"Something I can get my teeth into", the woman in the library said to me the other day. The analogy with eating is fairly important, as is the grass-roots conviction that novels should be long, pleasurable, and nourishing. The Thorn Birds, a saga of love, money, adventure and disaster in the Australian outback, has arrived in time to save a sizable part of the population from malnutrition.

Of course it will be publicized as Australia's answer to Gone with the Wind and of course it contains vast areas of tosh, although those interested in role reversal will notice that the petulance and whimsy that made life at Tara so taxing have taken an unexpected turn. "I'll make you writhe", says malevolent chatelaine Mary Carson to her parish priest, Father (later Cardinal) Ralph de Bricassart …: "You're the most fascinating man I've ever met. You throw your beauty in our...