McCullough, Colleen. The Thorn Birds. Harper and Row, 1977.
Reason read: There is a festival in China called the Ching Ming festival that takes place every April. Read in honor of China. Except. There is nothing about China in this book.
Confessional: I have wanted to read this book for years. My grandmother gave it to my mother and father when it was first published and it has been on their bookshelf forever and ever (since 1977). Only recently was I able to steal their copy to read it for myself. I promise to bring it back, mom!
Seven chapters. Seven different characters from 1915 to 1969. One small compliant: the chapter called “Dane” was not from Dane’s perspective. He was barely in it, which was a disappointment because I wanted to get to know him better. Having said that, The Thorn Birds will give you an intimate portrait of the rest of the Cleary/O’Neill family over the course of fifty plus years. It all starts when Paddy Cleary’s sister invites him and his family to work on her farm with the promise of inheriting the sprawling plantation after her death. Paddy bundles up his wife and seven kids to for the Australian Outback. There they learn to love the land, if not each other.
My favorite part of The Thorn Birds wasn’t the plot. It was the characters; each one fully realized. McCullough was right to name her chapters after them. Mary Elizabeth Carson was a diabolical woman I truly adored. She knew the nature of greed. She knew the pitfalls of love. What if greed was to be pitted against love in a fierce battle? Out of jealousy, she decided to find out. Her actions after her death set in motion a chain of events that would ultimately alter the course of history for generations to come.
Confessional: I am currently reading The Thorn Birds alongside Glittering Images and Beyond Belief. It is a bit much to be reading three very religious books at the same time. While theology is a strong theme for two of them, they are all completely different.
Book trivia: No quoting from this book in any manner whatsoever. Whatever. I know that The Thorn Birds was also made into a movie starring Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward. Guess what? I never saw it.
Author fact: Coleen McCullough also wrote a series about Caesar which is on my list.
As an aside, is there really such a bird that impales itself on a thorn?
Music: “Faith of Our Fathers”.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust from the chapter called “Hong Kong Holidays” (p 118). The only reason why Thorn Birds was even mentioned in More Book Lust is because of John Lanchester’s Fragrant Harbor. Interestingly enough, The Thorn Birds did not make it into the index of More Book Lust. Author Colleen McCullough also did not make it into the index. Woops. Technically, I did not need to read this book, but I am glad that I did.
~*LunaSea*~ 