《荆棘鸟》

澳大利亚畅销书作家，《荆棘鸟》作者考琳·麦卡洛在与长期的疾病抗争过后，于2015年1月29日在南太平洋诺福克岛的一家医院溘然长逝，享年77岁。全球最大的英文书籍出版商之一哈珀柯林斯出版集团澳大利亚分公司出版总监修纳·马丁对此这样评价：“考林·麦卡洛对澳大利亚文学，对全世界读者的贡献意义深远。她是第一个在世界舞台上获得成功的澳大利亚作家。”

Introduction About The Thorn Birds

《荆棘鸟》介绍

Published by Harper and Row in 1977， The Thorn Birds was a multi-generational sagai that traced a sheep-farming family and that featured a heroine， Meggie Cleary， who falls desperately and impossibly in love with a Catholic priest， Ralph de Bricassart. At the time of its publication， the novel was compared to Margaret Mitchells Gone with the Wind.

This is the story of the Cleary family， who moved to Australia in the early 1900s to work Drogheda， a vast sheep station. Employing on a large canvas that encompasses two world wars and the Great Depression2， McCullough lets the main characters take tums telling the story from 1915 to 1969. But the heart of the book is the forbidden love between Meggie-Fee and Paddy Clearys only daughter-and Ralph de Bricassart， the handsome parish priest. Meggie falls in love with Ralph de Briccasart， who is a good and ambitious man who certainly does nothing to encourage this love， but who certainly retums it as he regards Meggie as the daughter he can never have. As Meggie matures， he comes to regard her in a more romantic way. A great struggle arises between this love on the one hand and his ambition to become a cardinal3 or perhaps more， on the other. Family secrets， forbidden love， and the struggles of working in a hard new land intertwine in this novel. When published， it received rave reviews. It holds up just as well for new and retuming readers.

Tip：《荊棘鸟》由哈伯·罗于1977年出版，是一部跨越几代人的英雄传说。出版之初，它就被视作可与玛格丽特·米切尔的《飘》相媲美的作品。小说以两次世界大战和大萧条为背景，讲述的是20世纪初，迁移到澳大利亚广袤的德罗海达绵羊牧场的克利里家族的故事。故事的女主角梅吉·克利里，出身于一个牧羊家庭。她无法自拔地爱上了一位天主教神父拉尔夫。然而这段爱恋注定是不可能的。小说中的主要人物以各自的视角讲述1915年到1969年发生的事情，然而小说的核心仍然围绕梅吉和拉尔夫的禁忌之爱展开。《荆棘鸟》小说一问世就受到如潮的好评，备受新老读者的青睐。

McCulloughs prose is simply outstanding， and her characters crackle with realism-they become utterly real people and the reader will become swept away with this wonderful story. The storyline never drags， and at no point does this novel ever fail to completely capture the readers attention. The books 500-plus pages became the 10-hour TV version that appeared on ABC in 1983， featuring Richard Chamberlain as Father Ralph， Rachel Ward as Meggie and Christopher Plummer as the archbishop. With tens of millions of viewers， The Thom Birds joined in the front rank of minise-ries juggemauts.

There is a legend about a bird， which sings just once in its life， more sweetly than any other creature on the face ot the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest， it searches for a thom tree， and does not rest until it has found one. Then singing among the savage branches， it impa/es itself upon the longest， sharpest spine. And， dying， it rises above its own ag-ony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One super/ative song， existence the price. But the whole worid stills to listen， and God in his heaven smdes for the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend.

Tip：麥卡洛的文字十分出彩，她笔下的角色充满现实感。小说人物血肉丰满，故事情节毫不拖沓，在任何时候都能引人入胜。这本500多页的小说被改编成10小时的电视连续剧，于1983年在ABC频道播出。理查德·张伯伦饰演拉尔夫，蕾切尔·瓦尔德饰演梅吉，克里斯托弗·普卢默饰演大主教。该剧吸引了数百万观众，位居迷你电视剧影响榜的前列。

Pain Breeds Talent

痛苦孕育才华

Colleen Margaretta McCullough was born on June lst， 1937， in Wellington， in outback central west New South Wales. She grew up during World War lI. The family moved frequently to find work for her father. “Get out and get a job as a mangle hand in a laundry，” she recalled her father tell-ing her. “Thats all youre good for-youll never get a hus-band， youre too big and fat and ugly.” Before entering ter-tiary education， she previously earned a Iiving as a teacher， librarian， and journalist. After what she described as a mis-erable childhood， she aspired to a career in medicine but was forced to discard that ambition when she developed intolerance to antiseptic scrub. Instead， she switched to neuroscience and her interest in neurophysiology took her to Yale University as a researcher.

McCullough spent ten years researching and teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in New Haven， Connecticut， United States. Financial worries， along with her gnef over a failed relationship， propelled her to start writing there.“I have found that writing is the only thing I can do that obviates that kind of misery，” she once told an interviewer， according to the reference guide Current Biography. Ms. McCullough said that she wrote an early draft of The Thom Birds， her second book， in six weeks while hold-ing down her position at Yale. The title， she said， came from a Celtic legend about a bird that impales itself on a thom tree 8and inits dying agony sings out beautifully. she told an in-terviewer in 1977. “You know there are people like that. Their tragedies are self-induced. They bring it all on themselves and are terribly heroic about.”

Tip：考琳·玛格丽塔·麦卡洛于1937年6月1日出生在新南威尔士州的中西部腹地惠灵顿。她成长于二战期间。为了让父亲找到工作，全家经常搬迁。她的父亲曾说她“又胖又丑，只配去洗衣店当帮手，而且根本找不到丈夫。”在上大学之前，她当过老师、图书管理员、记者，以此谋生。在度过了被她形容为“悲惨的”童年期之后，她渴望做一名医生的理想又因为对消毒剂过敏不得不放弃，转而学习神经系统科学，并成为耶鲁大学的一名研究员。麦卡洛在美国康涅狄克州纽黑文市耶鲁大学医学院神经科工作了10年，《荆棘鸟》就是在这段时间完成的，初稿仅用了六周。麦卡洛的写作之路源于经济上的窘迫，以及一段痛苦的爱情。根据《当代传记》记载，她曾经这样告诉一位采访者，“我发现写作是让我忘记那些苦痛的唯一途径。”。《荆棘鸟》的名字来源于一个凯尔特传说，传说中有种鸟会把身体扎进一棵荆棘树，“它临终前放开歌喉，唱出美妙的歌曲”。在1977年的一次采访中她这样说道：“你知道的，有些人就像这样。他们的悲剧都是自己带来的。他们亲手带来这些苦痛，并且无比勇敢地面对它们。”

Nothing if not industrious， Ms. McCullough said that she sometimes wrote as many as 20，000 words in a workday， which could last as long as 18 hours. She produced more than 20 books， including a seven-volume senes of historical fiction called Masters of Rome and a series of crime stories centered on the fictional detective Carmine Delmonico. Her first book， called 77m， was published in 1974 and became the 1979 movie starring actor Mel Gibson in the title role， a man modeled on one of Ms. McCulloughs patients who embarked on a romance with an older woman despite his developmen-tal disabilities. The most recent of her 25 works， Bittersweet， was published in 2013.

In the late 1970s she settled on Norfolk Island in the Pacific， where she met her husband， Ric Robinson， to whom she has been married since 1983.

Tip：麥卡洛女士极其勤勉，有时在一天之内可以书写18个小时，完成两万字。她创作了20多本书，包括一套七卷的历史小说《罗马之主》。她的第一部作品《提姆》，于1974年出版，并于1979年拍成电影，由美国著名男演员梅尔·吉布森饰演男主角。在她的25部作品中，于2013年出版的《苦中有乐》是她最新的作品。