Hiding dying birds in French

My step-mother is French-Canadian, from a small town a couple hours outside of Montreal. She left home before she was 20. I don't remember the exact order of her travels, but some of her early English adventures included traveling around the United States, and there are yellowy pictures of her in little 70s bikinis in Las Vegas or wherever.

Anyway, the Step-mommy had this little office in our new house, and one of my distinct memories is of sitting in there and her telling me about how she learned English. She used to read Agatha Christie books in French and in English, and another book she read to learn English was The Thornbirds. Or: The Birds Hide to Die.

That's what the French translation means. Les Oiseaux se cachent pour mourir. I always remembered because my stepmother thought it was such a stupid translation. (And it's not even accurate. It's really: The birds throw themselves upon a thorn and sing the sweetest song they've ever sung to die.)

I guess if it was an accurate translation of the actual term for a thornbird, it would be excusable, but apparently they're called "les synallaxes." (That's the French, not the Latin.)

So I was excited to come across The Hiding Birds today on TV in French! It's a fine family tradition to practice another language using The Thornbirds. I was even in time to watch Meggy and Ralph getting it on on the beach. Now she's telling off Luke in front of his macho friends. "...que je ne to revois pas jamais!"

McCullough is great. Like the other 80s writers Thornbirds was a multigenerational family saga full of trashy ups and downs, but she gets the psychology of the characters just right. The relationships between the mothers and daughters are really interesting, as well as the whole ambition theme.