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Mary Webb (1881-1927) was an English romantic novelist of the early 20th century, whose novels were set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people which she knew and loved well. Although she was acclaimed by John Buchan and by Rebecca West, who hailed her as a genius, and won the Prix Femina of La Vie Heureuse for Precious Bane (1924), she won little respect from the general public. It was only after her death that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Stanley Baldwin, earned her posthumous success through his approbation, referring to her as a neglected genius at a Literary Fund dinner in 1928. Her writing is notable for its descriptions of nature, and of the human heart. She had a deep sympathy for all her characters and was able to see good and truth in all of them. Among her most famous works are: The Golden Arrow (1916), Gone to Earth (1917), and Seven for a Secret (1922).… (more)
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Featuring the aptly named Darke family of Dormer House: stern father Solomon; mother Rachel, who spends her evenings tearing rags to shreds; their four adult
' "Let us pray", said Solomon, and they all went down, with more or less grace, on to their knees.
When the others knelt, grandmother remained seated, like a stone idol which is immune, through its very stoniness, from human movement. It was understood that grandmother could not kneel. Only grandmother and her Creator knew that not her knees but her pride of years deterred her from this religious exercise...This remaining upright amidst a grovelling family gave her a satiric glee.'
Amid the at times quite comic family, and the more serious romantic plots involving the young people, Webb immerses us in lengthy paeans to the countryside and religion, some of which left me quite baffled:
'Enoch was never quite at his ease at Dormer. He liked to be out on the huge purple hills under the towering sky, where the curlews cried out strange news to him in passing, and the little brown doves murmured of a hidden country, a secret law, more limited than those of man, yet more miraculous. For there, to dream a nest is to build it. To desire the sea, or an orange tree in Africa is to obtain it. Genius and love are the nearest approach we have made to this wholly mysterious life...'
There's a LOT of this.
Over-the-top gothic melodrama; not recommended.
Another interesting feature is the emphasis on women's roles. How their power is formed or lost is explored with a wide variety of results. Some women bring a terrible life upon themselves. Others bear life's ignominies and cares with good spirits , while the heroine follows her intuitive desires to achieve the best of prospects in life.
Webb has a sense of humour and an occasional touch of acid in her descriptions of motives. Her famous love of nature is evident in the lyrical depiction of the forests around Dormer House.
Full of drama, sometimes melodrama, sometimes near comedy, the novel is not one of Webb's powerful tragic stories of love and loss. Instead, it is a very interesting glimpse of family life and social pressures in late nineteenth century rural England.