Dennis Potter recently reviewed a new book by Bernard Levin, the famous “Times” columnist. The book, entitled “Enthusiasms,” did not meet with his approval. “A blubber of a book,” he calls it. Mr. Levin’s style comes in for particularly heavy criticism. Among his comments in this regard are: “indiscriminate gusher,” “mudflats of sentences,” “an almost unbroken swamp of verbiage,” and “elephantiasis of both prose and posture”. (Guardian Weekly, December 25, 1983)

But in his review, Mr. Potter has himself committed serious errors of style, as Roger Woddis points out (Letters, Guardian Weekly, January 8, 1984). Particularly outstanding is the 68-word single sentence which makes up the second paragraph of his review. Readers might care to read it aloud to gain the full effect:

Perhaps he is indeed all of these things, but those whose stomachs are tough enough to absorb his Enthusiasms without a salt of wry can evacuate much of the fat by attending to sole intellectual pleasure this blunder of a book has to offer hunting down the secret, opposing tendencies, or the momentary apprehensions of caution and genuine tenderness, which qualify the passions squelching between the pages.

It is, as Mr. Woddis points out, a perfect illustration of “the Potter calling the kettle black.”

Those who are too busy criticizing the faults of others tend to forget their own. □