"The Thorn Birds": The Greatest "Wicked Book"
In the minds of Vietnamese readers, the love story between Meggie and Father Ralph in The Thorn Birds is as memorable as the story between Scarlett and Rhett in Gone With The Wind.
“I love you, Meggie. I will always love you. But I am a priest…” – Father Ralph said, when little Meggie, not yet a woman, expressed her feelings for him. And Meggie said: “I was born for him and only him”.
In an article marking the death of The Thorn Birds author Colleen McCullough, the New York Times called the book “Australia’s Gone with the Wind.” McCullough’s death also makes us want to look back at her masterpiece.
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| Famous poster of the film adaptation |
Forbidden Love Immortal
Because of Meggie, Father Ralph, an archbishop, fell into hell like the fallen angel Lucifer. It was a forbidden love. Ralph was elegant and aloof, Meggie was beautiful and proud, but they felt close to each other at first sight. They felt like they belonged to each other, like destiny. That year Meggie was 9 years old and Father Ralph was 28.
When Meggie's family moved from New Zealand to Australia to inherit her dying aunt's farm, her life began. There she met Father Ralph, a promising priest who was too charming to live a normal life without causing trouble, and became a priest (in the mind of her aunt Mary Carson, who was deeply infatuated with him).
As for Meggie, a poor, lonely girl who lacked parental love, found in Father Ralph a father, a friend and above all, a man, a lover of her dreams. The first time in her life she had her period, Meggie told Father Ralph, not her mother, because she was afraid that she was sick and about to die.
This revelation made Father Ralph, who was no stranger to the story of rape in confession of bold girls, blush. Meggie's pure innocence confused him, and he fell in love with the young girl, so that later, when he met Meggie again in the form of a woman, he still searched for her, only to be stunned by a fierce and sharp woman Meggie.
Between them was a true, passionate love, but before it even began, each knew it was impossible.
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| Some covers of the Vietnamese translation of The Thorn Birds |
Forbidden, dangerous but wonderfully true
In the preface, McCullough tells the legend of a bird that sings only once in its life, but more sweetly than any other bird in the world. When it begins to sing, it throws itself into a thorn bush. “Among the thorny branches it sings its song and rushes upon the longest and sharpest thorn. Overcome by indescribable pain it sings and dies, and its joyful song is the envy of the lark and the nightingale,” she writes.
The legend of the “one and only song, the one that cost one's life” is repeated near the end, when Father Ralph dies in Meggie's arms.
For 38 years, readers and audiences around the world have been raving about the legend. They still ask each other, between Father Ralph and Meggie, which bird flew into the thorn bush? Or was it both? All we know is that The Thorn Birds has always been considered a dangerous book for pre-teens and teens.
Mothers in the 70s and later still forbade their children to read it, because it encouraged forbidden love, which was contrary to religious beliefs. The famous female scholar Germaine Greer called it “the most evil book I have ever read.”
The Thorn Birds is just that. Forbidden, visceral, yet honest and stirring. The novel was so successful that McCullough joked that she could rewrite the sequel for the rest of her life. But she didn’t.
Colleen McCullough hates movie adaptations Not many authors are happy with the film versions of their works, and McCullough is no exception. In 2000, when asked about the 1983 American TV series of the same name, she said: “It was like throwing up!” “Ward (lead actress Rachel Ward) is no better than a cardboard box and Chamberlain (lead actor Richard Chamberlain) spends the whole film looking wet and wide-eyed,” she commented. “The film was shot in Hawaii, there was only one kangaroo on set and everyone spoke with an American accent except Bryan Brown, who sounded like a dingo.” Having hated the television version, McCullough embarked on a stage production, which took 15 years to prepare. She cast Matthew Goodgame as Ralph and West End star Helen Anker as Meggie. McCullough praised the production. Despite this, the American TV series was a huge success and received critical acclaim for its acting. Before it aired, the series faced opposition from some audience groups due to its taboo and religiously sensitive subject matter. But in the end, the series was aired anyway. |
According to Thethaovanhoa.vn
