A Landscape with Dragons: The Battle for Your Child’s Mind by Michael D. O’Brien. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 1998. 261 pages.
Years ago, I started my blogging career on my other, now happily defunct, website for the sole reason that a book had annoyed me. I wanted to create a site dedicated to refuting that book, but because I am paradoxically contrary by nature yet also conflict-averse (as well as scatterbrained), I never did much to accomplish that task. I want to turn to it now: I am going to discuss the book that started me on my blogging journey and then, I hope, have done with it for good.
The book in question is A Landscape with Dragons by Michael D. O’Brien, a little-known Catholic novelist who writes dense, religiously themed, and very niche works. He is a well-read and intelligent individual. A monk of my acquaintance, who knew him personally, once called him a living saint. In his nonfiction, however, O’Brien comes across as plum crazy, and it was his apparent craziness that irritated me.
But O’Brien, I have found, is a Cassandra: He has told the truth and made accurate predictions, yet he has done it so unconvincingly, and has made such poor arguments, that he is easy to ignore, dismiss, or mock.
So I am here to say: Mea culpa, Michael O’Brien. You were right about everything.