The Thorn Birds (Virago Modern Classics)

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There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.... Or so says the legend. [4] There is lots of slang in this book and names of things I never knew existed. Some of the slang is explained and some is not. There is a 10 year drought in this story, 10 years. I can't imagine not having rain for that long. I would go mad in those conditions. I could stand the constant rain to drought.

Heartbreak: This was one serious heartbreaking book. It seemed nothing would go right for any of the characters. But you know, that's real life. Not everyone gets a happy ending. But somehow, for some reason, I enjoyed it all the same. The constant waiting for things to turn around. Father Ralph de Bricassart in The Thorn Birds has terrible boundaries with Meggie Cleary. He is the first person who explains menstruation and sex to her. For Meggie in 1920s Australia, menarche (her first period) would be traumatic. Meggie thinks she’s dying. Ironically, in the book, he tells her not to talk to men about her period! Father Ralph says: "I've known Meggie since she was ten years old, only days off the boat from New Zealand. You might in truth say I've known Meggie through flood and fire and emotional famine, and through death, and life. All that we have to bear. Meggie is the mirror in which I'm forced to view my mortality". The Big Jubilee Read: A literary celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's record-breaking reign". BBC. 17 April 2022 . Retrieved 15 July 2022.You know, I had everything: a wonderful fiancé, good friends, and I had just secured a promotion. And this job was it. A poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit, Colleen McCullough's acclaimed masterwork remains a monumental literary achievement—a landmark novel to be cherished and read again and again.( From the publisher.) That there is a plot is undeniable: that it is noticeable, I doubt very much. I don't like to predict stories anyway - the only ones I do that to are unavoidable, like Steven Seagal movies - but there was very little in this book that I could have predicted had I tried. Maybe I'm just out of practice, but there was no sense of an author dictating or pushing the characters towards certain goals. A few things I could see coming, like Dane turning out just like his father, but even then it felt completely natural, not as though McCullough was manipulating the story. Tim (1974) ♦ The Thorn Birds (1977) ♦ An Indecent Obsession (1981) ♦ A Creed for the Third Millennium (1985) ♦ The Ladies of Missalonghi (1987) ♦ The Song of Troy (1998) ♦ Morgan's Run (2000) ♦ The Touch (2003) ♦ Angel Puss (2004) ♦ The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet (2008) ♦ Bittersweet (2013).

The good die young"... was the only sentence that brought me to tears - the scene with Dane.. was pretty emotional- and that damn sentence "the good die young" is once of those sentences that can piss me off - fast - if in 'the moment' of grief. My dad died young. I'm not sure I find that sentence comforting 'at all'!There are only 19 chapters in this massive chronology and many events occur, mostly random and sometimes poetic, but they never fail to surprise. There are so many characters, & all of them, you feel, actually employ humanity, act like actual persons that may have lived. There are acts of stupidity and compassion. People repress many feelings, more for personal convictions than for social or familial obligations we seldom don't visit in books such as these! Books like these rely on readers to view coincidences and adults’ manipulation of children as the romantic workings of fate. The Thorn Birds’ appeal also works best if readers or viewers idealize Catholic clergy. Today, many people would find the central romance unthinkable, horrifying, or dangerous — but for different reasons now than in the 1970s and ’80s. The novel and miniseries focus on Ralph’s vow of celibacy as a priest, romanticizing Ralph and Meggie’s relationship as taboo and tragic. To quote the show’s tagline: “Love. Unattainable. Forbidden. Forever.” Nowadays, public knowledge of sex abuse cases, particularly in the Catholic Church, and of the impact of grooming makes many readers, like me, resist such an idealized interpretation. The Thorn Birds The success of these books enabled her to give up her medical-scientific career and to try to "live on her own terms." In the late 1970s, after stints in London and Connecticut, she settled on the isolation of Norfolk Island, off the coast of mainland Australia, where she met her husband, Ric Robinson. They married in 1984. Under his birth name Cedric Newton Ion-Robinson, he was a member of the Norfolk Legislative Assembly. He changed his name formally to Ric Newton Ion Robinson in 2002. The novel was also adapted into an eponymous television miniseries; during its 27–30 March 1983 run, it became the United States' second-highest rated miniseries of all time, behind Roots. Subsequently, a 1996 miniseries entitled The Thorn Birds: The Missing Years filled in a gap of 19 years in the middle of the novel. It was criticized for inconsistencies with the original series. Paddy has a wealthy sister, Mary Carson, a widow who lives in New South Wales, Australia, on Drogheda, an enormous sheep station. One day, Paddy receives an offer from Mary of a job on her estate, so in 1921, the whole Cleary family moves from New Zealand to Australia.

McCullough has the tenacity to include three generations in this sprawling saga, and as family portraits usually tell of differences between the generations PLUS the ties that bind them together & to a home, this one exactly does that in an extremely entertaining fashion.Also, I know there are amazing people in church, as I have had several family members who were in it, but we also now know all the problems the Catholic church hide and kept behind closed doors until it exploded out recently. There is a lot of politics at the higher lever. I feel like Ralph could have exposed a little of that, maybe not the focus, but he could have been in contrast to things going on. As brutal as the book was, Colleen's picture of the church simply seemed to rosy to me. I linked to a 2015 blog post titled “The Fetishization Of Meggie.” The author points out that Meggie incorrectly assumes she and Ralph are together romantically when she’s a child, long before she understands sex or romance. In this miniseries scene, Ralph even jokes and teases her about this. Later, after starting puberty, Meggie still assumes she’ll marry Ralph someday. So, apparently, she doesn’t understand he’s joking here: Thomsen, Simon (30 January 2015). "People Are Going Nuts Over This Obituary For Author Colleen McCullough Which Called Her 'Plain' And 'Overweight' ". Business Insider Australia. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015 . Retrieved 14 April 2017. I loved how it started out in New Zealand with an Irish immigrant family as the main characters. Then from New Zealand we move to Australia with the grumpy rich aunt and the greedy power hungry priest. McCullough covers three generations of Clearys from 1915-1969. If I knew these people in person I'd say they were ordinary and almost boring but the author does a great job of giving them such life and dignity and secrets that could tear them apart but actually bring them closer to one another.