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.
Length: 689 in paperback
Rereadability: it is very long and quite bleak at points, so I'm not sure.
Classic: yes!!
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