One Of The Last Of The Saga Writers Passes On!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                               The Saga is a vanished literary genre, that flourished from about the Fifties to the Seventies.  These were novels of at least five hundred, veering more to a thousand plus, pages, that usually dealt with multi-generations of one family.  True, there was "Gone With The Wind" in 1936, and "Anthony Adverse" before that, but not until the advent of writers such as Leon Uris, James A. Michener, Susan Howatch, Taylor Caldwell and Helen Hooven Satmyer, did the genre flourish.  I  know this for a fact, because from my teen  on, I read them all.

                               Well, this past Thursday, the 29th, we lost of one of the last of these authors, (Miss Howatch is still alive in her seventies!!!!!!!!) Colleen McCullough, who passed on, at the age of 77, from a long illness.  I would say more than a series of them, because Miss McCullough was always what one might call a full figured gal, and when she was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, became even bigger.  (I also have this condition; hopefully I will not grow this large!!!!!!!!)  But bigger than even Collen's figure was the 1977 breakthrough book for which she will be remembered, despite writing others--"The Thorn Birds."

                                 It came along in 1977, and I had not seen a book sweep the public like this in my  life. My parents recalled it was like when "Gone With The Wind" first appeared. It dealt with an Australian family, the Clearys, principally its youngest daughter, Meggie, but its selling point, and the reason it became such a sensation, was its forbidden love between Meggie and the pastoral protagonist, Father Ralph De Bricassart.  Oh, my God!!!!  Such a thing had never been explored before, and millions devoured the book for this alone.  On a second reading, just several years ago, I found it unbeatable for its compelling descriptions of the land, class differences, and the romance of Meggie and Ralph.  And Meggie's daughter, the actress Justine O'Neill.  As I read it this time, I reveled in it, but I knew I was reading the last of a kind of novel that does not get written anymore, and that saddens me As does the passing of one of the genre's leading contributors.

                                Thank God "The Thorn Birds" sits on my shelf, where it can be, and will be, read again, and again.  Unlike Colleen, whose like has all but disappeared.

                                 I can think of no better tribute to Colleen than the final lines of her signature novel--

                                  "The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what, to impale itself, and die singing.  At the very moment the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there in not life left to utter another note.  But we,  when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know.  We understand.  And still we do it. Still we do it."

                                    Rest In Peace, Colleen, Novelist,  neurophysiologist researcher, (at Yale, no less!!!!!!!!) and woman of brilliance.  You will be deeply missed, and your kind shall be seen less often.
A sad comment on our culture indeed!

                                   Thanks for enriching it, Colleen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hank