20 SEPTEMBER 1963, Page 8

Dog Nibbles Dog

The second novel by our dramatic critic David Pryce-Jones, The Sands of Summer, was pub- lished the other Friday. In the Sunday Times, Julian Jebb, giving it the lead, said that 'the novel is written very well indeed,' and that `Mr. Pryce- Jones has proved that his powers reach com- fortably between irony, farce, high comedy and comfortless tragedy.' In the Observer, Irving Wardle put it at the tail of his column and described it as 'a drab novel with a drab hero.' Mr. Wardle is the anonymous dramatic critic of The Times. I am delighted by this proof that there is no critics' conspiracy.