People, landscape, song, sex, religion and violence—this is what Ireland seems to be made of in "The State of Ireland," a novella and 17 stories by Benedict Kiely. It's a narrow world, yet in this case a narrow world seems to make for good stories. They're brilliantly contained, free of that centrifugal throw that deforms some of the more cosmopolitan writers….

Weather is still significant in Ireland, and topography. Religion figures there. People pay attention to their speech, take pleasure in its rhythm and diction. Sex is unambiguous, and there is a fierce sense of community.

One is reminded that such conditions still exist. At first there may be a bit of resistance. Who the devil are these Irish, always talking and drinking and fighting and intriguing for sex? And then, encouraged by Mr. Kiely, you will probably undergo a conversion. How wonderful it is, you think, that weather should make a difference, and the shape and color of the land. And that people don't talk like television commercials or despairing modern movies. How pleasant to find that sex is a natural force again. And that priests are necessary, among other reasons, to keep things in perspective, to put a bit of black into the landscape.

Sometimes the Irish have so much gusto that they get on your nerves—but better this way than characters who get on your nerves because they have no gusto at all. If the Irish seem to make an art out of parochialism, so does the Cathedral at Chartres.