21 DECEMBER 1962, page 22

Squaresville

COLIN MACINNES'S novels show him to be a, acute observer of London who avoids sentimen- tality by an approach which is at once in sympathy with the city, yet from a quasi-......

A Cultured. Carthage

FROM the swamps of the last days of the Fourth French Republic, or even from the lofty heights of the Fifth, it is perfectly possible to look back with nostalgia on what now......

Portrait Of The Artist?

The Edge of the Alphabet. By Janet Frame. (W. H. Allen, 16s.) NOT for the first time, I must remark with ad- miration and uneasiness how well professional painters are apt to......

Same New Start

Stone sparrows perch in air all stone; The petrifying morning looks A tree to stillness; a fossil flower Clutches the light with stony hooks. As though a moment had come to......