The Thorn Birds

The Thorn Birds

Colleen McCullough

A Thorn bird is a mythical  bird that sings only once in its life, a song that is the most melodious on earth. From birth, the bird searches for a thorn bush, and upon finding it,  impales itself on the longest thorn, and dies singing a song that is better than that of any other living thing. It gives its life  for one superlative song. Just as in the myth the theme of the book is that the most beautiful things in life come with a price of painful sacrifice.

Meggie Cleary of Drogheda,  knew it was going to be extremely painful to love Cardinal Ralph de Bricassart, but loved him accepting the pain of love. The cardinal chose divinity over Meggie and carried the pain of forbidden  love throughout his life. 

Except for little Meggie, there was not a single truly likeable character in the book. Somehow the men couldn't make an impact, even cardinal Ralph de Bricassart or Dane O'Neil with their exceptional beauty and proximity to divinity. But Drogheda, a huge cattle station west of Sydney in the Australian outback made a lasting impression in the mind. Probably, it was Drogheda, with its huge ghost gum trees, pepper trees, bottle brush flowers , Bougainvillea, rose garden, a creek, a big house , stockmen cottages and an expanse of silver grass that helped Meggie, her mother Fee, and her brothers to overcome their personal pains  to move forward.

It took me quite some time to finish the book. I started it last November before a trip to Australia and Newzealand. Many disruptions later finished it only by the  middle of February. I read the Kindle version of this big fat book slowly, a few pages at a time and still felt it dragging. But Drogheda was worth the time and effort. You could get the flavour of the rugged Australian outback from the book written by Australian author Colleen McCullough, and that  exactly was my intention when I started reading The Thorn Birds.

Preetha Raj