12 APRIL 1997, Page 28

Sir: Whilst reading Frederick Forsyth's excoriating piece about The English

Patient it was possible to detect the peculiarly intense tang of sour grapes. Could he secretly resent the critical success of Michael Ondaatje's book and the bravura with which the film was made by Anthony Minghella and Saul Zaentz, not to mention its tremendous international success at the box office?

Perhaps this little worm of jealousy might have something to do with the failure of Mr Forsyth's thriller romps to provide the liter- ary source for good films, with the excep- tion of the film version of The Day of the Jackal all those years ago, about which a leading critic at the time said, 'All plot, with scarcely a character in sight.'

Adrian Scrope

25 Biynmaer Road, London SW11