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A review by rachelgertrude
Precious Bane by Mary Webb
5.0
CS Lewis read this book and recommended it to several of his friends; you know if CS Lewis liked it, it has to be good.
I searched it out in the dark stacks of the Chester Fritz Library – there was one copy only, almost never checked out.
I wonder how the people that decide books are classics let this one slip through their fingers.
The novel centers on appearances vs. realities. Prue Sarn is a woman of exquisite inner beauty – the only problem is that she was born with a harelip, which everyone understands as a curse. Her brother, Gideon Sarn, is a man who is able to draw the world to himself – good-looking, intriguing, and hard-working.
Gideon’s life is full of promise, and his objective is clear: 1. Make money by working the land. 2. Buy a big house in town. 3. Marry the love of his life, Jancis Beguildy.
Prue’s life has no promise. It is clear to everyone in the town that she will never marry – who could get past her ugly deformity? She meets the love of her life, and is convinced that she must hide from him every time he comes near, so that he will never be offended by her face.
Nature plays the strongest role in the plot. Gideon, certain that his only happiness can be found in wealth, thwarts nature– first by converting the beautiful woodlands into farmland (more productive that way), next by putting off his marriage to Jancis for the sake of earning more money, and finally in altering his own mother’s life for the sake of financial gain. Prue, in one sense thwarted by nature, still has reverence for it and discovers wisdom and truth in the woodlands around her.
Precious Bane recalls the Biblical conflict of the Tower of Babel to me – do we work against nature to achieve our own apparent goods, or do we develop patience in our natural weaknesses and the things we lack, trusting that somewhere in them is a strength with power to work our good?
I searched it out in the dark stacks of the Chester Fritz Library – there was one copy only, almost never checked out.
I wonder how the people that decide books are classics let this one slip through their fingers.
The novel centers on appearances vs. realities. Prue Sarn is a woman of exquisite inner beauty – the only problem is that she was born with a harelip, which everyone understands as a curse. Her brother, Gideon Sarn, is a man who is able to draw the world to himself – good-looking, intriguing, and hard-working.
Gideon’s life is full of promise, and his objective is clear: 1. Make money by working the land. 2. Buy a big house in town. 3. Marry the love of his life, Jancis Beguildy.
Prue’s life has no promise. It is clear to everyone in the town that she will never marry – who could get past her ugly deformity? She meets the love of her life, and is convinced that she must hide from him every time he comes near, so that he will never be offended by her face.
Nature plays the strongest role in the plot. Gideon, certain that his only happiness can be found in wealth, thwarts nature– first by converting the beautiful woodlands into farmland (more productive that way), next by putting off his marriage to Jancis for the sake of earning more money, and finally in altering his own mother’s life for the sake of financial gain. Prue, in one sense thwarted by nature, still has reverence for it and discovers wisdom and truth in the woodlands around her.
Precious Bane recalls the Biblical conflict of the Tower of Babel to me – do we work against nature to achieve our own apparent goods, or do we develop patience in our natural weaknesses and the things we lack, trusting that somewhere in them is a strength with power to work our good?