Very well written and an exciting story to follow
I enjoyed this book thoroughly and was saddened when it ended. It was a rollicking ride through the rise of the antichrist as seen through the eyes of the Catholic Church and a monk named Fr. Elijah. The characters are well explored, and the story is well thought out with plenty of twists and plots to keep you hooked. The only disappointment that I had with the book is that the story does not adapt well into a series. It seems that I only began to get to know the character, and he seems to fade into other stories in the end times in future volumes. I wish the author would continue evoloving the story around the main character, Fr. Elijah, a kind, brilliant priest going head to head with the antichrist.
Superlative Catholic Fiction
Father Elijah is a fascinating and engrossing tale. Interestingly, it's subtitled "An Apocalypse"--as opposed to *the* Apocalypse. I suppose this is because this is a work of speculative fiction that offers a scenario of how the Apocalypse could happen and might be happening right under our noses.
The main character, Father Elijah himself, is a monk who entered the monastery after converting from Judaism. His past life was a succession of tragedies--he is a survivor of the Holocaust and was formerly a prominent figure in Israel. He has lived peacefully in a monastery near Mount Carmel for many years but now he has been called upon for a much more dangerous mission--to confront the one suspected by the Vatican of being the anti-Christ and convert him.
The plot continues from there through numerous twists and turns. There are moments of calm reflection on the mysteries of the Catholic faith interspersed with scenes of genuine spiritual warfare that are often frighteningly realistic. The characters are well-drawn and true to life. A couple of them seem like parodies of certain individuals or types within the Catholic Church. The better you know the Church, the more likely you are to chuckle at these characters. Overall, the writing is superb and flows well. It's easy to rip through 80 page chunks in one sitting.
O'Brien is insightful and clearly privy to the undermining effects of modernism which have been gnawing at the Church's foundations for at least the past 100 years. In Father Elijah he creates a mirror-world where certain clerics within the greater Church as well as within the Vatican itself, have embraced the spirit of the world and who view the spirit of God with contempt. There is one memorable scene in particular where the sickly and aging Pope confronts a headstrong Cardinal on this very point and the outcome is striking. One is forced to wonder how many of our prelates in the Church today would act in the same way toward the Pope?
One thing that struck me about Father Elijah is that it clearly is set in an age before the internet. It was originally published in 1996 when the "old media" still ruled the roost. Among the chief culprits undermining the work of the Vatican and good priests in Father Elijah are those who run the so-called Catholic media--newspapers, magazines, etc. These are exposed as merely agents of the world who are trying to co-opt the Church for their own diabolical purposes. And indeed, in the bad old days of the 1980s and 1990s, the Catholic media often acted in just this way, though with a few notable exceptions.
But in the 12 years since Father Elijah was first published, there has been a sea-change brought about primarily by the advent of the internet. Now, obfuscatory, dishonest, and outright dissenting articles published in the ostensibly Catholic media can be exposed and criticized in a public forum before millions of serious readers. A good priest who is faithful to the Pope can have a blog that gets read by hundreds of thousands every day, while the true numerical and popular weakness of dissenters in the Church is made plain for all to see.
Of course, this takes nothing away from Father Elijah. It is an excellent read, highly recommended to anyone who is a Catholic and who wants to have a better understanding of the nature of evil and how evil has occasionally donned the guise of goodness and penetrated even the Church itself.
By way of closing, this book reminded me a great deal of another fascinating work of fiction called Dream of Fire. The plot is similar, though Dream of Fire is set in a fantasy world and is considerably more brutal, at least in a physical sense.
A modern Dostoevsky
This book is amazing! I am very fond of russian literature (Dostoevsky _in primis_) and have never read "thriller" novels because it is a genre that does not interest me. But "Father Elijah" is something different. It tries to go to the same depth as Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov" (in fact the scene where the main character kisses the count recalls Christ kissing the Great Inquisitor), and in my opinion it succeeds. This is a fascinating tale that pushes you to investigate the reality with deeper eyes and to look at the true essence of the things and the people around you.
It is interesting to note that the Pope described in the novel has many similarities with Benedict XVI (he is an important theologian, more-than-75 years old) despite the fact that the novel was written more than ten years ago.
Definitely recommended!
Paranoid world view
I first read this book back when it first came out, in the early 1990's I think it was. At the time I found to be a very poorly written and very clumsy novel. I have read some of the author's other works and find his paranoid world view to be more than I can take. I recently tried re-reading this particular book again and find it even harder to read than my first attempt. It is not something I would recommend to any one.
Not a serious book of literature
I do not wish to be a dissenting voice but this book is not a serious book in the literary sense. I got the book because Peter Kreeft had described O'Brien as like Dostoyevsky. And, thus my comments must be seen in light of that: I as expecting some outstanding literature. Sorry, Peter, but you are way wide of the mark.
This is simply an apocalyptic yarn. The prose is merely ok and the dialogue is hard to take seriously; the english characther is simply not believable nor is Father Elijah. If you want to read fiction dealing with themes of evil, read George Bernanos; he is a master of spirtual fiction. I have not made it half way through this book and I doubt if I will finish it.
(97 reviews)
