3 DECEMBER 1988, Page 31

Harold Acton

Since the death of Evelyn Waugh I have considered Graham Greene the finest Eng- lish novelist. He never fails to stimulate and absorb one's interest and haunt one's memory. The Captain and the Enemy (Reinhardt Books, £10.95) is a splendid addition to the long row of novels which have delighted his devotees.

Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Ezra Pound (Faber, £20) is as absorbing as a Graham Greene novel: I often felt that Pound might have been one of Greene's characters. We are indebted to Pound for his inspired influence on T. S. Eliot's magnum opus, The Waste Land, apart from which he had a perverse and cantank- erous character, like so many good poets.