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The Thorn Birds

Colleen McCullough

Start date: April 1, 2020

Finish date: June 30, 2020

Discussion: New School Classics- 1915-2005

Why we're reading this: 2nd Quarter 2020 Long Read
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New School Classics- 1915-2005

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What Members Thought

Mar 30, 2017 Julie rated it it was ok

Shelves: fin-2023, 1970s-fiction

Talk about aging poorly! If you have fond memories of reading this 40+ years ago like I did, do not reread it unless you want the memory irrevocably tarnished. It was mouth hanging open, shocked face awful. I am giving it a weak two stars for the memory of loving it and her vivid descriptions of the Australian outback. She painted such a life-like illustration of rural Australia that now I would never ever ever want to live there or travel there. What a pit of h ell she made it out to be. The bu Talk about aging poorly! If you have fond memories of reading this 40+ years ago like I did, do not reread it unless you want the memory irrevocably tarnished. It was mouth hanging open, shocked face awful. I am giving it a weak two stars for the memory of loving it and her vivid descriptions of the Australian outback. She painted such a life-like illustration of rural Australia that now I would never ever ever want to live there or travel there. What a pit of h ell she made it out to be. The bugs! The dust! The unbearable heat! The isolation! The lack of any sort of beauty in the natural landscape! It almost distracted me from how absolutely awful every single character was.

Let's start off with the craziest plot line/characters - Ralph the pedophile priest who grooms Meggie, the boring doormat who grows up to be an awful mother just like her awful mother. Words fail me at how creepy and weird this is. When I read this as a 12 year old in the seventies it was the fact that he was a priest that made the relationship forbidden. I recal l thinking how dumb it was, he could just quit the priesthood and marry Meggie. I didn't grasp the whole adult man meeting a lonely 9 year old and noticing she was unloved and lonely and primed to be open to a "relationship" with him. AGGGHH. I also did not grasp that Ralph was a priest for power, not love of God, so there is no way he'd quit the priesthood. Oh with what innocent eyes I read this as a middle schooler.

Meggie is so irritating it was hard for me to find sympathy for her. I felt some at the beginning of the book, when she was 4 years old and being beaten by nuns and ignored by her mother, but the older she got the less I liked her. She recreated the negative mother/daughter dynamic with her own daughter, Justine. And replicated the creepy relationship with Ralph with her creepy relationship with her son Dane. Her whole "I'm never leaving the sheep farm again or having sex or a relationship with anyone ever again" was something I did not understand at all. It was a relief when finally there was a character - the awful Justine - who noticed that the sheep farm was hel l on Earth and escaped as soon as she was able.

Meggie's mother Fee was awful and her secret reason for being awful to all her children but Frank was super lame and not a justification at all. Frank is the only brother written as having a personality and that personality was also creepy(the reoccurring theme of the book - creepiness). Frank had a real Oedipal thing going with his mom - ewwww. And I was relieved when he ran away before he could start molesting Meggie. The other brothers were not fleshed out at all by the author and assumed the role of a Greek chorus, occasionally popping up in the story but mainly being out on the land, doing things with sheep and not furthering the plot at all. That none of them had any sexual desire I found 100% unbelievable. I was imagining a Brokeback Mountain for them. I mean, one hopes at least they were having romantic/sexual lives with the other cowboys. Otherwise, OMG, what empty sterile lives doing nothing but manual work and then dying. What pointless, tragic lives.

There are several tragic deaths in the book and I was not moved one iota reading about any of them. I did not care at all. If a book is well written then I will cry great gasping tears when a character dies. That did not happen in this book. I was actively rooting for characters to die. I only finished reading this because I was so gobsmacked at my reaction to it based to my reaction to it 43 years ago. I kept thinking, it can't get any more awful, but it did! It kept going throughout the book, the creepy awfulness of it all.

This book is the perfect example of the concept "aging poorly". ...more

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Oct 22, 2024 Debbie Hughes rated it it was amazing

5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Oh MY GOSH!! How I loved living in the land of The Thorn Birds!! This is a huge book/ audiobook and usually I would be checking how much more!! But nooo this family saga was one I didn’t want it to end.
I know I am late to this book but like Ann Patchett says if you haven’t read it.. it’s new to you!
I never watched the TV series either cause I never cared for Richard Chamberlain.. and lucky for me Archbishop Ralph in the book he is tall dark and so handsome !
If you are ready for we ...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Trisha rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics, drama, romance

When I first picked up this book, I was rather expecting a tawdry melodrama of a love affair between a young woman and a priest. It turned out to be so much better! The multi-generational saga followed the lives of the Cleary family, the children as they grew into adulthood, and then their children as they grew. Though the "love affair" played a role, it seemed like the real story was in the depth and detail of the family members as they carved a life for themselves in the harsh climate of Austr ...more

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