["The Collected Stories of Sean O'Faolain"] includes every thing that appears in the eminent Irish writer's eight previously published collections, plus half a dozen "uncollected stories" dated 1892. Among these 90 "stories and tales" are several undeniable classics, and a few dozen effective entertainments. But, on balance, this is uneven work, unworthy of his publisher's claim that Sean O'Faolain is "one of the great story-tellers since the death of Chekhov."

What he is is a remarkably skillful and sophisticated technician who can render a small private world in such evocative, echoing detail that its universal relevance is instantly suggested; a chronicler of local conflicts who's adept at presenting two sides of a contretemps. He's one of the masters of realistic dialogue, and he can bring a character to life in a quick, vivid paragraph.

Why, then, do I not feel O'Faolain qualifies as a great writer? The answer lies partly in his very virtuosity (his ability to create someone or something fascinating, and his habit of shifting impatiently to focus elsewhere), and partly in the distance and distastefulness I infer from his many portrayals of Ireland at war with England and itself. O'Faolain was a republican fighter during the Civil War, but his subsequent writings are far from a glorification of his country's rebellious history. He seems to connect Ireland's truculent separatist spirit with its people's material poverty and their virtual enslavement to obsolete political and religious ideas. It's as if Ireland is a ghost that haunts is own citizens, and Sean O'Faolain is so appalled by their superstitiousness and timidity he's unable to take them fully seriously.

This curious coolness is evident even in O'Faolain's best work, much of which appeared in his first two collections, "Midsummer Night Madness," (1932) and "A Purse of Coppers" (1937). These stories of revolutionary ardor and social disruption are often conveyed to us by a young (usually idealistic) listener-narrator, who's quick to imply judgments on the characters he thus observes. (p. 21)

Several of O'Faolain's thinnest glibbest stories picture ignorant or dishonest priests and nuns; a few are critical of Roman Catholic rigidity. "Teresa" is an engrossing story about a young girl's inconsistent wish to become a nun, and eventual rejection of the religious life; it's interesting because its title character is honest and complex, and because her vacillating devotion is attractively and movingly portrayed. "The Man Who Invented Sin" describes the experiences of four young novices—two men and two women—on a boating party and then following the accusation that their innocent high spirits have skirted impropriety—a charge that has a lasting, cramping effect on their later lives. This celebrated story (probably its author's best) features one of O'Faolain's finest strokes—a vision of the elderly priest-accuser (as he walked away, "his elongated shadow waved behind him like a tail") as the devil.

Later works, from the 1950s and after, offer more general laments for the passing of the "old ways" ("The Silence of the Valley") and portrayals of people inhibited by the past; then some find they can't escape its grip ("The Fur Coat"), others long for lives different from the ones they've chosen ("A Touch of Autumn in the Air," "The Sugawn Chair.").

This autumnal mood is still dominant in O'Faolain's very recent work, of which not much need be said. The stories from "The Talking Trees" (1970) and "Foreign Affairs" (1976) bring their hidebound locals out of Ireland, into other countries, and into erotic involvements, handled with an increasing sexual explicitness that's far from O'Faolain's best manner. His narrative skills have remained undiminished, and he's never less than entertaining. But of the final two dozen or so stories in this collection, the only one I'd strongly recommend is "Hymeneal," the portrayal of an elderly couple in retirement that builds toward its protagonist's surprise understanding of the kind of person ("an irate man full of cold principle") he has always been.

It will not do, as I've indicated, to compare Sean O'Faolain with the short-story masters—certainly not with James Joyce (whose Olympian view of Ireland's cultural paralysis he shares and imitates), or Henry James (with whom he seems to beg comparison). Still, his best work will be remembered and should be properly valued. (pp. 21-2)