What Not

by Rose Macaulay, Matthew De Abaitua (Introduction)

An early novel by Rose Macaulay about a government program of compulsory selective breeding in a dystopian future England.

In a near-future England, a new government entity--the Ministry of Brains--attempts to stave off idiocracy through a program of compulsory selective breeding. Kitty Grammont, who shares author Rose Macaulay's own ambivalent attitude, gets involved in the Ministry's propaganda efforts, which the novel details with an entertaining thoroughness. (The alphabetical caste system dreamed up by Macaulay for her nightmare world would directly influence Aldous Huxley's 1932 dystopia Brave New World.) But when Kitty falls in love with the Minister for Brains, a man whose genetic shortcomings make a union with her impossible, their illicit affair threatens to topple the government. Because it ridiculed wartime bureaucracy, the planned 1918 publication of What Not was delayed until after the end of World War I.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Classics, Dystopia, British Literature, Satire, Politics

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1918

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

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty, provocative, speculative fiction that predates both Brave New World and 1984 and carries lighter touch but still packs a punch. Post WWI and the Ministry of Brains is in full force, carrying out a eugenics-based program for increased intellect. But what happens when two civil servants who aren't supposed to fall in love, do?

Delightful and eerily timely, as so much dystopian fiction is now.

[Wai Kok · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can see why this is enjoying a bit of a modern resurgence, given its obvious influence on Brave New World (a book I adore), and its prescient caution against eugenics decades before the Holocaust. It is no doubt an important piece of literature, and one that was very wittily written but unfortunately, it failed to add up to a very satisfying or enjoyable story for me. I think it functions on a mostly intellectual level, but it seems incapable—at least for me—at inciting any emotions or passions the way Brave New World, 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale did, which probably contributed to their enduring popularity, while What Not largely disappeared from public consciousness.

[Lynnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have just finished reading this (and then the introduction) and am gobsmacked at some parallels to the situation in the UK government today. It's a very thought provoking book.

This is my first Rose Macauley read and I like her style of writing. As soon I had read the description of the occupants on the tube, I knew I would enjoy this book. Though a dark subject it is wittily told.

[MichaelK · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating little book. A dystopian SF novel, first published in 1918 and out of print for a century, set in a near-future Britain of flying omnibuses and an authoritarian eugenicist government.

The story is told from the perspective of civil servants working at the new Ministry of Brains, as it implements policies aimed at improving the intelligence of the British population by restricting who is allowed to reproduce.

The disconnect between the normal daily lives of the civil servants just doing their job, getting stuff done, and the terrible consequences of the policies they're implementing, is captured wonderfully by the clash between the novel's light and witty tone and its dark subject matter.

The first half of the book is quite mundane: the civil servants work, commute on the tube, fancy each other, and organise a propaganda campaign to convince the populace of the need for the Mental Progress Act, which will categorise people from A to C3, with rules on who can breed with who, and punitive taxes on babies born outside regulation. And yet it all comes across very twee and lighthearted.

The government they are working for is brutal, corrupt, and autocratic. It has a dodgy relationship with the newspapers, to whom it makes concessions to keep them supportive and spreading government propaganda. Lives are ruined by the eugenics policies: babies are left to die because the parents can't afford to heavy taxes they cause; unrest grows, threatening revolution.

But they're just doing their jobs.

'What Not' probably had an influence on both 'Brave New World' and '1984' - it contains forerunners of both - which would make it a neglected ancestor of all of today's dystopias. It is a sharp satire of civil service life - Macaulay worked for the Ministry of Information during WW1, and the novel is dedicated to 'civil servants I have known' (it made me think about those involved in implementing our own government's austerity policies since 2010; and, of course, our government's dodgy af relationship with the media).

It is also a remarkably prophetic work - the subtitle is deserved. By extrapolating the eugenicist ideas popular at the time, it presages the rise of fascism, the racially-focused eugenics of Nazi Germany, and even the Neuremberg defense: 'We were just following orders.'

I recommend.

Another review (not by me): https://fantasy-hive.co.uk/2019/04/wh...

[Vendedor de rápida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Antes de empezar a leer ‘Y todo esto’ me sorprende y me intriga la dedicatoria de la novela: “A los funcionarios que he conocido”. No sólo resulta un poco provocadora y políticamente incorrecta leída hoy, sino que tratándose de un relato distópico, quizás podría formar parte de la trama misma. Pero el mundo del futuro cercano a la I Guerra Mundial que imagina Rose Macaulay no es tan oscuro como los futuros de Orwell o Zamiatin. Ella opta por la sátira llena de humor británico. Así que quizás la dedicatoria sea una simple ironía: el gobierno de Gran Bretaña que Macaulay describe quiere evitar otro desastre bélico impidiendo que las personas con un coeficiente de inteligencia bajo se casen y se reproduzcan, y eso, que en el mundo real (o en ‘Black Mirror’) produciría puro terror, en su novela afortunadamente provoca situaciones delirantes y más de una carcajada, que para eso es una novela y en las novelas vale casi todo.

Pero después de terminar su lectura vuelvo a pensar en el tema de los funcionarios y del control distópico de las sociedades por parte del Estado, que es una obsesión del género (y con razón, porque lo que vino conforme avanzaba el siglo XX a veces dejaba corta la pesadilla más retorcida), pero que creo ya que habría que empezar a sustituir. El otro día estaba pensando en cambiar el colchón (no busqué colchones por Internet, no hablé de colchones con nadie, ni siquiera me acerqué a ninguna tienda de colchones) y al poco tiempo apareció en la pantalla de mi tablet una oferta irresistible de colchones. Instagram me conoce mejor que Pedro Sánchez.

[K.D.J · Rating 3 out of 5]

What Not is a delightful, witty read - though at times a touch too witty, tending to devolve into exhaustive lists of imaginary propaganda which, beyond being outdated in their reference points, rather belabour them.

Yet Macaulay’s characters rattle off observational gems so casually they’re quite easy to miss; levity of this sort requires careful attention. There were moments reminiscent of Voltaire’s Candide, so light is the touch applied to the scalpel of irreverence with which Macaulay dissects moral hypocrisy and bureaucratic absurdity. It might be called Kafkaesque, if she were not Kafka’s contemporary. This goes to show how deftly she fingered the pulse of her political and social milieu.

It therefore seems a shame that she is not remembered as well a Huxley or Orwell, but one can see why; too much grab-bagging of now-irrelevant contemporaneous culture, and not quite enough character development or even philosophical exposition.

Macaulay certainly had the chops to pull it off, but it seems she bit off more than she was willing to chew. The result is like a literary hors-d'oeuvre; an almost-Classic that proves a formidable forerunner to a more enduring fable, and which ends almost as flippantly as it began.

[Rain · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a hoot! Can definitely see where Huxley sourced ideas for "Brave New World".

[Letterrausch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dieser Roman hat mir nicht ganz so gut gefallen wie Ein unerhörtes Alter. Ich denke, das liegt daran, dass ich mir noch nicht ganz sicher bin, ob ich finde, dass sich eine Komödie für eine Dystopie eignet. Über dieses Detail muss ich noch ein wenig nachdenken.

Trotzdem, Rose Macaulay ist für mich ein absoluter Geheimtipp. Ich werde mich definitiv weiter "vorarbeiten". 23 Romane hat sie wohl geschrieben, sagt das Nachwort. Ob man derer noch habhaft werden kann, werde ich ja dann sehen.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn't good but I didn't hate it - I think that sums this up. Some interesting ideas and the satire of politics and people did make me laugh out loud on occasion, but ultimately it just didn't gel together at all. A jumble of ideas thrown together with some humour and the occasional serious 'issue' does not a well-rounded novel make.

[Edmund · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel quite mean giving 2*, but I'm trying to use a 5-point scale rather than just my normal 3-5* and, frankly, Macaulay isn't around anymore to get upset by my feedback.

That being said, I was disappointed by What Not. It had guiltily sat on my shelf for about 5 years, neglected from my time of studying dystopian fiction. I think, perhaps, this wait had created too high expectations. A bit like We, when you hear 'lost (feminist) dystopian novel that precipitated Brave New World and 1984', you've got me....until you read it and realise there are reasons why it isn't a genre-defining classic.

One of the big problems here is form: as a novel, it lacks emotional depth or development, as a dystopia, it lacks a clear message, as detailed social commentary, it might be interesting for some but not for me, as a comedy - it's not. Although What Not raises interesting questions about eugenics, the press, authoritarianism, and other relevant themes, I just didn't think it engaged with them in such a satisfying way as Brave New World or 1984.

Also the 'shocking blackmail scene' which meant the book had to be republished just wasn't that shocking. I had a 'was that really it?!' after I finished the passage that had to be cut.

[Shaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has got to be one of the earliest examples of dystopian governmental control in the wake of WWI where there is a brain ministry attempting to order people's lives around to maximize intelligence. It's dependent on the historical context it was written in and is interesting in quite a few different ways, not to mention that it's well written and funny.

(Available from Project Gutenberg)

[Macarena · Rating 2 out of 5]

No es para nada mi tipo de libro.
Me ha costado muchísimo entrar, he Estado por abandonarlo un par de veces..
Está muy bien escrito y construido, pero no es para mí.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

While reading this book, I felt almost as if I were reading something like, say, "The Great Gatsby" alone for the first time without a high school English teacher to hold my hand. This was not a bad book and it was actually quite easy and quick to read, but I KNEW I was missing context and that made it very frustrating. I could see how this piece influenced 1984 pretty well, but overall I did enjoy that book much more. (Maybe because I read it in a HS English class, where I had the context explained to me through packets haha.)
I think I would have liked the premise much more if I understood the context. But as it is, in the least mean-spirited way possible, this felt a bit like a slightly underdone YA dystopian romance novel plot.
I respect the literary influence of this book, but I wish I had liked it more.

[Stephanie Rouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story and denouement but the underlying warnings about the dangers of the eugenics movement (which was in its ascendancy in the aftermath of the first world war) are presented with a wry humour which packs a punch.
I understand this edition (Handheld Classics) is the only one which has the entire original text (the first editions were withdrawn when libel proceedings seemed imminent but I could spot which were the offending pages.
Great read - highly recommended.

[Hall's Bookshop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Less like 'Brave New World' (as billed), and much more like 'Chrome Yellow'. In fact, the feel of the book, with its raw satire and a populous at breaking point, seems very relevant to Brexit Britain just now, so the Handmade Press's re-publication is well-judged. A wonderfully complex book which questions whether being truly rational is better than being personally fulfilled...

jm 17/05/19

[Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is speculation that Macauley’s novel influenced Aldous Huxley’s later and much better known BRAVE NEW WORLD. Both satirical novels envision a society that is designed and controlled by intelligent individuals who feel their superiority entitles them to control society. In the end both systems are fatally flawed. Huxley’s society uses a form of genetic engineering to create and manipulate different classes, of people, while Macauley’s transformation and control of people is accomplished through rigorous educational propaganda.

Macauley’s novel is set in an indeterminate future and centers on the Ministry of Brains, a vast organization designed to further social progress and avert another Great War. The idea is to make people more intelligent, the assumption being that all social problems are caused by stupidity and ignorance. Its method is that of reward and punishment.

For example, bonuses are given to parents who follow the rules, and those who don’t are heavily taxed. People are tested and then classified into a number of categories depending on their intelligence and are expected to marry and have offspring with someone in their category. This will guarantee that future generations will be more intelligent. People learn this through required “Mind Training” courses of study designed to show inappropriate “before” behavior and appropriate “after” behavior.

Freedom to do as one pleases is unapproved behavior and individuals who express such heretical ideas find their ideasheavily censored or outright banned. In a pre-television age, pamphlets are the chief way of spreading ideas, and the Ministry of Brains has an extensive department devoted to the scrutiny of pamphleteering.

Any novel needs conflict, and in WHAT NOT, it first emerges in Kitty
Grammonr, a Class A person who works in an office of the Ministry of Brains and is skeptical about this entire enterprise of curtailing peoples’ freedom, no matter how worthy are the reasons for control. The head of the Ministry of Brains is Nicholas Chester, a very bright man, but because he has siblings with mental deficiencies, he is unclassifiable.

He and Kitty enjoy each other’s company and gradually fall in love. A major problem because they are not pairing off within one class, as is the mandatory Brains’ rule. What are Kitty and Nicholas to do? It’s hypocritical to continue seeing one another, but their human urges transcend rules and they meet secretly.

Of course, they are found out and after a violent demonstration, Chester loses his position, and the Ministry of Brains crumbles in its efforts to demonstrate that in the long run intelligence is more important than liberty.

In a cleverly ambiguous ending, Nicholas returns home to hear his father, a bishop with whom he has always disagreed, say, “My dear boy. . . Humanity, the simple human things, ,love, birth, family life. They're the simple things, but after all the deep and grand things. No laws will ever supersede them.”
Is this the final word? Or is it just an old uneducated way of thinking, one that has brought about wars and destruction, and emphasizes, that for all of its shortcoming, the “Ministry of Brains” is on the true path to a brave new world?

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea that if you could just make humanity a bit smarter, then they wouldn't start stupid wars is pretty damn funny. Hat tip to you, Rose Macaulay.

Originally I wanted to compare this book, published in 1918 in Britain, to a recently published dystopia. I had never heard of What Not (nor Rose Macaulay), and was blown away that a woman would author a dystopia during World War I. I had picked the 2025 novel "These Memories Do Not Belong to Us." Unfortunately, I didn't find the parallels I was looking for. They both have a story of growing government control, but instituted in very different ways.

That's okay -- what I really wanted to share is how doing some additional research adds much needed context to What Not, and made the story much more enjoyable to me.

I felt like What Not was a little mini-dystopia, a flash-in-the-pan attempt to understand how the government control instituted in Britain during World War I could continue during peacetime. Macaulay worked for the Department of Propaganda during the Great War, so she had that insider point of view that clearly left her wondering how the country would continue.

In addition, Macaulay's publisher had pulled the book off the shelves to remove passages about a newspaper publisher, for fear of being sued. In the recent re-release of What Not, those passages have been re-instated and definitely help the story along.

This dystopia has definitely been overlooked, and it's great that it has regained new life. I find it a very brave piece of writing, feminist at its core, even if it has faults all too obvious to a modern reader. I hope most fans of dystopias will read What Not as part of that early canon, and put it in context of 1918 Britain.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/what-not-a-prophetic-comedy-by-rose-macaulay/

It was written during the First World Ward and set very shortly after it, in a Britain where eugenics has been legislated into public policy, and the Ministry of Brains controls who people can marry so that war will become impossible once stupidity has been bred out of the population. There’s a good deal of satire here, and some good observation of what happens when popular support for a political initiative collapses after a strong start; but it’s also a sympathetic observation of human nature and human behaviour, trying to put society together again after the catastrophe of war. Macaulay’s take on global politics is a bit naïve, but she’s good on the human heart; and this slim book was clearly a source of inspiration for both 1984 and Brave New World.

[Mommalibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rose McCaulay wrote this during the first world war, a time with many new agencies and rules. She imagines a even more governed world after the war ends. The book was not published until 1918, and a note says she had to change a few things because of the result of the war but nothing in particular is identified.

Her fictional government newspaper the Hidden Hand was later used as a title for a book on the CIA but the idea of the hidden hand of government was probably an old idea at the time. "All other papers are so unreliable, so tiresome; a government must have one paper on which it can depend for unfailing support. So here was the Hidden Hand, and its readers had no excuse for ignorance of what the government desired them to think about its action." Unlike today, many other newspapers still existed and not everyone read the government one.

I read the copy on Gutenberg
Genuinely funny and philosophical.

[Dan Sumption · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an odd book, written during the First World War and set in its aftermath, about a "Ministry of Brains" founded to raise the country's level of intelligence. It does this by taxing/rewarding newborn children based on their parents' intelligence, and by organising "Mind Training" courses.

Rose Macaulay's writing and sense of humour are wonderful - I preferred this book to her more well-known Towers of Trebizond - but it is rather of its time: there a lot of jokes and references which will make no sense to a 21st century reader. Still, a very short and enjoyable book, an early example of speculative fiction, and apparently an influence on both Aldous Huxley and George Orwell's dystopian versions of the future.

[Colin Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve given 5 stars as it was such an enjoyable book to read. It’s well-written, the characters are deftly handled and the light tone belies some serious questions about intelligence versus happiness. Above all, it’s very funny. Highly recommended.

I read the Handheld Press edition which has reissued the book in its original form with the missing section reinstated that had been removed by the publisher for fear of a libel action. It also comes with an excellent introduction by Sarah Lonsdale, senior lecturer at the University of London. There are full notes too helping the reader place the book in its social and historical setting.

[Eloy Nogueira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mi bibliotecario suele acertar siempre con sus recomendaciones, pero esta vez no ha sido así. Siento decirlo pero la novela no ha llegado a engancharme en ningún momento. El planteamiento de la novela me ha parecido interesante, pero no ha pasado de ahí. La mayor parte del tiempo los personajes están socializando y es de mucho hablar y ya. Yo me esperaba algo al estilo de "1984" de Orwell o "Un mundo feliz" de Aldous Huxley, pero nada que ver, y algunos momentos se me hacía cuesta arriba. Acabé algo decepcionado, la verdad. Y tampoco veo que tenga nada que ver con la ciencia-ficción. Es una crítica a las clases sociales y ya.

Es curioso e interesante y ahí se queda todo.

[Lila · Rating 5 out of 5]

A light comedy of manners typical of Macaulay. Here, eugenic ideas have led to a British Ministry that ranks everyone's intelligence and determines who can marry and have children. People are also required to take classes to improve their intellect--only gentiles though as Jews are considered clever enough and it wouldn't do to make them any more clever.

The point of view is of two women working in the London offices and living in a small village, commuting by train. Of course, the villagers don't go along with all this.

The argument is that this book had an influence on Huxley's Brave New World.

[Brian Hutzell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The theme of this book can best be summed up with a line that comes near the end of the book: “[W]hen ultimate good (especially not necessarily one's own good) and immediate convenience come to blows, it is not usually ultimate good which wins.” Whether or not you agree with what some of the main characters believe is the ultimate good–it's not even clear whether or not the author agrees with them–the point is that they knowingly choose to put personal interests above all else, with bad results. This is a frequently very funny book, but also a very cynical one. Maybe that’s why it was a bit of a struggle to read it, even though there is much to like here.

[Darby Gallagher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it! Probably 3.5 stars,,,, writing and concept was fantastic but i wish it had gone a bit further with its concept — abt halfway through it sort of stops any kind of exposition about the laws and rules in this society in favor of focusing exclusively on the love story (which was good but not as interesting) for the rest of the novel. All in all just absolutely insane foresight for something written before not only ww2 but before most eugenics programs were even out of their infancy

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book puts me in mind of all the Brecht I've ever seen staged in that I appreciate it and I think it's well done and it made me think and I think I liked it because of that, but I didn't necessarily enjoy it. And, as Claire Glietman told me so many times, "Alas, that's the way with Brecht", and I think it's the way with this book as well.

[Magda Revetllat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Escrito a principios del siglo XX con gran lucidez la autora propone una Inglaterra en la que tras la Gran Guerra se pretende aumentar el nivel de inteligencia de la población para que algo semejante no vuelva a ocurrir.

Con humor y sarcasmo se desenvuelve sin embargo un dulce relato en el que los personajes deben escoger entre la ley y sus sentimientos.

[James Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written and funny account of a Post-WWI England that is forced to categorise its citizens according to how brainy they are.
Macaulay's prose is clear but descriptive and observant where necessary. Touches of romance and Wodehousian-type country farce lighten the novel. The dark overtones are a precursor to 'Brave New World.'
Arthur Ransome, the journalist, gets two mentions!

[Lucy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This didn't work for me at all, I wasn't invested in any of the characters and the basic premise was just silly, except where it tipped over into being unpleasant. I see I'm the first to write a review, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone else.

[Spiegel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was all right. There's not much plot, but I liked the author's voice and her descriptions of the characters. Many references probably sailed right over my head, and yet there's a timelessness to political machinations and people's attitudes.