Reviewed in Brief

The Finest Stories of Sean O’Faolain. 385 pp. Atlantic-Little Brown. $4.75

In America, writers complain because there are no serious traditions, manners, and “closed” patterns. But these 30 stories by Sean O’Faolain suggest that writing about a community as fixed as Ireland can have its disadvantages, too. People tend to so pandemic a “wearing o’ the green”—not to mention brogues, tempers, and piety—that caricature is hard to avoid. But Mr. O’F. has a cannily pitched ear for the blarney on a Dubliner’s tongue, and if his Foreword is as good as any story in the book, this may be because here we get a man who is a lighthearted human being first, and an Irishman only second.

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Robert Phelps

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The Finest Stories of Sean O’Faolain. 385 pp. Atlantic-Little Brown. $4.75

In America, writers complain because there are no serious traditions, manners, and “closed” patterns. But these 30 stories by Sean O’Faolain suggest that writing about a community as fixed as Ireland can have its disadvantages, too. People tend to so pandemic a “wearing o’ the green”—not to mention brogues, tempers, and piety—that caricature is hard to avoid. But Mr. O’F. has a cannily pitched ear for the blarney on a Dubliner’s tongue, and if his Foreword is as good as any story in the book, this may be because here we get a man who is a lighthearted human being first, and an Irishman only second.