The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Thorn Birds
Book Review: A Perfect book !
Summary: 5 Stars
How many times can anyone read the same book?Well this is not a question about The Thorn birds.I must have read and re-read it over 30 times.It is a perfect book that reviles through time the life of the people.The cursed love of Meggie and Ralf and the story of all the Cleary family.It is a must.Book Review: A Sentimental and Naive Lover
Summary: 3 Stars
I just now finished reading this book. In fact I got this book only after seeing my uncle reading CM's Historical Ceaser & Rome related books.
Right at the start I knew that this book is meant to be for women. The way 4 year old Maggie Cleary is described, u immediately come to know that she is different in a way women in our Indian Hindi movies are portrayed, extremely sensitive, and one who suffers all pain and never expresses it or complaints about it. Right at the start you know that it's full of women's inner feeling. And specially feeling that very few of them is capable of entertaining lest they want to be labeled as a sentimental fool. But yet they are very rare, touching and agonizing feeling.
Right at start you also come to know that this is story about life and its philosophy because you never know enough of life unless you are on the wrong side of life that is when you have a life that is devoid of everything...a sufferers life, a life of poverty. And while reading this book all those affluent and rich people get a chance to live proxy life of a poor through Cleary family. But one thing different in this Cleary family is that this is story of poor people who contrary to general expectation don't buckle under hardship of poverty and loose all sense of dignity and finery of life's behaviors and emotions and its feeling, but stick to them and are more admirable and lovable. And emerge out as people, who give in more to such feeling in hardship when it truly required to be shown.
But its written in Mills & Boon style...full of sweet clichéd words and diabetic romanticism (though that is how most people love to feel and live and suffer for love) though some of the description and dialogues related to morality and ambivalent desires of hearts and some love making scenes are the one that make this book worth reading. Above all it's the pain author has inflected on its characters knowingly expectedly, unknowingly and unexpectedly that makes a reader keep on turning pages of this bulky book.
But after reading this book I did realize that someone like me who has lived in poverty and has indulged in love luxuriantly would truly admire this book. For the pain you get being good and poor is something you really cherish and sometimes you want more of it as a nihilist does. It goes for sacrifice too, the more deeply and acutely u feel love and are denied of it, the more of that love you want. For what is love if you can not endure separation and pain and what is life if you can not suffer its hardship and maintain your dignity?
I think being a semi historical author now CM must be feeling odd while acknowledging this book and she must have written this when she herself must have suffered bout of romantic delusions and eventually would have decided to paint her own feeling in sweeping epic saga spanning three generations and hundred years. And she has been successful in doing so.
Book Review: A Tremendous Book
Summary: 5 Stars
A tremendous book. Makes me want to visit AustraliaBook Review: A Wonderful Family Saga
Summary: 4 Stars
The Thorn Birds is a wonderful family saga, which is just what I think the author intended it to be. The TV miniseries and the wonderful performances given by Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown have caused many to focus on one aspect of the book and discard many others, although just as important. I do, however, find two problems with the book. The final section is a major letdown, as the character of Justine is simply not strong enough or developed enough to evoke much empathy from readers. The second problem concerns the character of Father Ralph and his motivations. The author lets us know that Ralph is power hungry regarding his status in the Catholic Church, but she never lets us know why. As a result, we can't identify with his conflicts nor understand his choice of the Church over Meggie. Ralph comes across as far more power-mad than religious and I, for one, wanted to know why. I wanted to know more about him and his background, more about what made him who he is. Not letting us know Ralph was McCullough's big mistake and the book suffers greatly for it.Book Review: A good read
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book a couple of years ago and have read it twice since. So yes, I think it's pretty good. I don't agree that it's like a soap opera...because I've read other really bad books that are reminiscence of just BAD SOAP opera episodes. The story is of course a love story. It's very captivating. It certainly kept me up late at nite reading it.