “factions” — the lowbrow gossip magazines and sensationalist newspapers for the masses, and the highbrow intellectual elite who look down on them — are sharply drawn. Macaulay critiques both sides: the supposedly “cultured” class is full of prejudice and hypocrisy, while the popular press thrives on shallow spectacle. Potterism is a tragic farce that skewers both camps and makes you reflect on how little things have changed, even in our current age of hyper-media saturation.
That said, I found the narrative structure a bit of a weakness. The switch between “RM” as a narrator and other perspectives felt disjointed — I think the story would’ve been stronger with a consistent third-person point of view. Still, a biting and prescient satire.

[Gwynplaine26th · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gli amori e le sfide personali di due fratelli gemelli, e la loro lunga e appassionata lotta per affermarsi in una società scossa dalla Prima Guerra Mondiale, nella autenticità spregiudicata ma profondamente umana, che li ha resi simbolo rappresentativo della borghesia europea nella prima metà del Novecento.
Siamo ben lontani dall'essere al pari di altre letture "family trend" (ad esempio i meravigliosi Cazalet); un romanzo che non brilla.

[Nina]

read this for middlebrow class