If the author of such basically dissimilar books as "Grendel," "October Light," and that curmudgeonly manifesto "On Moral Fiction" is noted for any particular qualities, they are probably his distinctively energetic and impudent variety and vitality. Some of the variety, at least, surfaces in ["The Art of Living and Other Stories"]….

For example, there's the least typical story here, "The Joy of the Just," which portrays a moralist turned avenger, an elderly woman bent on destroying her (perfectly innocent) "offenders." The conception is promising, but the development is repetitious and dull—finally, it's a pointless story, enlivened only by some combative Bible-quoting.

Whenever Morality per se doesn't rear its head, Art does. "Trumpeter," for another example, announces itself as a picturing of "the only kingdom in the world where art reigned supreme"—but it relaxes into anthropomorphical whimsy….

Several other stories ("Nimram," "Redemption," "Stillness") deal with the evocative...