I think I read this for the first time in 4th grade. (I hid it in my room for a month b/c this is sooo not a book for a 10 year old!!) My father is an ex-Catholic priest who left the church for my mother so when the mini series came out, the world stopped in my house for an entire week. It's an epic saga about an Irish farming family who relocated to Australia to help work at an ailing aunt's ranch. The book spans some 40+ years of hardships they encounter. The only daughter, Meggie, falls in love with a local parish priest who has ambitions of Rome and is constantly tempted by her seductions. It's a tearjerker of a classic and I'm not ashamed to say I love it.

This is an epic saga, an amazing story about how repressing your desires hurts you and everyone around you. How having a detached mother can become a pattern that repeats in generations. How you should not live in the past and exist on the autopilot, you should see people who love you and maybe love them back, especially if they are your family. It criticizes catholic church for treating sex (only with women) as something dirty and not natural. About how you can't steal from God.
About how people will suffer and still love deeply!

Nah, I’m just messing with you. This book is crap.

It’s long, unfocused, badly written, soaked in soap opera levels of melodrama. Characterizations are laughable. Maggie had something like 10 brothers and not one of them had any discernible personality. They just merged into one guy who’s somewhere outside in the Australian outback, virgin and content, he doesn’t want anything from life.

This book has a very strange view of men. And women, but mostly men. They are either basic simpletons or loners who see women as a weakness and who don’t need them at all. And a very strange view of male sexuality, McCullough is obsessed with it and despises it.

This is a book about Ralph de Bricassart, a very selfish man, a man of faith who is in the church not so much for spiritual reasons but for his career. He, a 30 year old, lavishes his love and attention on this lonely young girl because he likes her and he is lonely himself, knowing well that she will fall for him, because there’s no other men around. Also we are being told time and time again that this priest has the face of Adonis and/or an angel. Then he proceeds to toy with her feelings, being hot and cold, saying he doesn’t need her, then kissing her, then stealing from her, then leaving and then coming back for more kissing and eventually hot hot??? sex.

Nobody here behaves like a human, nobody has any depth.

Also isn’t it kinda funny in the scene when Ralph is having sex with her AT LAST and it’s so transformative and he understands that he was selfish, the whole inner monologue is still about himself. He's just incapable of thinking about anyone else but himself.

One additional star because of nostalgia.

I’m a child of the eighties, so my point of reference is the now-dated miniseries that ran for a number of weeks when I was ten years old. I like long books, particularly when it’s historical fiction, so at nearly 700 pages and a timeframe that spans most of the 20th Century, I put this on my queue a long time ago. Cheapskate that I am, I waited until the audiobook came available through the library.

It’s accurately billed as a family saga: the Clearys move from New Zealand to a “station” in the Australian Outback just after WWI. They get the caretaker job, and it’s no small thing: Drogheda is over 100,000 square miles of mostly desert…and sheep. They’re working-class people, but they’ve fallen into wealth, of sorts, since it’s Paddy Cleary’s sister that owns the place…at first.



Though there’s more than one storyline, the main thread is the love affair between Meggie and Fr. Ralph de Bricassart. Yes, I said it: FATHER de Bricassart. I’ll take a moment to let any of you staunch Catholics walk away.

*Jeopardy theme plays*

Meggie’s just a ten-year-old kid when they meet, but Ralph is smitten. Don’t worry, nothing happens until she’s in her late teens. Still creepy, but let’s not start banning books, OK? Instead, lean into this as a “forbidden romance,” maybe even the most risqué I’ve ever read. Oh, there’s spice involved, all right…whew! You’ll like that middle chapter if this is your thing. It’s romantic and tasteful, even if it makes the religious sort cringe. In fact, I’d say that romance is the fire that keeps this story going.

It's a travel guide to the Outback: kangas, snakes, and wild boars, oh my! First a drought, then a deluge, then something called a “dry storm” where lightning hits and ignites stuff, because…Australia. And, of course, a massive freaking inferno. Rough place to live; I’ll never complain about Brooklyn ever again. But just like the romance, it was fascinating.

The Clearys are my kind of people: working class, smart, tough. Not an ounce of pretense among them. Great values, and down-home mannerisms. They were born, it seems, to tend the land, and I enjoyed living their history.

I did think the drama slows a bit once we get to Dane and Justine, Meggie’s kids. Not sure what it was: one was annoying, and the other had secrets that I thought should’ve been revealed to him. Not because he should learn them, only that it would’ve added a ton of turmoil to a book that goes through the late-stage motions. I wanted more Ralph-Meggie drama, and instead I got kid drama, which didn’t interest me as much.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, I’ll skip seeing the miniseries, thank you very much. It’ll seem dated and meh, so I’ll stick with the wondrous images Colleen McCullough gave me.

I listened to about 30% of this as an audiobook, and the rest on a weekend when I was recovering from a stomach bug. It’s a grand adventure through a different place and time, well worth the long effort.

A master at crafting a story. Never watched the series but wanted to read it myself and I wasn’t disappointed. The love and sacrifice is so poignant. How self centered a priest could be. How she plops death right into the story. Such a frustrating and difficult daughter but don’t we all have someone similar in our own families? Wonderful descriptive passages of the Outback before it was famous.

Catching up…

“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 out-sing the lark and the nightingale. The thorn bird pays its life for just one song, but the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles.”

I read this one so many years ago, that when a donation came to my Little Free Library Shed, I couldn’t help but re-visit it. Would I have the same feelings about the book as I did all those years ago?

I also remember seeing the original television series of the same name when it came out in the early 1980’s. (I know I am dating myself.) And, of course it was easy for them to romanticize the book’s theme of the forbidden love story between a girl-turned-woman, Meggie, and the older priest, Ralph – especially when they looked like the young Richard Chamberlain and the gorgeous Rachel Ward.

And, regardless of how we felt about this theme, there were still other issues that came out that readers and/or viewers could relate to…commitment and obligation as it related to love, family and religion. Imagine the angst that Ralph had between his commitment to God and his love for Meggie? Or, Meggie’s commitment to Ralph despite her marriage to another, which seemed based more in obligation than love.

I remember the feelings that lingered with me about this forbidden love and wondered whether it was realistic or not, or just based on the passion of desire – of what one perceives they can’t have, except in secret.

Certainly, McCullough is challenging readers. Inviting them in with her epic scope and questionable possibilities – the gray areas and complexities found in human relationships. Which makes this a great discussion book selection.

3.5 estrellas y es que aunque lo disfruté a lo grande hay varios temas que hoy se ven bajo otra mirada.

It's been so long since I read this book that I can only guess... I think between 1980 and 1982, probably. I loved the movie years later, but not as much as I had loved the book. Too long ago to write a proper review, but this is one of those books that I know I will always remember.

Книга викликала у мене дуже багато емоцій, це та історія, яку цікаво обговорювати десь в читацьких клубах. Не дивлячись на те, що я поставила їй 5 зірок, я вважаю що це продукт свого часу і зараз ��агато чого не здається мені таким романтичним, як це тут описується. Загалом, це прекрасна історія про декілька поколінь жінок, сімейна сага, яка не залишить байдужим нікого. Якщо книжка викликає шквал емоцій - тоді вона написана не дарма.

П.С. Так могли бути написані «Мости округу Медісон», але автор це профукав і написав якесь оповідання про декілька денний адьюльтер, замість того, щоб досліджувати персонажів протягом тисячі сторінок

" إن الطير الذي يغرز الشوكة في صدره يتبع بذلك قانوناً ثابتاً ، وهذا القانون يفرض نفسه عليه . إنه لا يعلم ما الذي يدفعه إلى غرز الشوكة في صدره ، فيموت وهو يغني . وفي اللحظة التي تخترقه بها الشوكة ، لا يدري بأن الموت قادم ، ولكنه يغرد ، ويغرد ، ويغرد إلى أن لا تبقى فيه ذرة من الحياة لنغمة أخرى . أما نحن ، فعندما نغرز الأشواك في صدورنا ، فإننا نعلم ، ونفهم . ومع ذلك فنحن نفعله ، نحن نفعله مع ذلك ."
صادفت الرواية في معرض الكتاب ولم أكن قد سمعت بها ولا أنوي شراءها ، وكانت هناك سيدة لطيفة جداً هي المسؤولة عن قسم دار طلاس في المعرض قد بذلت مجهوداً كبيراً لإقناعي بشراءها وقد حدث ما أرادت أخيراً .. أنا الآن ممتنة لهذه السيدة من كل قلبي وإلى الأبد ❤
الرواية تصنف ضمن الروائع الكلاسيكية إلى جانب شجرة تنمو في بروكلين ولا تقتل عصفورا ساخراً وذهب مع الريح .

4.5 stars

"I actually thought I could beat God, but there was never a woman born who could beat God -- he's a man."

Finally got around to reading this classic. What a great escape!

هر چیزی که از یک کتاب خوب انتظار داشتم برآورده شد
خیلی خیلی خیلی دوست داشتنی بود
درتک تک لحظاتش غرق لذت شدم
داستان که هیچی کم نداشت ترجمه مهدی غبرایی هم عالی بود.



https://taaghche.com/audiobook/142725

Loved this book!