It is probably impossible to read several of Muriel Spark's novels without realizing that her Roman Catholicism is much more than an item of biographical interest: it is a potent force which has profoundly affected the shape of her art. For Miss Spark does not stop short at simply bringing the question of Catholicism into her work; she has chosen to place the traditionally Christian outlook at the very heart of everything she writes.

This "outlook" is perhaps best illustrated by one of her short stories, "A Playhouse Called Remarkable". In this, a character called Moon Biglow recounts how he and five other men descended from the moon shortly after the Flood. At that time mankind was a bored and dying race, with no conception of higher pursuits. Moon and his compatriots introduced the concept of art by opening a playhouse in which they enacted the "Changing Drama...