#the thorn birds

[villetteulogy]

'That dear and gentle God...who has taken from me everyone that I've loved most in the world.'

THE THORN BIRDS (1983)

[letthefairyinyoufly]

The Thorn Birds | Ralph & Meggie

Meggie...forgive me?

[heartgoes]

Don't you see? It's part of her plan. I've brought in £13 million. And a holy priest who's brought in £13 million will not be left to languish here in the back and beyond. The Church knows how to reward its own.

Ralph & Meggie | The Thorn Birds (1983)

[futuristicenthusiastlight]

Fathers (or brothers?), forgive me.

I've been naughty and reckless.

Do you remember The Thorn Birds? You can forget it, now.

In Supernatural they doubled it. 😁

[whilereadingandwalking]

I reread The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough on the plane ride to Sydney, trying my best to hurry through the second half as I lagged somewhat through it, finally finishing it on our first day in wet, hot Queensland. I saw sugarcane fields and galahs and saw a plaque to McCullough on a Sydney poet's walk.

This book continues to be good, compelling, and difficult to put down, a really rooted family epic of station living, sheep, the tragic turns of life, and the awe and terror of nature. On reread it was much harder to ignore Ralph's grooming of Meggie: it is explicit and clear, and Ralph tortures himself plenty about what it means for him as a priest but little about her comparative youth. So I think it's safe to say that readers should be well-prepared for the primary romance of the novel to be a problematic one of grooming and an imbalanced age gap, framed as a "pure" star-crossed romance.

Still, the book, particularly its front half, is intensely powerful as a family epic. The characters feel dense and real. I've always been minorly unimpressed by the last chunk, and believe it could have ended much earlier and felt more satisfying. But I loved reading once again about the difficult life of this huge farm, the twists and turns of fortune, the flinty steel within Meggie and her mother. It's a rich, big family epic that I enjoyed on reread—and I should say, the twists took me just as much by surprise this time around.

Content warnings: grooming, age-gap relationship, body horror, child death, misogyny, animal death, violence.

[appointmentwithmryeats]

"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."

Colleen McCullough "The Thorn Birds"

[bonobochick]

Some ships to celebrate Valentine’s Day.  🎉 💗

urls: Post 1 / Post 2 / Post 4

[payidaresque]

Christopher Plummer as Archbishop Vittorio di Contini-Verches The Thorn Birds (1983) ✧ dir. Daryl Duke

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

"that's my comfort movie" says the girl about the movie were everyone is crying, five people die, and a priest falls in love with a women

[litandlifequotes]

I did it all to myself, I have no one else to blame. And I cannot regret one single moment of it.

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

[buckdefencesquad]

When I was 9 I randomly picked this book up in an oxfam, read the first page and instantly became obsessed. I begged my mum to buy it (which she did, I spent so long being unable to read that she let me consume whatever took my fancy) and I went home and read this book that profoundly affected me in ways I couldn’t even begin to describe at 9 (and still struggle to now at 28). It was the first book to truly break my heart. I still remember sobbing when Fee cut Meggie’s hair and Paddy ruined her friendship with Teresa. All these years later this book has stuck with me and when I see a copy of it in an oxfam I still buy it. I’ll forever love Meggie and Ralph.

“But it was the children Frank found hardest to face, ashamed and embarrassed, the bright bird brought home with the sky unplumbed, wings clipped, song drowned into silence.”

[villetteulogy]

Barbara Stanwyck and Richard Chamberlain in The Thorn Birds, 1983

[letthefairyinyoufly]

The Thorn Birds | Ralph & Meggie

[heartgoes]

The Thorn Birds (1983)

[rothko-mirror]

About to start reading The Thorn Birds. My priest kink was fully activated by Father Paul in Midnight Mass, with the full backing and foundation of a Catholic upbringing. So, I will insert Hamish in the role of the debauched priest as I read. Have any of you read this yet?

[airlesscendresderoses]