Colleen McCullough The Thorn Birds

Colleen McCullough
The Thorn Birds
Title: The Thorn Birds
Author: Colleen McCullough
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Language: English
Pages: 692
Publisher: , 0
ISBN: 0380018179
Format: PDF / Kindle / ePub
Size: 6.5 MB
Download: allowed
Description
Powered by the dreams and struggles of three generations, THE THORN BIRDS is the epic
saga of a family rooted in the Australian sheep country. At the story's heart is the love of Meggie
Cleary, who can never possess the man she desperately adores, and Ralph de Bricassart, who
rises from parish priest to the inner circles of the Vatican...but whose passion for Meggie will
follow him all the days of his life.
Insightful reviews
Becky: I really enjoy epic stories and sagas, big sweeping stories that enmesh the reader in the
characters and their lives, and make the reader more than just a bystander watching the action,
but a sort of participant. We want things to go a certain way, we want things to go well, because
we care about the characters, and we have invested our hopes in them.
Colleen McCullough has an almost magical skill in making her characters real and believable
and true. That is what I love most about reading, and why I love certain authors above others.
Where another author's character may be interesting and dynamic and exciting, they are still
just a character. McCullough, and a few other authors, has the ability to make her characters,
fictional though they may be, reach out of the pages and touch us. The characters she creates
no longer feel like words on a page; they follow me around, pry their way into my dreams, make
me wonder how they are spending their days when I'm not able to read about them. I love when
I can just plunge into a book and live in it... To that end, McCullough even seemed to make
Australia itself a living, breathing character. It's described beautifully, and is as unpredictable as
any human character she's introduced here.
This is the third McCullough book that I've read, and I feel like she must have spent an
inordinate amount of her life just observing life and people. She brings us the stories of the
people she creates, but, even though we're following an omniscient narrator, we can only see,
feel and hear so much of our subject's lives. We can only reach so far into their hearts for the
mysteries that elude us, because, like real people, they don't have open-book hearts and minds.
But it feels like we're able to see into their souls, because McCullough understands humanity
itself, and presents us with general truths that feel like intimate secrets.
This story centers around the Cleary family and what comes to be their farm Drogheda. We
meet Meggie Cleary as a 4 year old birthday girl, and then follow her through six decades of life,
love and loss.
Her family is a strange, introverted male-centric one. Meggie is the only girl in a rather large clan
of brothers: Frank, Bob, Jack, Hughie, Stuart, Hal, James and Patrick. She learns early to be
self-reliant, because in her family there is not a lot of use for girls. Her mother is very closedmouthed, very closed-off, and works her fingers to the bone to keep the household running,
because her father has very distinct ideas about the differences between the sexes - housework
and child-rearing is woman's domain only, and farming and work is man's domain only. The two
are not to mix or cross paths. This is not to say that Paddy Cleary was a bad or harsh man,
because he was not, but he just had certain ideas of how life is, and his word was law as the
Man of the House.
Their lives ease somewhat after moving to Australia, but with the move comes a new set of
struggles. Meggie meets and loves Father Ralph, the Catholic priest in the area. At ten, it's an
innocent, adoring love, which provides her with attention that she's neglected in other areas of
her life. Meggie is never taught about puberty, or where babies come from, or many other things
that girls need to know. She's generally kept in the back hall closet of life. Not maliciously, but
because in the Cleary family, a daughter has to fend for herself. Boys are the goal, because
boys are the workers, the backbone of the family, and the genes that allow the name and
lineage to be carried on. Because of Meggie's neglect, Father Ralph has the responsibility of
teaching her the things that a mother should. As she grows up, the innocent love she holds for
Father Ralph turns into more, and causes both parties to struggle, because what we want most
is often what is the most forbidden.
Father Ralph is probably my favorite character here. I am not Catholic, and a lot of the Catholic
faith is a mystery to me. But his struggles of conscience and faith, which force him to choose
between the love he feels and the vows he made, in my mind make him the most interesting
character of them all. I think that probably most priests have this crisis at some point in their
lives... do they regret their decision to forfeit their manhood for the priesthood? Are they strong
enough to resist temptation? I'm glad that we got to see things here from both sides - not only
Father Ralph's struggle, but Meggie's struggles as well.
There was a lot in this book that reminded me of other classic literature. Father Ralph's
struggles and Meggie's desire for him brought to mind Hester and Rev. Dimmesdale from "The
Scarlet Letter". Justine, Meggie's daughter with Luke O'Neill, reminded me quite a bit of Jo
March from "Little Women" in her feminist, proud, ambitious and take no prisoners approach to
life. But in both cases, the similarities are only surface level, because these characters are far
less perfect, less romantic, and more real than those they bring to mind from other books.
There is more than a little heartbreak in this book and I will admit that I shed a few tears. But
one thing that rather grated on my nerves was that I could always tell when tragedy was about
to strike. It seemed that for every loss, there was a hopeful build-up so that the fall would be that
much greater. I felt that it was obvious and I rolled my eyes more than once because of it. So
that's why I've taken off a star for this book. But that being said, the depictions of the reactions
to the losses were very real and honest. I just wish that the red herring ploy wasn't so obvious.
Anyway, I did truly enjoy this book, as I have enjoyed the other McCulloughs that I've read. I do
plan on reading more of her books in the future, and would certainly recommend this one.
Célia Loureiro: Fora-me dito que “Pássaros Feridos” era um livro sobre o amor proibido entre
uma nova zelandesa e um padre. Colocá-lo assim é simplista demais. É um livro que põe em
perspectiva as vidas, os papéis, as obrigações, as dores de alma e os desafios que cada um
está fadado a enfrentar.
A história começa com uma família de imigrantes irlandeses com várias crianças a passar
dificuldades na Nova Zelândia, no início do séc. XX. É no seio dessa família que a única
menina, Maggie, começa a procurar o seu lugar no mundo. Nesta etapa da história surgem os
primeiros pontos fortes da mesma; a relação entre Fee e Patsy, os pais de Maggie, e a doçura
premente entre Maggie e o irmão mais velho, Frank.
Julguei que tudo se passaria aí, nessa pequena cabana na Nova Zelândia, onde Maggie
ajudaria sempre a mãe com as mil e uma tarefas do lar e os seus muitos irmãos cresceriam
para se tornar tosquiadores como o pai. Mas então os ventos chamam-nos para a Austrália e,
desembarcados em Sydney, seguem para Drogheda, uma próspera fazenda de criação de
carneiros australiana. Como herdeiros dessa fazenda, os Cleary começam assim a adaptação
a uma vida com menos desafios, mas numa terra de grande beleza e de grandes durezas
também. Ora enfrentam dilúvios, ora sobrevivem a dez anos de seca. Ora a vida animal tenta
atacá-los – e inclusive arrebata-lhes vidas – ou desabam tempestades com cargas eléctricas
tão fortes que pegam fogo a hectares de terra.
É neste cenário de adaptação que o Padre Ralph de Bricassart conhece Maggie e a sua
família, e se propõe a ajudá-los com a adaptação e a proteger Maggie, posto que a mãe parece
vê-la como algo de incómodo e os irmãos se vão tornando demasiado duros para olharem
pelas suas necessidades. Ralph antevê na pequena Maggie o universo de brandura e
generosidade em que ela mais tarde se tornará e assim, nas circunstâncias mais improváveis,
nasce um amor condenado à grandiosidade da tragédia.
O livro atravessa quase todo o século XX. Do que a II Guerra Mundial significou para a
Austrália, como possessão britânica, às muitas revoluções que tomaram a Europa e a
mudaram, tornando-a naquilo que é hoje. Os tempos também mudam; da avó Fee que hesita
em abandonar os corpetes e em envergar um vestido leve para os quarenta e cinco graus à
sombra da Austrália, à neta Justine que é actriz em Londres e adopta a irreverência da recente
“mini-saia”. Mas não é somente este o ponto forte do livro – o retrato político-social do mundo
ao longo de todo um século. O mais significativo do livro são, sem dúvida, as relações
interpessoais.
Cada uma das personagens principais, de personalidades marcantes – Maggie, Fee, Ralph, a
tia Mary, Frank, Luke, Justine, Dane, Rainer, etc., etc., etc., tem algo de tão rico em si que nos
rouba o pio. Todos eles passam por verdadeiros momentos de assombro em que se dão conta
de quem são realmente, do que pretendem, dos erros que cometeram, do que mais valorizam e
que estão em vias de perder. É um grande livro sobre perseguir-se os objectivos pessoais e
deixarmo-nos cegar por eles. É um livro sobre cometer-se erros, assumir-se compromissos,
choques de interesses, abdicação. O destino, ali tão marcante, tudo o que vai a voltar, a vida a
exigir pagamento para as benesses.
Já praticamente no final, o novo ritmo protagonizado por três gerações de mulheres Cleary
comoveu-me bastante. Fee, Maggie e Justine são muito diferentes entre si. A primeira abraçou
o seu destino sem estrebuchar, a segunda lutou pelo que queria, mas a força dos costumes
subjugou-a, e a terceira vive a vida ao sabor das suas vontades.
Confesso que a Justine, embora tenha aparecido para aí a 75% do livro, se tornou facilmente
na minha personagem favorita. Possuia a firmeza de carácter que faltava à Maggie, embora a
própria Maggie não seja nenhum capacho, é um bocadinho mais conformada. Não me admira
que causasse estranheza, posto que diz o que lhe passa pela cabeça, choca quem a rodeia e
não procura agradar ninguém. Comoveu-me a sua força – em parte apenas fachada -, o amor
incondicional que dedicava ao irmão e, mais tarde, as dificuldades que encontrou para dar-se
ao homem da sua vida. Por medo de perder, de ser magoada, de querer e não poder ter. O
amor é fraqueza, e Justine sabe-o como ninguém.
Todas as personagens sofrem grandes desenvolvimentos, grandes mudanças proporcionadas
pelos tempos, as interacções e a idade. Foi agradável ver esses envelhecimentos, o tempo
parece ser, ele mesmo, uma das personagens habilmente arquitectadas pela autora.
Como ponto fraco, que me impede de dar um cinco sólido, aponto duas mortes de
personagens importantíssimas para a trama, que se sucedem de um modo pouco convincente
e que se dão, também, sem motivo aparente. São um pouco rebuscadas, desenquadradas e
inesperadas, embora tenham, claro, uma importância maior para o desenrolar do enredo.
É uma saga maravilhosa sobre uma família de trabalhadores, de mulheres de época sem a
presunção de serem mais do que é esperado delas, mas também sobre o quebrar dos grilhões
face aos preconceitos do passado. Um retrato de vidas, melancólico e, por vezes, doloroso. O
livro lembra-me muito a filosofia budista, que defende que viver é sofrer. A obra compara os
actos humanos aos do pássaro que pressiona o próprio peito contra um espinho e que,
enquanto sofre, solta um trinado de beleza incomparável. Apenas que, no caso dos humanos,
sabemos o que sucede ao procurarmos o espinho, e ainda assim fazemo-lo. "Pássaros
Feridos" traz o conforto da inevitabilidade dos erros.
Vai directamente para a minha gaveta dos favoritos.
Laura: 692 pages of a wonderful family saga. I loved it all.....the secrets, the family, the bonds,
the deceit, the stubbornness, the pride and the love!!!! Sooooo goooood!
Erin: First time i noticed that the Earth places nature first. If people got here first there will be
extra climates appropriate for us. i used to be wondering this as a result titanic distinction in
weather simply in Australia alone. there is fairly no weather on this planet the place it is cozy for
people all 12 months round. i take advantage of to consider it as in basic terms our test. to
benefit to accommodate pesty insects and snakes and climate yet i believe it truly is easily God
placing them first for as soon as - His appealing creation. we are difficult - we will deal with it
and adapt - yet his vegetation and animals come first by way of weather and weather. (purely
my circulation of consciousness)Made me imagine very philosophically on ancestry and loss of
life and love and relationships and persistence and life. heritage repeats itself! The hells we
make for ourselves. occasionally unescapbable - the sins of the daddy to fall at the heads in
their children. enjoyed the ending. Amazing.
Shannon (Giraffe Days): i have desired to learn this booklet for years, yet i am comfortable I
waited until i used to be at a level in my lifestyles while i would savour it the main (though it
wasn't deliberate). i did not be aware of something concerning the tale earlier than i began other
than that it is a vintage Australian novel, epic in scope, and used to be made right into a miniseries or whatever starring Rachel Ward years ago. i admire now not understanding a lot
approximately books prior to I learn them, though: it leaves you wide-open for the tale to be told,
and absorbed.This is certainly an epic book. It spans 3 generations of the Cleary family,
focusing totally on Meggie. beginning in New Zealand at the day of her fourth birthday, The
Thorn Birds follows the massive kin of Paddy and price and their young ones Frank, Bob, Jack,
Hughie, Stuart, Meggie and child Hal as they sail to Australia on the invitation of Paddy's
prosperous land-owning sister Mary, who intends him to inherit the huge property of Drogheda
in northwest NSW. Even via Australian standards, it is a colossal farm: 250,000 acres, eighty
miles throughout at its widest point, domestic to over 100,000 merino sheep.The Clearys, who
have been terrible farmhands in NZ, fall in love with Drogheda and examine the methods of the
land, the climate, the weather, the animals, lovely quickly. The booklet is split up into 7 sections
titled Meggie 1915-1917; Ralph 1921-1928; Paddy 1929-1932; Luke 1933-1938; cost
1938-1953; Dane 1954-1965; and Justine 1965-1969. those supply a moderate focus, however
the simply characters who rather dominate the tale are Meggie, Ralph - the Catholic priest who
falls in love together with her - and Justine, Meggie's daughter by means of Luke.There is well
tragedy during this book, yet I by no means as soon as stumbled on it depressing. it's related in
its constitution to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude, yet thoroughly different, and
winning in a manner the latter ebook used to be now not (for me): The Thorn Birds made me
care. each one personality is so superbly rendered, as though they have been certainly dwelling
humans whose stories have been captured through a light, non-judgemental hand. each
personality evoked powerful emotions in me, which replaced because the characters changed.
Luke, for instance, i wished to throttle and ended up pitying. Meggie, in her naivete, used to be
from time to time exasperating, but she discovered and that i was once pleased with her for that
- then angry, for a way she set Dane above Justine. occasionally I totally hated Ralph and
desired to smack him; at different occasions I felt so deeply for him and his emotional turmoil.I
cannot recover from how good written this publication is. it truly is easily told, in an omniscient
third-person voice, in basic terms sometimes, while needed, delving in deeper into the hearts
and minds of the most characters to bare their techniques and feelings. The clashing
perceptions humans have are competently portrayed, the negative judgements, undesirable
decisions, blunders - all so life-like, so real. Inferences, connections and insights will be
deduced from tricks within the story, yet McCullough leaves much for the reader to understand
on their own. And at the back of it all, like a wonderful backdrop, the attractive landscape, so
shiny and true. heritage and politics are there also: international wars, the Depression, the nice
Drought that ended while WWII ended, every thing from garments to attitudes to cars, in
addition to altering Australian slang, attitudes, the quirks - such a lot of it slipping in
unobtrusively, at different instances pivotal to the plot.That there's a plot is undeniable: that it's
noticeable, I doubt very much. i do not prefer to are expecting tales besides - the one ones I do
this to are unavoidable, like Steven Seagal videos - yet there has been little or no during this
ebook that i may have envisioned had I tried. perhaps i am simply out of practice, yet there has
been no feel of an writer dictating or pushing the characters in the direction of yes goals. a
number of issues i'll see coming, like Dane turning out similar to his father, yet even then it felt
thoroughly natural, no longer as if McCullough used to be manipulating the story.It turns out
funny, analyzing a e-book of maximum heat, drought, flies, fire, never-ending silvery grass
whereas outdoor it really is freezing, snowing, bleak. yet i used to be completely transported,
and the single factor that jarred my excitement used to be the strangeness of seeing American
spelling and a pair of replaced phrases amidst the Australian slang. Why, for instance, swap
"nappy" to "diaper" whereas leaving "mum" for "mom"? (As an aside, commonly i actually hate it
while books from the united kingdom and Australia, for instance, needs to endure an
Americanisation earlier than being released in North America, while whilst books via US authors
are released in Australia it is with the yankee spelling and all. That simply does not look fair! it
kind of feels lovely insulting to the americans i have talked to, actually, but additionally
patronising to us.) I think, though, despite whose choice that was, McCullough was once writing
to a global audience. She by no means meant this publication to stagnate in Australia, as many
works do that are "too tough to understand" in different countries. She does not discuss
crutching the dags at the sheep with out explaining what crutching skill and what dags are, or
that the large lizards are referred to as goannas and rabbits have been brought to Australia in
order that it can glance a bit extra like England for the homesick settler - i do know all this,
however it was once nonetheless fascinating to examine it.If you are attracted to studying
approximately Australia (or simply epic tales in general), it is a nice ebook to begin with. it is not
even out-of-date, issues switch so slowly! simply photo stockmen flying helicopters round herds
of livestock rather than riding, their homes are so humungous. The droughts are nonetheless
there, the floods, the flies, the fires, the vernacular - notwithstanding the Catholics have nearly
disappeared. the faith point of the unconventional is both fascinating, and dealt with
diplomatically as well. it's a booklet approximately traditional humans dwelling usual lives, and
infrequently intentionally inflicting themselves pain: therefore the connection with the thorn bird,
which pierces its breast on a rose thorn because it sings, and dies.
Carol: enjoyed this book!
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