Mary Carson is not a main character in the novel The Thorn Birds, but she is really a character! She was the owner of a vast sheep station Drogheda in the northwestern Australia. Rich she was, she was a widow, whose husband died young and whose only child died in infancy. At age 65, she wrote to her only living brother Paddy, inviting him and his family to live on her land, and intended to leave her fortune to him after her death. Ralph was a young good-looking priest , whom Mary was very enamored of. For quite a few years, he was like a cub to a cougar. But the appearance of Meggie changed him. Sensing the love between Ralph and Meggie, Mary was jealous and spiteful. She devised a new will before her death, in which her assets, a total of 13 million pounds, was donated to the Church in the hand of Ralph, as she was sure that Ralph would not give up his world for Meggie. “I must lose you to Meggie, but I’ve made sure she doesn’t get you, either.”, said Mary. And just as she predicted, Ralph failed the test, selling his “soul” for the 13 million pounds, as the ambition of advancing his career outweighed his love towards Meggie.
Mary is a shrewd woman with brain. She managed her land with an iron fist and autocratically, and thus wielded much power in the area. Her fortune was amassed not just through running the sheep station, but through setting up an investment company called Michar Limited. She was a successful woman in business. She chose not to remarry in her long 40 years’ widowhood, maintaining her status of being indisputably a queen. Being “a staunch pillar of the Church all her life”, she fell in love with Ralph for his youth, wits and charm. But in Ralph’s eye later, she was a poisonous and vicious spider, who spun the web that tangled him inside. When Ralph turned down in disgust her last plea of kissing her in the mouth like lovers, Mary was enraged, calling him a “sham”, “an impotent and useless sham”, poignantly reminding Ralph of his offer to make love with her seven years ago.
What still echoed in my mind is what she told Father Ralph the night before she died. Quoted below are the two passages, the revelations of a 72-year-old woman:
“Well, Father de Bricassarrt, let me tell you something.Inside this stupid body I’m still young—I still feel, I still want, I still dream, I still kick up my heels and chafe at restrictions like my body. Old age is the bitterest vengeance our vengeful God inflicts upon us. Why doesn’t He age our minds as well?”
“Ralph, you’ll never know how I’ve longed to throw thirty years of my life out of the window. If the Devil had come to me and offered to buy my soul for the chance to be young again, I’d have sold it in a second, and not stupidly regretted the bargain like that old idiot Faust.”
Mary’s pain was acute to realize that her still throbbing young heart was buried in a dying body, and there is nothing she can do, however longing she is of being young again. She is like a withered flower, envying an unfolding rose, in the knowledge that it will never bloom again.
She won the game, but then so what? She died and could only see her achieved revenge from the heaven. Rich as she was, she was powerless over the priceless youth. She could not buy it back. Neither could she ever buy the love, the true love from Ralph. Her revenge was a bitter attack, to torment Ralph between his spiritual pursuit and his worldly lust. But that was all she can do. Money may bring the glory, fame, and power when one lives. But in face of death, everybody is equal. Rich or poor, we are from ashes to ashes, holding nothing before death except dust and ashes.
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Below is copied from the book covers and preface.
The Thorn Birds is a robust, romantic saga of a singular family, the Clearys. It begins in the early part of this century, when Paddy Cleary moves his wife, Fiona, and their seven children to Drogheda, the vast Australian sheep station owned by his autocratic and childless old sister; and it ends more than half a century later, when the only survivor of the third generation, the brilliant actress Justine O’Neil, sets a course of life and love halfway around the world from her roots.
The central figures in this enthralling story are the indomitable Meggie, the only Cleary daughter, and the one man she truly loves, the stunningly handsome and ambitious priest Ralph de Bricassart. Ralph’s course moves him a long way indeed, from a remote Outback parish to the halls of the Vatican; and Meggie’s, except for a brief and miserable marriage elsewhere, is fixed to the Drogheda that is part of her bones—but distance does not dim their feelings though it shapes their lives.
Wonderful characters people this book: strong and gentle Paddy, hiding a private memory; dutiful Fiona, holding back love because it once betrayed her; violent, tormented Frank and the other hardworking Cleary sons who give the boundless lands of Drogheda the energy and devotion most men save for women; Meggie; Ralph; and Meggie’s children, Justine and Dane. And the land itself: stark, its flowering, prey to gigantic cycle of drought and flood, rich when nature is bountiful, surreal like no other place on earth.
Australian-born Colleen McCullough found devoted readers for her fine, compact first novel, Tim. The Thorn Birds, entirely different in story and scope, is that most exhilarating of reading experiences—a book that enfolds the reader in its capacious arms. There is simply no way to put it down once you have begun, or to separate yourself from the lives and loves of this fascinating family.
From the preface:
2. There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.... Or so says the legend.
Mary是一个强势女人的典型代表，她得不到爱情，不是输在年龄上，而是输在性格上。如果她是一个温和的女人，她不会守寡这么多年，在她守寡期间肯定会遇上几次爱情，哥妹恋，姐弟恋都有可能，因为越是不太富裕性情好的女人越容易遇到真爱（男人也是如此）。结果她打拼几十年，财富增加了，内心的痛苦也随之加深，到了富裕无比的时候，谁也不会去正在关注她这个人了，关注的只有她的钱了。小牧师 Ralph 的出现和留在她身边，也是因为钱的缘故，从某种深度上来讲，小牧师 Ralph 也是一个可怜人，要是他没有遇上 Mary，也不会被她的钱所捆绑一生了，(^o^)/~
