Customer Reviews

Precious Bane

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I watched the last five minutes of the "PBS version" in '89 or '90, and it was so beautiful that it haunted me for years. Once I had found the book, I had little patience with the text's "accent", and I couldn't read it. A couple of years later, I was determined to conquer the book. I finally came to the realization that it's a love story. The dialect became easy, and I couldn't put the book down. Although the subject matter can be heavy at times, it's a must read for true romantics. Jane Eyre, eat your heart out!

Like a previous reviewer, Stella Gibbon's pastiche of the English rustic romance, 'Cold Comfort Farm' sprang to mind in the early stages of Mary Webb's 'Precious Bane'. But it must be borne in mind that Gibbon's book can be as easily read as a lampoon of the un-romantic no-nonsense 'bright young thing' of the twenties,as it can a pastiche of the English rustic romance. Furthermore,as I read on, this cynical thought was quickly replaced by a different one: that the book bears closer resemblence to Thomas Hardy than it does to Gibbons, or , for that matter, the works of the Brontes (the rustic romance as bestseller!)which may be hallmarks of style, but can hardly be read as sensitive examinations of the human condition. Webb writes from the heart. While the story is as romantic as a fairy tale, there is a subtltey in her writing, and a fatalistic view of the natural world that suggests a deep spirituality combined with mental resolve. The character of Gideon is comparable to Hardy's tragic figures such as Boldwood in 'Far from the Madding Crowd" or the mayor of 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'. The fact that this book was written some eighty or ninety years ago by a woman, that its central character is a woman, and that the Webb chose to write using words and phrases of indigenous dialect has probably meant that it has been treated as a quaint piece of naive rural handicraft, rather than the deceptively careful literary construction that it is. If one of Hardy's characters had written a book, this is the book they would have written.

This book takes one back to a day when the timeless values were often the subject of literature, and language held beauties we seldom see today. It is a deeply touching evocation of a long ago world as remote as Middle Earth or Narnia. The meaning of the title is not clear to me, whether it is Prue's deformity or the passionate devotion to materialism of her brother, but I rather lean to the latter, since his life is so utterly poisoned by his addiction. Highly recommended.

I am a senior in high school. I read this book under reccomendation from both my father and sister. Precious Bane truly was a breathtaking story. It's a shame it's out of regular print; I think if more people knew about this book, it would be much more widely read. I reccomended it to all my friends in school, and we together convinced our English teacher to use it as material for the course. Unfortunatly we all might have to pay the hefty $14 price if the school won't pay for it! I was hoping to find some used or paperback editions but alas my search has been to no avail!

This is an amazing book which should be read by all those who enjoy British literature. It is a touching, romantic story. The writing is sensual in that there are sounds, smells, sights, tastes and textures to be experienced in its textual descriptions. The natural setting almost becomes a "character" in and of itself because you could not take the story out of the beautiful, natural, country setting Webb creates.
Look at other reviews to understand the plot. However, it truly doesn't make sense to try to recount it. Be patient when waiting for the "hook", when you won't be able to put the book down, it will come. Also, allow yourself a bit of time to learn to read and hear in your mind the syntax and sound of the words. Mary Webb takes you to a different place and time and you come to understand what it would be like for a young woman with intelligence, family devotion, character and longings who happened to be born with an external defect.
May this book become one of your favorites as it has become one of mine. (If anyone knows how I might obtain a video/DVD of the Masterpiece Theatre version with Janet McTeer and Clive Owen, please let me know.)

I first learned of Precious Bane when I saw the movie adaptation on Masterpiece Theater in 1989. It immediately became my all-time favorite story. After reading the book, which is even more satisfying than the wonderful movie, Mary Webb became my favorite author as well.
Mary Webb was more than the consumate wordsmith, her character development makes one feel that Prue Sarn is a cherished friend. This story works on so many different levels that it is hard to catagorize. Yes, it is a romance, but it also is a fairytale. It contains beautifully detailed imagery of nature that is nearly scientific in its observation - yet is transcendingly lovely, poetical, prose. It is both tragedy and comedy. Webb employs allegory, theology, philosophy...her work is multifaceted, literary artistry.
I give this book my highest recommendation for it is of inestimable value to the lover of literature!

I've just read Precious Bane and it was very moving. It should be better-known, her style is excellent, the characterisations extremely vivid, and the twist in the plot at the end quite unexpected. Prue Sarn is not at all your typical wet 19th c heroine, she is intelligent, sensitive, and assertive (which is why she gets into trouble with the society of her day). The Precious Bane of the title is usually interpreted as being her hare lip, which is certainly a very prominent theme in the book, but it could also be interpreted as the money after her which her brother Gideon constantly strives, which causes so much misfortune. And the hero is really good too, an animal rights campaigner before his time.

Once in awhile, you run across a book that's like coming home, that places you in a persona and setting that is hazily familiar. Mary Webb's Precious Bane does that for me. Set in rural England in the early 19th century, it tells the story of Prudence Sarn, a young woman whose mother encountered a hare while she was pregnant with Prue. The baby was born with a harelip.
For those who knew her, it meant that Prue would never marry--what man, after all, would want to kiss her? For those who did not know her, it was an excuse to make up tales that she "roamed the country at night in the body of a hare" and that she could curse with a look. For Prue, it was reason to hide from the man she loved, the weaver Kester Woodseaves.
Prue worked like a slave for her brother Gideon's dream of wealth and power in exchange for his promise of money to have her affliction cured when they were rich. But Prue took moments to appreciate the lilies on the lake's edge, the molting of the dragonflies, and the heady scent of apples in the attic where she retreated to write in her diary.
Mary Webb (1881-1927) lived most of her life in Shropshire County, England, where she and her father wandered the hills and lanes, a pastime she continued after he died. Later, Webb--who was also a poet--enhanced her stories with the naturalism and mysticism she learned from her father and the land.
Shropshire English is heavily influenced by the Welsh language, creating a lively and colorful dialect that Webb has distilled in her novels. It takes some getting used to, but once you catch the rhythm, it's hard to let go. Webb's prose will sing in your mind days after the book is closed.
She also used local traditions such as telling the bees when someone has died, and the employment of a Sin Eater, who, for a fee, consumes the sins of the dead person in a glass of wine and a crust of bread. When Gideon's and Prue's father died, Gideon agreed to eat the sins of his father if his mother, who was upset because her husband "had died in his wrath, with all his sins upon him," turned the farm over to him.
But it was the people she met on her wanderings and trips to the market where she sold flowers and produce from her garden that proved Mary Webb's greatest resource. Her novels are enriched by minor characters like Isaiah in Seven for a Secret, who said little but "Ha!" That one syllable was enough to make him a wealthy farmer because people felt they had been found out and out of guilt gave him their best prices. Sarah, the housekeeper in The House in Dormer Forest, broke the favorite china and vases belonging to whomever she was angry with.
Mary Webb's protagonists make her novels shine. Hazel Woodus in Gone to Earth seems more animal than human; she is as wild as her beloved Foxy. Deborah Arden, in The Golden Arrow, loves deeply and totally with all her soul. Robert Rideout, in Seven for a Secret, composes music and poetry while he herds sheep. Prudence Sarn is Webb's greatest achievement as she brings the reader to care passionately about Prue .
The novelist was able to draw from within herself to create Prue Sarn because she suffered most of her life from the facial disfigurement brought on by Grave's Disease.
Precious Bane is a masterpiece. Mary Webb's other novels do not reach that pinnacle--they are too didactic and sometimes simplistic, but they are well worth reading as they poetically explore love, passion, and social norms.

I inherited a 1920's hardcover copy of this book when my Grandmother died- it had always been one of her favorite books. When I read it, I begin to see why. My Grandmother was a person whose spirituality was unconventional, and this is a theme that strongly runs through this book. Traditional Christianity is there, but so is ecstatic spirituality inspired and manifested by nature. She sees God in nature. There are many many beautiful passages where the heroine is literally transported spiritually by the slight of flowers, or the songs of birds. Traditional beliefs and local magic are explored in detail and with an amazing lack of Judgement ( folklorists take note), and the Wizard, though he is not expected to go to Heaven, is a friend to a poor disabled girl and teaches her many good things. Her struggle for a "normal" life with her disability, a hare-lip, is very touching and inspiring. The author also deals with bigotry, persecution and rejection of those who are different, and the difficult question of what truly manefests Goodness- is Goodness something people truly strive for, or do most people simply go through life follow social pressures? Is the Wizard, who reached out to Prue and helped her with and open heart, a "better" person then the hard hearted comformity driven Churchgoes who would not even allow the Wizard's ( staunchly Christian) wife to enter their homes, condeming her to a lonely life?
There is Magic here, and unearthly beauty seen though the eyes of a sensative young girl, and what must have been a very different exploration of true human nature in those rigid times. A thoughtful, highly recommended book.

The story is this: A young woman, Prudence Sarn, is born with a harelip, which makes her subject to superstition and ridicule from the small-minded country folk who surround her in early 20th-centry Shropshire, England. Because of her deformity, Prue is told again and again that she will never marry; her brother, Gideon, more or less conscripts Prue into serving him on the family farm, telling her that if she follows his plan that she will at least have money and respectability someday. Prue follows along with this plan, envisioning the day that she will have enough money to make herself "beautiful as a fairy" - a dream that takes on concentrated exigency in Prue's mind when she falls in love with the handsome weaver Kester Woodseaves. Prue thinks that no man could ever love her as she is, "cursed and hare-shotten," and when one tragedy after another strikes the Sarns, she wonders if true happiness will ever touch her life.

It's rare that a book moves me to tears, but in the course of reading this novel I grew so attached to Prue that I felt as if she were speaking to me as a sister. The delicate, simple distinctions of this story ring true in every word; it was as though the secrets, disappointments, and beauties of the English country were visible in the spaces between words on the page. At first the language, written in vernacular of the time, was hard to read, but once I grew accustomed to it I was transported to a remote and seemingly miraculous place where Prue discovered and treasured profound beauty in unlikely places. The same can be said of discovering Prue herself, whose compassion, wit, love, and faithfulness shine in everything she does. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone - it is undoubtedly a story about love, but not in the conventional rom-com or Harlequin-paperback way that's so prevalent nowadays. This is a story about strength of spirit, about unconditional goodness in the face of cruelty, mockery, and calamity. If that's not a real "love story," I don't know what is.