6 MAY 1972, Page 28

Waugh's advice

Sir: What a pity Samuel Beckett or Andre Gide was not able to profit from Mr Waugh's invaluable advice to novelists, reported in his review of Bernard Mulamud's The Tenants (April 8), for this would have spared us all such "classic non-starters" as Malone Dies and Les Faux-Monnayeurs. G. T. Harris 36 Dalgleish Road, Dundee