Fond of startling …

… Michael Dirda reviews “The Informed Air: Essays by Muriel Spark” - The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

At her best, Spark possesses a sly, skewering style, as well as a profound interest in life’s mysteries, and an imagination that segues readily from the realistic to the supernatural. For example, her famous ghost story, “The Portobello Road,” is both macabre and funny, its unsettling mixture of tones building to a shocking, magnificently deadpan sentence that will take any reader’s breath away. But Spark always enjoys surprises: In one of her essays she recalls her childhood fascination with the Bible and her impression of God: “I thought him a charming and witty character with a ready answer, and with a lot of conflicting sides to his nature. I liked God.”