The Thornbirds

Colleen McCullough, 1977 Date Read: 2/13/23

This is one of those novels that I want to love, but just can't. And I'll get to why I can't in just a moment. First, the positives:

• the writing is superb

• the settings are vivid and fascinating - I've learnt more about Australian than I ever wanted to lol

• the characters are full, rounded, and developed

• the dialog is natural and real

And now the bad:

• this is a love story between a priest and a woman he met at the age of ten. Characters in the novel even question his possibly prurient interest in her, and he even makes a joke about pedophilic priests!

• there's a lot of vividly described death/some graphic gore

• there's a LOT of racism and xenophobia, particularly against Italians

• there's also asexuality-phobia which, as an asexual, I've never understood. I don't like okra either but people don't get their panties in knots over that!

In all, I devoured this novel (600+ pages in a few days) but the age at which the priest falls in love with Meggie is really, really disturbing.