![]() ![]() ![]() Though Maeve Binchy has treated the plot of The Thorn Birds seriously in her introduction to the 30th anniversary edition, the novel is simply a reworking of the staple theme of women's romantic fiction - the seduction by the daughter of the almighty father. But then a convent-educated girl would not have made the mistake of assuming that a secular priest had taken a vow of poverty, as McCullough does. As far as the average convent-educated girl is concerned, "attractive priest" is an oxymoron. ![]() The temptation to answer "Yes, Father! You, Father!" was all but overwhelming. ![]() The main plot of The Thorn Birds has always struck me as absurdly implausible, probably because I can remember too clearly the time a priest asked me in the confessional if my impure thoughts involved any particular person. Rereading it now, the same thing happens: I read on hungrily wanting more, but not of the story of forbidden love between damsel and cleric. When the clatter of the nightingales (the original thorn birds) gave way to the pre-dawn chorus, I was still reading, utterly engrossed in the best bad book I had ever read. Having nothing else with which to read myself to sleep, I took it to bed with me. I n 1978, a guest at my little house in the Tuscan hills left behind a paperback copy of Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds. ![]()
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