O'Brien's best
Michael O'Brien has a tendency to overwrite his books (one of his very few flaws as a writer). But in Plague Journal, he reined himself in (or finally got an editor who did) and the result is a book that is no less packed with plot tension, cultural criticism, and character development than his other tomes.The middle book of a trilogy of books about the Delaney family (starting with Strangers and Sojourners and ending with Eclipse of the Sun), Plague Journal also fits within O'Brien's larger series, which he calls Children of the Last Days. The first of those is the explosive novel Father Elijah.
While Plague Journal is my personal favorite. I recommend reading it after Father Elijah and Strangers and Sojourners, since it needs the other two to provide its context in O'Brien's view of the Last Days.
And O'Brien's view is a bleak one. The government has become the tool of the antichrist, whether it knows it or not, and an honest journalist (even one who doesn't have a living faith in God) can't get an honest shake, but is hunted down.
Swift, sharp, and poigniant, O'Brien provides his readers with everything that Left Behind readers should have gotten but didn't and without all of the silly speculations. This is good literature that shapes the heart and the mind Christianly.
Plague Journal Review
The book was quite excellent. I was used to and enjoyed some of the mainstream thriller authors. I hope Michael O'Brien would continue on this excellent course. I wish more people would read this with a wide open mind.
A Diagnostic Story
I found it impossible to set Plague Journal down once I began reading it. The unease that I have felt for so many years began to take on a face as I followed this wonderfull story. I began to diagnose the illness that has plagued me, the discomfort that politically correct fascisim has thrust upon me. We in the west have been increasingly held hostage to the unreal and driven into a madness that numbs our souls. Obrien's story shows us the source of that madness and points to the antidote with a faith that shines bright in the face of the bureaucratic mundanity of evil.
I am a pretty rough guy. I have been to war and learned that you do not cry if you wish to survive. Reading this book caused me to weep once more, not for the sadness but for the message of joy, forgivness and the inevitable triumph of the light that sings through its pages
Spiritual awareness guidebook for today
I am sick to death of hearing comments that Michael O' Brien is too didactic. I have to ask how is one supposed to tell a story if not through dictation? If the author stops in the story to talk about things in the story, we should be thankful that he is coming to grips those things, as opposed to a whole lot of other modern authors who think that to be honest is merely to exploit the sins of man in a certain random light. For instance, an immoral, lost priest who punches a pope in the face is far more believable than a seemingly normal priest who casually swears all the time. But anyways, Plague Journal is a compact book that comes to certain peaks of felicity in thought and comment.
Overly polemical but still a gripping read.
Can it happen here? Can a totalitarian state run by liberals, feminists, and new-agers take hold in North America? According to Nathaniel Delaney, the protaganist of "Plague Journal", it already has and if you don't conform to the new orthodoxies, you're quite expendable. While "Plague Journal" is a paranoid Christian polemic, it is redeemed by the hero's realization that anger, hatred, and solipsism have no place in a true Christian's response to evil. "Plague Journal" is the story of a man who loses everything but who re-discovers his faith in the depth of his sufferings. O'Brien is a skilled writer and an astute thinker. Despite the polemics, this is an amazing book. Kudos to Ignatius Press for publishing it, but it's too bad it hasn't gotten more attention from the literary media.
(17 reviews)
