{"id":34228,"date":"2017-04-24T06:30:34","date_gmt":"2017-04-23T18:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=34228"},"modified":"2017-04-23T20:09:20","modified_gmt":"2017-04-23T08:09:20","slug":"classic-reads-precious-bane-by-mary-webb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2017\/04\/24\/classic-reads-precious-bane-by-mary-webb\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Reads: &#8220;Precious Bane&#8221; by Mary Webb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?attachment_id=34230\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-34230\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-34230 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Precious-Bane_Virago-191x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"191\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Precious-Bane_Virago-191x300.jpg 191w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Precious-Bane_Virago-95x150.jpg 95w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Precious-Bane_Virago.jpg 302w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 191px) 100vw, 191px\" \/><\/a>Recently I&#8217;ve had the opportunity to re-read some classic novels. One of these was Mary Webb&#8217;s <em>Precious Bane<\/em>, which was first published in 1924.<\/p>\n<p>One aspect that struck me on this reading was what an essentially modern book <em>Precious Bane<\/em> is, for the following reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>it&#8217;s told in first person point of view, from the perspective of Prue Sarn, with no intrusions or interpolations from the author as &#8220;omniscient narrator&#8221;, so characteristic of fiction in this era;<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>disability is a theme of the book , in the sense that Prue has a hair lip (&#8220;hair shotten&#8221;) and its effect on her life and character is central to the story;<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>the book is also a psychological study of the effect of ambition and avarice on Prue&#8217;s brother, Gideon Sarn &#8212; the &#8220;precious bane&#8221;* of the title;<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>issues such as pregnancy out of wedlock, and prejudice and cruelty within a small community are also addressed in a way that heralds social attitudes through the mid to late 20th century, rather than reflecting the 19th century mores of Webb&#8217;s upbringing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Needless to say, there is still plenty of Victorian drama, melodrama even, in <em>Precious Bane <\/em>and the writing still is also grounded in the Victorian style<em> &#8212; <\/em>but overall, I believe it is a novel with a modern sensibility that will &#8220;speak&#8221; to contemporary readers. It did to me, at any rate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>* Note: Some commentators suggest that the &#8220;precious bane&#8221; of the title refers to Prue&#8217;s hair lip. Although this may be implicit in the development of her character, my reading of the book was that it explicitly referred to Gideon Sarn&#8217;s love of gold (avarice) that is the &#8220;bane&#8221;: e.g. <em>&#8220;Yet it was an innocent gold, and not that gold which is called the bane.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I&#8217;ve had the opportunity to re-read some classic novels. One of these was Mary Webb&#8217;s Precious Bane, which was first published in 1924. One aspect that struck me on this reading was what an essentially modern book Precious Bane is, for the following reasons: it&#8217;s told in first person point of view, from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34228"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34236,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34228\/revisions\/34236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}