Few novels have changed my perception or understanding of the intrigue of human relationships and life. "The Thorn Birds" is one of them. It took a while to finish this book as I was simultaneously watching a TV serial made out of it (said to be the most popular TV serial after 'Roots').
The plot revolves around a life of a girl called Meggie who falls in love with a much older person who is a handsome priest and is not allowed to marry a woman. The basic theme of the novel revolves around human's constant fight with God and the pain of losing loved ones and trying to figure out - Why me? Is God merciful? It is a story of human integrity, ambitions, the power of religion, love, lust, triangles of relationships, realizations, and accepting life as it is. It is a tale of how a woman never forgets her first love and sometimes suffers forever, how a boy cannot accept a stepfather, and how a mother loves one child more than another and creates a rebellious teen. And, How a man's ambitions can't see eye to eye with a woman's desire.
Just putting two quotes here:
1) Ralph de Bricassart (Priest): [telling the legend of the thorn bird to Meggie] There's a story... a legend, about a bird that sings just once in its life. From the moment it leaves its nest, it searches for a thorn tree... and never rests until it's found one. And then it sings... more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. And singing, it impales itself on the longest, sharpest thorn. But, as it dies, it rises above its own agony, to outsing the lark and the nightingale. The thorn bird pays its life for just one song, but the whole world stills listen, and God in his heaven smiles.
Young Meggie Cleary: What does it mean, Father?
Ralph de Bricassart: That the best... is bought only at the cost of great pain.
2) After the big fire at Drogheda, which kills Maggie's father and brother
Grown-up Meggie Cleary: That dear and gentle God who has taken from me everyone that I've loved most in the world. One by one. Frank, and Hal... and Stuie... and my father. And you, of course. Always you. If God is merciful... left me no one else to grieve.
Ralph de Bricassart: He is merciful, I know you can't see that now, but he is. He spared the rose. He sent the rain.
Meggie Cleary: (Sarcasm) Oh Ralph... who sent the fire?
5 comments:
If only the best could be bought at a little less pain... the best is probably worth the pain... just what is it turns out to be just a mirage of the best and not the best?
Ayesha
This is my all time favorite movie. I've seen it at least 50 times and read the book twice. I've even got a really nice collection of items that has to do with the movie including over 300 photos. I even have a fan group on the internet: http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Thorn_Birds/
Ayesha - Thats the irony of human ambitions and mind that it never stops craving for inner desires and in the process lose various precious things...
Annonymous - thanks for the tip. When I googled it - I was amaze that many others were under 'sahar' of this novel/movie.
Hey mystic, it's a tragedy as well.
A.
Indeed it is! At one point I shut off the video and couple of times I put book aside...
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