Overview

Can art be a ""bridge to religious experience,"" as John Paul II argued in his Letter to the Artists (1999)? In the twenty-first century, there is no more prolific, positive response to this question than the art of Michael D. O'Brien. O'Brien's sixteen novels have been translated into fourteen languages, and his paintings grace many Catholic churches in North America. In Living Logos, the first full overview of O'Brien's extraordinary career, Greg Maillet explores nine O'Brien novels and examines the theological aesthetic that this unique author achieves. Maillet discusses not only the iconic cover paintings of O'Brien's novels, but also his most famous character, Father Elijah, and goes into greater detail on two of O'Brien's most recent novels: By the Rivers of Babylon and Letter to the Future. Like all of O'Brien's art, these recent novels have realistic settings but stretch readers' imaginations into an eternal, sacred world in which the Living God has the final word.

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Table of Contents

Reviews

""I have admired Greg Maillet as a scholar for many years, and I've admired Michael D. O'Brien as a novelist for even longer. Maillet is the perfect guide to O'Brien's work. Maillet on O'Brien is a match made in heaven."" --Joseph Pearce, author of Classic Literature Made Simple ""Gregory Maillet, a well-established scholar of Shakespeare and Tolkien, is a literary critic of unusual depth of spiritual insight. This book, his second major study of the major novels of Michael O'Brien, is brim-full with well-attuned critical insight and learned Catholic wisdom. In many ways an ideal reader of O'Brien's fiction, Maillet offers here an intelligently conceived, warmly sympathetic introduction to O'Brien who, notwithstanding his already enthusiastic readership, deserves a much wider appreciation. Maillet's Living Logos goes a long way to making that possible."" --David Lyle Jeffrey, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Literature and the Humanities, Baylor University ""Greg Maillet's Living Logos appraises the fiction of Michael O'Brien, particularly the Children of the Last Days series. Through careful reconstructions and analyses, Maillet lovingly fulfills that critical link on literature's chain--the critic, who interprets the poet, while eyeing his Muse--so that through his generous explanations of O'Brien's words we are brought ever closer to the Word."" --Adam Lee, Assistant Professor of Literature, Tyndale University ""Greg Maillet accurately describes Michael O'Brien's faithfulness and orthodoxy as a Catholic writer living and creating from the margins. His analysis of O'Brien's critical clarity from the sidelines implicitly places O'Brien's work alongside great Catholic satirists of the past, such as Alexander Pope and Dante Alighieri. By approaching O'Brien's novels through the lens of theological aesthetics, Maillet does justice to their literary and spiritual heft."" --Natasha Duquette, Professor of Literature, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College, Canada

Author Information

Greg Maillet is Professor of English at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. He is co-author, with David Lyle Jeffrey, of Christianity and Literature: Philosophical Foundations and Critical Practice (2011). His recent books are If Is the Only Peacemaker (2022) and Recovering Consolation (2024).

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