Rhys Davies has never gained the appreciation in this country that he receives in England. It is likely that his work is accepted there for its accurate portrayal of life among the Welsh coal miners, while to us, less immediately concerned with the factual material, the conflicting and disruptive forces at work in Mr. Davies's mind are more apparent. For there is a deep inner cleavage in his loyalties and interests. Intellectually, he is ruled by an alert social consciousness; he is a radical who cannot for long forget the economic cancers that trouble his land. But emotionally he is more than a little moved by the spirit of fantasy that courses through his Celtic veins: he can go only so long without acknowledging, either gayly or pathetically, his contempt for material circumstance. And he falls just short of the genius needed to synthesize these two conflicting elements...