Joe Wright is a harsh critic. In the Director’s Commentary of the 2005 feature-length film Pride and Prejudice, he frequently laments that certain scenes of the film just don’t work.

To state just a few, the first meeting of Mr Bingley and the Bennet family at the Meryton Assembly was “not well-shot,” “boring” and “flat”; the artificial lighting was unflattering for Judy Dench’s complexion; and he will think again before ever working with CGI.

Perhaps he was just too close to the project, because I found the film to be a cinematically beautiful, well constructed, and touching...

Colleen McCullough hated Meggie Cleary.

The news came as quite a surprise to me, but apparently it’s true. In April 2009, as the best-selling may-akda worked on the stage musical version of her literary triumph, the UK Daily Mail quoted her directly:

“Meggie in The Thorn Birds is basically my mother. I detested her. Can you imagine Pagsulat a 280,000-word book and hating your heroine? She was everything I despise in a woman. She suffered and, worst of all, she enjoyed suffering.”

I didn’t pick up on the author’s hatred when pagbaba the book – far from it – my interpretation was that...