Precious Bane

Title: Precious Bane
Author: Mary Webb
Genre: Classic, Historical Fiction
Format: Paperback
Pages: 328
Reason Read: Book Club
Rating:

My Thoughts

It took me a very long time to get into PRECIOUS BANE. The Shropshire English dialect of the early 1800s made it a little hard for me to understand at first and the story is a bit boring and slow. Without being invested in the characters, which I wasn’t until about page 120, I had a hard time wanting to keep reading. Once I did care, I was able to overlook the slowness.

There are a lot of interesting concepts in this story. The most interesting to me was that of the sin-eater–a poor person usually, because they needed the free food, that eats the sins of someone who recently passed away. The story explained that everyone dies in their sins and that they couldn’t be saved without a sin-eater. I thought it was so interesting because it’s such a contrast to my own religious beliefs.

Webb did a great job of showing the good with the bad, what happens when all you are is greedy and the contrast of what happens when all you are is selfless. She also did a great job of showing that a person is worth more than their outwardly appearance, that their true nature / self is on the inside and that anyone, even a woman with a “hare-shotten lip,” can be loved.