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The Thorn Birdsto watch a love unattainable forbidden foreverIntro lineFrom the raw Australia of the 1900s, comes a turbulent saga that spans the decades in Colleen McCullough's best selling novel: The Thorn Birds The story of a priest driven by ambition he never be what he want. Tormented by desire. From the moment he saw Meggie, he knew he would love her forever. Mary Carson, the richest woman in Australia, and the loneliest. In the years that followed, no one could stir Meggie's heart. No one till a rover named Luke O'Neill. The story that travels around the world from the Vatican to the Australian outback. From the islands of Greece to London. The saga that spans half a century echoing through three generations. A love unattainable forbidden forever. Final lineDriven to the thorn, with no knowledge of the dying to come. When we press the thorn to our breast we know, we understand and still we do it |
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QuotesMary Carson: Let me tell you something, Cardinal de Bricassart about old age and about that God of yours. That vengeful God who ruins our bodies and leaves us with only enough wit for regret. Inside this stupid body, I am still young! I still feel! I still want! I still dream! And I still love you! Oh, God, how much! Fiona Cleary: I don't know, and never will how much of our lives we're allowed to choose how much is decided long before we're born. But looking back, I see now choices I could've made and didn't! Archbishop Vittorio: And like all self-perpetuating institutions the Church has always a place for ambitious men. In fact you are everything the Church admires in her high officials. You are conservative, quick, subtle. You know enough never to give away what is going on behind those eyes. And you have the most exquisite gift of knowing how to please. Even when it comes to pleasing those you loathe. Ralph de Bricassart: You make me out to be a Machiavelli, except that he was an Italian. Archbishop Vittorio: My dear Ralph, you are a delight. I can scarcely wait to see your effect on our short, fat prelates in Rome. Ralph de Bricassart: I wanted to be Cardinal de Bricassart more than I wanted our son. More than I wanted you. Of all the wrong I've done the worst is that I never made a choice for love. Half given to you, half given to God but really given to my own ambition. I knew it and I did it anyway. I told myself it was meant to be. Fiona Cleary: For years I've sat by and watched you do all the things that I did. Crying for a man that you could never have. Giving all your love to his son, the way I gave mine to Frank. Neglecting Jussie, as I neglected you. You've lived your life as I did mine. Driven, always driven! I don't know, and never will how much of our lives we're allowed to choose how much is decided long before we're born. But looking back, I see now choices I could've made and didn't! Even after Paddy died. Even after I lost Frank. I might have asked your forgiveness years ago. But it's too late for me now, Meggie. But it's not too late for you. Judy: How about a kiss for Miss Gilly? Come on, give me something to confess on Sunday. Ralph de Bricassart: I mustn't make my best girl jealous, now, must I? Meggie Cleary: You have your work. And you have the love of a man who will never break your heart. That's more than most of us get in a lifetime. Don't give it up for anything. And least of all for me. Justinne O'Neill: But how can I leave you here grieving for Dane. Meggie Cleary: You must. To give us hope. A light has gone out. Not just for me, but for all of us. We will spend who knows how long in mourning it. But if you go, your light can burn for us. Knowing that will bring an end to our mourning. Open questionsMeggie Cleary: What kind of God would shut men out of Paradise for loving women? Mary Carson: When Satan tempted Christ with the whole world is it because he hated him or because he loved him? Mary Carson: But birthdays at our ages are rather a mixed blessing, aren't they? Fiona Cleary: What's a daughter? Just a reminder of the pain a younger version of oneself who will do all the same things, cry the same tears. Anne Mueller: You have the face of an angel and the body of a goddess and you don't know how to make a man get you pregnant? ConclusionAll your life I've watched you wage your battles against God. Yet you were always closer to his desires for us than I. In the end you've always been able to love. Somewhere in me I must have known from the very first that Dane was mine. But I didn't want to know. I wanted to be Cardinal de Bricassart more than I wanted our son. More than I wanted you. Of all the wrong I've done the worst is that I never made a choice for love. Half given to you, half given to God but really given to my own ambition. I knew it and I did it anyway. I told myself it was meant to be. Long ago I told you a story, a legend about a bird that sings only when it dies. The bird with the thorn in its breast. You said it pays its life for that one song. But the whole world stills to listen. And God in his Heaven smiles. Novel's writer Colleen McCullough was born on June 1, 1937 in Wellington. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Maori descent. She attended Holy Cross College, having a strong interest in the humanities. In her first year of medical studies at the University of Sydney she suffered dermatitis from surgical soap and was told to abandon her dreams of becoming a medical doctor. Instead, she switched to neuroscience and worked in Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. In 1963 she moved for four years to the United Kingdom where she met the chairman of the neurology department at Yale University at the Great Ormond Street hospital in London, who offered her a research associate job at Yale. McCullough spent ten years from April 1967 to 1976 researching and teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. It was while at Yale her novel was written. The success enabled Colleen McCullough to give up her medical-scientific career and to try and "live on her own terms". Colleen McCullough finally settled on the isolation of Norfolk Island in the Pacific, where she met her husband, Ric Robinson (then aged 33), to whom she has was married on 13 April 1983 (she was aged 46). Colleen McCullough is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. |
